Disarmament Insight

Warfare: the victims’ perspective

2009-07-01T18:53:00.008+01:00

Solferino, 24 June, 1859 : A tiny village in undulating countryside, just south of Lake Garda. Close by, a swirling, intense territorial battle involving troops from Piedmont, Sardinia and France confronting Austria’s army. Ten hours of volleys of cannon fire, cavalry charges and hand-to-hand fighting among almost 250,000 soldiers. The aftermath – more than one-tenth of them dead or wounded.

This bloody event one hundred and fifty years ago has had many consequences. In territorial terms, the Franco-Sardinian victory paved the way for Italian unity and for defining Italy’s northern frontiers from east to west.

In humanitarian terms, the conflict has similarly had a profound and enduring impact. A witness to the distress of the wounded arriving in great numbers in the neighboring village of Castiglione delle Stiviere, was Henry Dunant. Appalled by the lack of medical facilities and relief for the wounded, this Swiss entrepreneur (who was in the area on business) rallied support for them irrespective of their military allegiances. Soon, he was to be instrumental in founding the Red Cross.

Dunant, in effect, drew attention away from a popular perspective of the ‘glory’ of war to a down-to earth viewpoint of the victim. In the words of ICRC historian François Bugnion: ‘But what was important was not his [Dunant’s] personal role in Castiglione, but rather the two ideas he drew from this experience: the creation of voluntary relief societies – the birth of the Red Cross – and a treaty protecting medical staff on the battlefield – the start of the Geneva Conventions’. These treaties also embody Dunant’s spirit of neutrality and impartiality in tending to victims of war.

Red Cross/Red Crescent volunteers from all round the globe gathered in Solferino last week to mark the 150th anniversary of the battle. An estimated thirteen thousand of them, red candles in their hands, symbolically traced steps that the victims had followed in desperate search for medical attention – medical attention that had been both inadequate and unprotected on the battleground on that horrific day in June 1859.

It may be an exaggeration to say that the surge of 13,000 volunteers thronging through the archways of Solferino’s Piazza Castello last Saturday night evoked scenes in that same square a century and a half ago. But it was impossible not to be moved by the commemoration. The terrors and consequences of face-to-face, soldier-to-soldier warfare exhibited in Solferino’s small museum and ossuary – the bayonets, the swords, the chilling array of skulls and bones – speak silently and grimly to us still about mortal combat as they have done in other parts of the world.

And the other victims of conflict: the civilians? The Battle of Solferino, by some accounts, produced a single civilian death. Modern conflicts, however, fought so often in densely populated urban rather than rural areas, take a high toll on civilians. In a survey of people affected by current conflicts published by the ICRC to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Solferino, 44% of the respondents said they had personally experienced armed conflict. Almost 30% of those directly affected by fighting said a close family member had been killed during fighting. 56% of the people directly affected by conflicts had been displaced, over half had lost contact with a family member and one in five had lost their livelihood. These figures are dramatically higher in some countries!

There are many victims of warfare, whether they are civilians or military or the dependents of those killed, maimed or traumatized in battle. Solferino – through Dunant – has been salutary in engendering an approach that views armed conflict through the prism of humanity.

But the humanitarian approach is not only about the promotion of the principles of the Red Cross or international humanitarian law. It is also about the promotion of international norms in support of humanitarian objectives more broadly. This includes prohibitions on the use and production of weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or, like landmines and cluster munitions, affect civilians and combatants without distinction, and that have wrought so much misery and deprivation on civilians. It means seeing disarmament as humanitarian action and bringing human security perspectives to bear in moving the disarmament agenda forward.

The enthusiasm for the cause of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement that marked the celebrations in Solferino, and its undertone of empathy with the victims of warfare, shows that the lessons of the past are not always forgotten. This is truly an example of Kipling’s ‘Lest we forget’ , in a practical, not a glorifying sense.

This is a guest post by Tim Caughley. Tim is a Resident Senior Fellow at UNIDIR.

Photo Credit: ‘Perspectives at Piazza Castello, Solferino, 150 years apart’ by Jill Caughley.

References:
- Henry Dunant, ‘A Memory of Solferino’, ICRC, 1986.
- ICRC, ‘Our World: Views from the Field’, Summary Report, Opinion Survey, 2009.

Protecting civilians from explosive violence: time for states to raise their voices

2009-06-22T11:36:00.004+01:00

Last week the United Nations Secretary-General submitted his annual report to the Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict. The language of the report represents something of a break-though of a sort that's pleasing to see from the editorial perspective of this blog. Hopefully now states will also begin to make their voices heard in supporting the Protection of Civilians report's content both in the Security Council chamber and in elsewhere.

