Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
10/24/2014
Efforts to move action on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty into international humanitarian law circles could divert attention from implementing the 2010 NPT Action Plan, and the United States would not endorse any new proposal for a nuclear disarmament outside its own plans, Amb. Robert Wood, alternate representative of the Delegation of the United States of America to the United Nations, said this week. “We understand the sincere motivations behind efforts to address the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons; indeed, we share the interest of all states in extending the nearly 70-year record of non-use of nuclear weapons forever,” Wood said Oct.
20 at the U.N. General Assembly First Committee’s Thematic Discussion on Nuclear Weapons in New York. “But any call to move nuclear disarmament into international humanitarian law circles can only distract from the practical agenda set forth in the 2010 NPT Action Plan. We will not support proposals to set up new UN mechanisms to address nuclear disarmament. Such mechanisms would fare no better because the same political challenges present in existing disarmament bodies would be replicated in any new multilateral body.”
U.S. Plans Draw Strong Rebuke From Arms Control Group
Writing in an Oct. 21 email to NS&D Monitor, Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball blasted Wood’s comments, and questioned whether he and the State Department grasped the objective of the humanitarian impacts initiative and whether they misunderstood the purpose of the conference. “Robert Wood and the U.S. State Department appear to misunderstand the purpose of the Humanitarian Impacts Conferences,” Kimball wrote. “The Obama Administration is wrong to disparage the efforts of other NPT members who are seeking to highlight the devastating impact of nuclear weapons use and the need to accelerate the slow pace of action on the 22-point action plan laid out in the 2010 NPT Review Conference Final Document.”
During conferences in Oslo in March 2013 and in Nayarit, Mexico, in February 2014, governments, international organizations and ordinary citizens gathered to address the potential humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons. “Evidence was presented on the immediate impact of a nuclear weapon detonation and governments and relief agencies alike concluded that no adequate humanitarian response would be possible,” stated a description of the event on the website of Reaching Critical Will, an IGO and branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom that focuses on worldwide disarmament. A third Humanitarian Impacts Conference is scheduled for December in Vienna.
The meetings serve only to inform participants about the human impacts of nuclear weapons, not to generate a new process of disarmament, despite what some governments and NGOs might think, Kimball wrote. “The agenda and purpose of the 3rd Humanitarian Impacts Conference in Vienna in December is, clearly, to examine the consequences of nuclear weapons use, nuclear testing, and nuclear weapons production,” he wrote. “The conference is clearly not the start of a diplomatic process for a ban on nuclear weapons or a nuclear weapons convention or some other UN disarmament forum, even if some states and nongovernmental organizations think it should be. There is no clear consensus among the participants about the direction of any such process. Rather, these gatherings are designed to spur faster action on the steps necessary to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons. It is not a distraction but an important way to highlight the urgent need for action.” A U.S. failure to attend the Vienna conference could undermine nuclear disarmament and weaken the country’s credibility on NPT issues, which compose a hallmark of President Obama’s tenure, Kimball said.
Wood Defends ‘Pragmatic, Sustained’ U.S. Approach to Disarmament
Wood touted what he called the U.S.’ “pragmatic, sustained” approach to disarmament, which he said has been exemplified by a stockpile reduction of 85 percent since warhead levels peaked in 1967, the decommissioned production portion of the nuclear weapons complex and the nation’s commitment to New START. “Each step builds on those that precede it and provides a foundation for those to come,” Wood said. “The President has made clear our readiness to negotiate further reductions with Russia of all nuclear weapons, including strategic and non-strategic, deployed and non-deployed nuclear weapons, when conditions are conducive to progress.”
Wood added that drafting a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) “is overdue,” and is an integral step in capping nuclear arsenals. Negotiations on the treaty have been bogged down in the Conference on Disarmament for years. “This year we engaged in the first two rounds of the FMCT Group of Governmental Experts (GGE),” he said. “Those discussions were some of the most substantive FMCT discussions in years. We look forward to the final two sessions next year, and we hope the GGE and its final report will advance the prospects for FMCT negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament.”
Building NPT Confidence Called Essential
The P5 is discussing developing a glossary of nuclear terms to increase shared understanding about nuclear employment strategies, which should bring forth further P5 discussions on nuclear weapons and disarmament, Wood said. In addition to that, Wood said the U.S. is strengthening all three pillars of the NPT, and called for measures to discourage abuse of the treaty’s withdrawal provision. “We will continue to work with others to resolve noncompliance with nonproliferation obligations and UN Security Council resolutions,” he said. “Unresolved noncompliance presents a fundamental challenge to all NPT parties and puts at risk the many security benefits compliant states derive from the NPT. It is also time for NPT Parties to come to grips with the challenge of NPT withdrawal, by agreeing on measures to respond to and discourage illegitimate uses of the Treaty’s withdrawal provision.”
