John Duncan

NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY NEW YORK DAY 3

A day of surprises. Has the “Decade of Deadlock” finally ended? After 15 years when the final Preparatory Committee, currently meeting in New York, has completely failed to agree the Agenda for the major Review Conference, this morning we actually did it.

Quite remarkable. Of course to anyone outside the community of Disarmament  diplomats this may seem quite a bizarre thing to get exited about. But the agenda sets out in some detail what the 5 yearly Review Conference next year is going to focus on. The fact that the last Review Conference in 2005 failed is largely due to the inability of  nations to agree what they wanted to discuss.

This year both the Nuclear Weapon States (UK, US, Russia, France and China) and the Non Nuclear Weapons states (everyone else in the NPT Regime) simply said enough is enough and refused to allow those who wanted to use procedural tricks to prevent discussion from blocking the way forward. US leadership is part of this, but one nation cannot carry the day alone. It takes those on the centre ground to rally around to defeat those on the extreme wings.

Now of course the serious work begins.

Posted at 03:57 07 May 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[3]

NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY, NEW YORK DAY 3

A day of surprises. Has the “Decade of Deadlock” finally ended? After 15 years when the final Preparatory Committee, currently meeting in New York, has completely failed to agree the Agenda for the major Review Conference, this morning we actually did it.

Quite remarkable. Of course to anyone outside the community of Disarmament  diplomats this may seem quite a bizarre thing to get exited about. But the agenda sets out in some detail what the 5 yearly Review Conference next year is going to focus on. The fact that the last Review Conference in 2005 failed is largely due to the inability of  nations to agree what they wanted to discuss.

This year both the Nuclear Weapon States (UK, US, Russia, France and China) and the Non Nuclear Weapons states (everyone else in the NPT Regime) simply said enough is enough and refused to allow those who wanted to use procedural tricks to prevent discussion from blocking the way forward. US leadership is part of this, but one nation cannot carry the day alone. It takes those on the centre ground to rally around to defeat those on the extreme wings.

Now of course the serious work begins.

Posted at 03:56 07 May 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

LIFTING THE NUCLEAR SHADOW: WHAT THE PUBLIC THINKS

As part of our ongoing dialogue on how to achieve a World Free of Nuclear Weapons, David Miliband will launch next week a new public consultation paper. He has also given an interview on BBC’s World Tonight programme  (Thursday 29th edition) which covers many of the issues we deal with in Geneva.

Making progress in Nuclear Non proliferation and Disarmament is vital to the security of our world both now and for future generations. Climate change has increased the demand for cleaner energy, but we cannot allow this to increase the risk of nuclear wars.

The Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in New York next year will be the moment when the world community comes together to look at how far we have got towards stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, and setting the world on the path towards nuclear abolition.  Diplomats will meet in New York in May this year to set out the agenda for the Review Conference.

Our consultation paper aims to encourage wider public to speak up. It outlines the large number of practical measures the UK is taking, (in addition to reducing our own nuclear arsenal down 75% since the end of the Cold war) such as:

- a major conference this March, called by Gordon Brown, to develop further proposals for minimising the proliferation risks which could arise with the global expansion of civil nuclear power;

-  building greater confidence in nuclear disarmament through the pioneering work by our Atomic Weapons Establishment on the verification of nuclear disarmament, including their work with Norway and the verification NGO, VERTIC and  a conference of the recognised nuclear weapons states to discuss the way forward on verification.

Those of us at the negotiating front line need your voice to be heard. The BBC is inviting listeners’ comments.
There will be a live web stream of the launch of the new paper on the FCO website and the video will be available to download. So please do engage in the debate.
 

Posted at 19:29 30 January 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[12]