The Secretary-General's report observed that the "choice of weapons is critical in minimizing and reducing the impacts of hostilities on civilians". While this might sound obvious, it's worth noting that heavy weapons such as artillery and rockets were nevertheless used in populated areas in conflicts in recent months such as Gaza and in Sri Lanka, something the report also commented on in its paragraph 36:

"As demonstrated by this year’s hostilities in Sri Lanka and Israel’s campaign in Gaza, the use in densely populated environments of explosive weapons that have so-called “area effect” inevitably has an indiscriminate and severe humanitarian impact. First, in terms of the risk to civilians caught in the blast radius or killed or injured by damaged and collapsed buildings. Secondly, in terms of damage to infrastructure vital to the wellbeing of the civilian population, such as water and sanitation systems."

These are certainly issues that individually some Security Council members are taking very seriously. Only today, for instance, the New York Times reported that the new American military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, would sharply restrict the use of airstrikes there in an effort to reduce the civilian deaths he had concluded were undermining the American-led mission. In today's warfare, in which the lines between military objectives and civilian concentrations are usually blurred, those on the cutting edge of military thought are increasingly aware that the use of explosive violence in such areas can be counter-productive, as well as morally and legally unacceptable.

The Secretary-General further noted in last week's report that the Security Council "has a critical role in promoting systematic compliance with the law" including condemning violations "without exceptions", threatening and if necessary applying targeted measures against the leadership of parties violating their obligations to "respect" civilians and keeping track of violations and mandating commissions of inquiry "where concerns exist regarding serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law".

The British NGO Landmine Action issued a media release responding to the Secretary General's report, which

"welcomes the clear expression of concern from the UN Secretary-General regarding the humanitarian problems caused by explosive weapons. Landmine Action urges States, international organisations and civil society to further document the civilian harm caused by explosive weapons, work to prevent the use of explosive weapons in populated areas and support all efforts to minimise the post-conflict harm that explosive weapons cause."

One of the key points underlined by multilateral processes representing 'disarmament as humanitarian action' such as the Ottawa process to prohibit anti-personnel mines and the Oslo process resulting in the Convention on Cluster Munitions is that the collection and analysis of empirical evidence is crucial in changing policy makers' minds and re-framing issues in ways that make them more tractable. Nevertheless, weapons-specific processes like these require a huge amount of effort that is difficult to sustain throughout treaty implementation, let alone repeat for other weapons.

And, a risk of weapon-specific multilateral processes in general is that governments opposed to stigmatising the use of explosive violence in populated areas will succeed in breaking up and subdividing issues around use of explosive weapons (as Richard Moyes at Landmine Action has pointed out) that muddy the waters, or denude relevant multilateral processes of real value.

There is a need for the international community to begin looking beyond just the weapon specific to highlight explosive weapons as a broad category of concern at time of use and post-conflict. This is something a few of us have already begun trying to do (Landmine Action's media release mentioned, for instance, Disarmament Insight's work at facilitating such discussion).

In light of the Protection of Civilians report, the Security Council could be one place for states and international organisations to take the new discourse forward. But it also needs to be a broader debate. The international community should do more to ensure civilians are protected, and that will necessarily entail some fresh thinking.

John Borrie

Image downloaded from Wikipedia: "A Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) weapon is prepared for testing at the Eglin Air Force Armament Center on March 11, 2003. The MOAB is a precision-guided munition weighing 21,500 pounds and will be dropped from a C-130 Hercules aircraft for the test. It will be the largest non-nuclear conventional weapon in existence."

The CD lives again, but let history not repeat itself !

2009-06-18T08:47:00.013+01:00

29 May 2009 was a red-letter day in the Conference on Disarmament. The Conference has secured a new lease of life. Its future must be informed by its past.

Just over 30 years ago, the UN General Assembly held a special session devoted to disarmament. It saw the need for a “single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum of limited size taking decisions on the basis of consensus”, i.e., without voting. This Geneva-based body became the Conference on Disarmament (CD) comprised now of 65 states.

Important treaties emerged from the CD, culminating in the Comprehensive Test Ban agreement in 1996. Since then, the CD has failed to agree – with one exception – even on a mandate to negotiate a treaty, let alone a treaty itself. Meanwhile several disarmament treaties have emerged from processes other than the CD. Conventions banning anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions were agreed in negotiations that were purposely conducted by like-minded states outside of another consensus-observing process, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Until May of this year, the CD’s last decision to negotiate on substance (on a treaty prohibiting the production of fissile material, a key ingredient of nuclear weapons) occurred late in 1998. That decision was short-lived, however. In 1999 the Conference failed to agree to renew that mandate. A decade-long deadlock followed.

