John Duncan

Faith, Foreign Policy and Disarmament (Guest Blog)

This article is written by Francis Campbell, UK Ambassador to the Holy See.

Yesterday in the Foreign Office saw the first consultation meeting with faith groups interested in disarmament.  Sixteen delegates attended representing all the major faith groups.  We split the discussion into two parts: the first on the Arms Trade Treaty and the second on the Non Proliferation Treaty.  We wrapped up the meeting with a contribution from FCO Minister Ivan Lewis.

This was the first time we had undertaken such a consultation with faith groups on the subject of disarmament. Why a consultation with faith groups?  We want to replicate the success of working with faith groups on the Cluster Munitions Treaty which was signed last year. 

At the preparatory conferences, in particular at Wellington, the Holy See played a very active role in getting a practical workable agreement and in bridging divides to allow us to get a binding Treaty banning cluster munitions.  We see a similar role for faith groups in working towards an Arms Trade Treaty.  In engaging faith groups in the discussion we see three aspects.  There is the moral dimension that faith groups bring to the work of the Arms Trade Treaty. 

As history shows, faith groups are often at the forefront of righting wrongs and in providing the impetus for change.  Then there are the global grassroots networks which allow faith groups to communicate easily across cultures, languages and nations.  In Catholic terms alone, the Holy See speaks directly to 17.5% of the world’s population.  Finally, as faith groups engage each other in inter-religious dialogue there is scope to concentrate on ethical dialogue where there is a strong shared moral foundation.  Perhaps one of those ethical issues could be the international efforts to bring transparency to the sale and transfer of conventional weapons and to stamp out the illicit sales of such weapons through a binding international Arms Trade Treaty.

 
Yesterday we were simply testing the water to see if there was interest among faith groups in having such a conversation with the FCO on the Arms Trade Treaty and the Non Proliferation Treaty.  There was – and we agreed to continue with the group as we move forward on the ambitious timetable to achieve an Arms Trade Treaty.  But there was also interest from the group in having a wider discussion with the FCO on other foreign policy considerations.  The Minister agreed to look into that request and revert.

But yesterday was also important for reasons beyond what we had on our agenda. It was also symbolic of a new approach in foreign policy.  I have spoken on faith and foreign policy before and why religion was often ignored in foreign policy considerations for much of the post Second World War period. A 2007 report from the Washington based Centre for Strategic and International Studies catalogued the reasons why religion was often ignored in foreign policy and diplomacy and why it deserved to be taken seriously.  A former US Secretary of State – Madeline Albright – made a similar case in her book ‘The Mighty and the Almighty’. 

Much of the marginalisation of religion from foreign policy considerations was based on an assumption that the world was secularising and religion was of decreasing interest across the world (such an assumption was not confined to diplomacy alone). But there was a significant mistake in such a calculation because the secularisation model really only explained the pattern in Europe and some other parts of the Western world.  It did not capture the United States or the rest of the world where societies were as religious as ever or in some cases more so.  There was no proven universally applicable law of modernisation leading to secularisation. This point is more fully expanded in a speech I gave on ‘God in a Secular World’, but the basic point is that religion is an influence in world affairs and as such needs to be taken seriously.

Today, much has changed vis a vis faith and foreign policy.  We can point to strong working relations with faith groups on climate change, international development, conflict resolution and prevention, inter-religious dialogue, migration, human rights, etc.  If we can replicate the success of working with faith groups on the Jubilee Debt Campaign, Make Poverty History and the Cluster Munitions Treaty, by achieving an Arms Trade Treaty – then we can show again that faith matters in foreign policy and that it is a real asset when trying to solve many of the world’s problems.  Yesterday was a good start.

Posted at 15:08 22 October 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]

2009 BRINK OR CUSP

The end of the year was a time to reflect and look forward. To ask whether those of us striving to achieve a “Better World for a Better Britain” in arms control and disarmament  will continue to make progress in 2009, or will the situation  in the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, the DRC and the Global Financial crisis combine to frustrate our efforts?

Sometimes conflict can create a renewed momentum in arms control. The war in the Lebanon in 2006 led almost directly to the new treaty banning Cluster Munitions signed last month in Oslo.

But bloggers are already speculating whether Israel has used Cluster munitions in Gaza. Such rumours will continue to circulate until the world’s media are allowed inside the conflict zone. This illustrates one of the major challenges for those of us trying to establish the new international laws for the 21^st century – you can’t simply legislate for security, put another way “Saying It, don’t necessarily make It so”.

Increasingly treaties need to reflect that all those who sign up have something to gain. The core task of a diplomatic negotiator is to try to understand why people will agree with what we want to do and what will prevent them doing so; then one tries to reinforce the support and address the concerns.

The “something to gain” can be many and varied. The Kimberly Process or “Blood Diamonds” recognised that we can also reduce conflicts and the irresponsible weapons proliferation that fuels them by focussing on the underlying economics. But linking economic self interest to arms control is still not widely accepted. The US State Department website on the Arms Trade Treaty, does not explain that major companies in the arms industry increasingly support an ATT that establishes high international standards. Understanding the economic dimension is key to understanding how and why an ATT will work.

For the next few weeks, while we are certainly not sitting on our hands, the arms control community are in a holding pattern as we wait for the new Administration to take office across the Atlantic. We really don’t know how the new Administration views the arms control issues that confront us – does “Yes we can” extend to tackling both the scourge of conventional weapons proliferation and getting to grips with the problems of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Regime? 

 For over a year now there has been an increasing groundswell of support from senior opinion formers in America on the issue of nuclear weapons (See the 2020 Vision link) But as many others have pointed out and the public witness on their TV screens, the weapons of mass destruction that kill thousands of people across the world every day are conventional weapons. We will need to take action on both issues in 2009.

Posted at 10:58 08 January 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]

CLUSTER MUNITIONS: Close But No Cigar

Something of a roller coaster of a week with the discussions in Geneva veering wildly between total collapse in the evening only to bounce back with renewed hope the next morning. In one way this is encouraging as it means that the majority of countries simply refuse to be put off in trying to find a solution, but it is a rather exhausting process and progress is slow. 

The countries who cannot yet join the rest of us in banning cluster munitions usually have large stocks of dumb cluster munitions and believe that it would be too expensive and too risky for their own national defence to give up these weapons. One can understand this. But some of these countries often seem  to fail to understand is that the international community is simply not prepared to accept that people should be allowed to continue to sell dumb cluster munitions, or send them to new areas of conflict. Nor is the international community willing to accept a repeat of what happened in the Lebanon in 2006.

Finding the compromise is still proving elusive.  Despite some very hard work behind the scenes over recent weeks by the US, the French and ourselves, the discussions in the  GGE are essentially stalled. However, we still have until the end of the main CCW meeting next week to find a solution, or agree to continue work next year.  

Posted at 10:37 07 November 2008 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

Introducing my team

Welcome, I am John Duncan the UK's ambassador for Arms Control and Disarmament. Welcome to my blog I would like to begin by introducing you to some of my team who will coming from Geneva to spend the next four weeks with me in New York negotiating the resolutions of the UN General Assembly on Arms Control and Disarmament .....

Posted at 14:42 03 October 2008 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]