In the face of growing concerns about its future, concerted efforts were made to raise the political profile of the Conference. Since the beginning of last year, senior political figures from almost half the CD’s membership have come to Geneva to urge the Conference to resolve entrenched differences over its priorities and get back to work. The UN Secretary-General personally attended twice in that period to reinforce those exhortations. So too has the Russian Foreign Minister whose latest CD address, extraordinarily enough, took place on a Saturday early this March. Something was afoot.

And so it has proved. On 29 May, on his last day as president, Ambassador Idriss Jazaïry of Algeria, gavelled through a decision that ended an empty decade in the Conference. The loud and lingering applause that greeted the decision reflected a range of emotions. Sheer relief that the long drought had been broken. Relief, too, that this institution had seemingly been spared, as the president said, irrelevancy. Delight with the manner in which Amb Jazaïry had so skilfully engineered the breakthrough.

There was more sobering recognition, also, that the taking of this decision (CD/1863) was just the beginning of things. It will require more than a new spirit of multilateralism to make this delicate compromise work. Delegations will have to get used to spending virtually the entire week in the Council Chamber (the CD’s venerable meeting room) rather than the occasional day. They will need to deepen considerably their involvement in the complexities of the issues, calling on extra support where they can from capitals. Many of them will be anxious about tackling a work programme that embodies not just one major issue but four – a fissile material production ban, security assurances, nuclear disarmament and preventing an arms race in outer space.

Throughout these past barren years, CD members have frequently voiced, like a mantra, the Conference’s role as the world’s single disarmament negotiating body. It would seem to follow that the eyes of the international community, if not CD members themselves, will be on the topic of a fissile material production ban, the sole issue amongst the four that enjoys a negotiating mandate.

In any event, the decision of 29 May has raised widespread expectations that the Conference will, in due course, embellish its fine history with a new and vital treaty or treaties of comparable significance to its past products, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) , and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It is imperative that the efforts of the Conference to set up and sustain the necessary Working Groups that will implement this decision enjoy universal political and public support from the outset.

Certainly, the decision has attracted international acclaim at the levels both of political leaders and civil society. And in terms of the new political profile of the Conference, it cannot have escaped the notice of all who continued to believe in the CD that amongst those who welcomed the event of 29 May was the US President himself in a press statement that same day heralding what, surely, will be a new beginning for the Conference.

The CD’s decision is entitled “Draft Decision for the establishment of a Programme of Work for the 2009 session”. International disappointment if the decision is literally confined to the CD’s 2009 session will be as palpable as the relief that surrounded the extraordinary breakthrough of 29 May. Will the new political and public profile that the Conference now enjoys insure it against the fate of the short-lived predecessor to CD/1683 almost eleven years ago? Let history not repeat itself.

This is a guest blog by Tim Caughley. Tim is Resident Senior Fellow at UNIDIR.

Photo credit: courtesy of Mary Wareham.

The tip of the iceberg

2009-06-10T11:08:00.003+01:00

As regular readers of the blog may have gathered, I've been working this year on a history of international efforts to address the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions.

This history, to be published before the end of the year, focuses in particular on the Oslo process, which culminated in a Convention on Cluster Munitions in negotiations in Dublin in May 2008. But it also casts an eye much further back to the origins of international cluster munition work, which date from the Swiss Diplomatic Conferences in the 1970s and proposals there by Sweden and others to prohibit "cluster warheads".

Chronologically speaking, the Oslo process, which ran for approximately 15 months from February 2007 until the end of May 2008, was just the tip of the iceberg. There was a lot more under the surface. Concerns had been raised about the hazards cluster munitions pose to civilians both at time of use and post-conflict for many, many years by governments and NGOs. My impression is that this isn't necessarily widely understood when multilateral practitioners think about lessons to be learned (or not) from recent international efforts on cluster munitions. Nor is the question it poses but which is often not raised: why did the Oslo process get traction when previous efforts failed?

The easy thing to do would be to point to the 2006 summer war in Southern Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah and the massive use of cluster munitions there as the catalyst. Others disagree: Virgil Wiebe, for instance, whose posts have graced this blog in the past, feels strongly that the Lebanon conflict was "necessary but not sufficient". Certainly, determination among Norwegian policy makers to get an international process going on a treaty to ban cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians pre-dated Lebanon. And NGOs in the Cluster Munition Coalition had been preparing for a break with the UN Convention on Conventional Weapons' talks in late 2006 unless its five-yearly review conference agreed on more meaningful work to restrict the weapon. So clearly the picture is more complex than it first appears.

The deeper I got into research for the history, the more convinced I became that it's difficult to draw useful lessons about the Oslo process for future 'humanitarian disarmament' endeavours without having this historical context. Fortunately, Eric Prokosch's classic book 'The Technology of Killing: A Military and Political History of Anti-Personnel Weapons' (Zed Books, 1995) is an excellent resource. (This book is unfortunately out of print, but second-hand copies can be scrounged via the internet and second-hand bookshops, and should be required reading for all Geneva multilateral diplomats, in my view.) Eric also has been very kind in sharing his insights in the course of my research about how cluster munition-related concerns evolved from their early days.

Such perspectives are important. Many of the other people I've interviewed and conversed with in the course of writing my book have quite reasonably drawn their own conclusions about what we can learn from international efforts on cluster munitions, but most do so based on their impressions of events this decade. However, if one only looks at the last few years the achievement of the cluster munition ban treaty might have looked simply spontaneous, and even easy - even though it was neither.

The impact of the Ottawa process on anti-personnel mines in the 1990s and the resulting 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention also needs to be considered. There are many similarities between the Ottawa and Oslo processes, and the former's example was at the very least a major inspiration to most of those centrally involved in the Oslo process. But again, context is important. A two-day seminar we convened in November last year with various multilateral practitioners on lessons learned from the Ottawa and Oslo processes underlined that there are divergent viewpoints on what kind of 'model' that the most obvious similarities between the two processes offer, or whether they constitute a model at all. (These similarities include free-standing activity outside traditional UN forums propelled by like-mindedness rather than universal participation, government-civil society partnership, and emphasis on humanitarian perspectives.)

The British historian Hew Strachan recently wrote in the journal Survival with regard to the Iraq war that "As history is turned into political science, it makes a casualty of contingency". It's a phrase I have written on my office whiteboard as a continual reminder. The most elegant international relations theories don't convincingly account (in my mind at least) for the role of individuals in the Oslo process. If anything is really clear to me, however, it's that individuals were key to that success.

I'm pondering all of this as I prepare to write my concluding chapter of the draft manuscript after a week off. Earlier this year, I related the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami's comment that writing books is a bit like marathon running. I'm looking for my second wind!

John Borrie

Image credit: photo-montage of an iceberge from Wikipedia.org.

On this day…change can happen !

2009-05-29T17:44:00.013+01:00

29 May is a memorable date indeed. On this day, in 1953, two men for the first time reached the summit of Mount Everest and conquered the top of the World. Similar feelings of exhilaration and relief (and also of exhaustion) prevailed on that same day, in 2008, when 107 States adopted the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in Dublin – a treaty that outlaws virtually all cluster munitions that have been used to date, provides for assistance to victims, the clearance of contaminated land, and the destruction of existing stockpiles.

Today’s launch of the report ‘Banning Cluster Munitions – Government Policy and Practice’ marks the first anniversary of the CCM’s adoption and the beginning of the Global Week of Action on Cluster munitions. The 288 pages long report was written by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in partnership with Landmine Action and produced by Landmine Monitor. Compiled in record time, the report gives an introduction to cluster munitions, the ‘Oslo Process on Cluster Munitions’ and to the CCM itself. It provides up-to-date figures on cluster munitions use, production, stockpiling, transfer and disinvestment in cluster munitions manufacturers. And, most importantly, it documents government statements, parliamentary actions and civil society initiatives on cluster munitions in 150 States, that is, all States that took part in the ‘Oslo Process', and all States that are known to stockpile cluster munitions today.

‘Change can happen!’ exclaimed the representative of HRW at today's launch event. The report provides a historical record of how numerous States’ policies and practices on cluster munitions have changed over the course of the last few years. To date, 96 States have signed the CCM, of which 35 have at some stage in the past used, produced, stockpiled or transferred cluster munitions. And 7 States have already ratified treaty. Several more have indicated that they would deposit their instrument of ratification shortly, so that the treaty can be expected to enter into force in 2010.

Importantly, as the report notes, policy shifts also took place in States not involved in the ‘Oslo Process’. The U.S., for instance, has recently enacted a permanent ban on cluster munitions exports. Such practices also contribute to the stigmatization of cluster munitions as weapons that are unacceptable because of their negative humanitarian impacts.

The report will also serve as a baseline for the future implementation of the CCM by State Parties. Remarkably, Spain has already destroyed all of its cluster munitions stockpiles, even prior to the treaty’s entry into force. This bodes well for the effective translation of treaty obligations into concrete national implementation measures, and several other States are expected to destroy their stockpiles in the course of 2009. In support of the timely implementation of this particular treaty obligation Germany will host a Conference on the destruction of cluster munitions stockpiles in Berlin next month.

Change also happened elsewhere in Geneva today: after a decade-long struggle, the Conference on Disarmament (CD) finally adopted a Programme of Work! Some diplomats already suspect they will soon remember with fondness the days of fruitless discussions and blockage in the CD in view of the daunting negotiations that lie ahead of a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons - the only negotiation mandate included in the Programme of Work.

But the adoption of the CD's Programme of Work is a major breakthrough, and after an exhausting week for the Geneva disarmament community, with the Mine Ban Treaty Standing Committee Meetings and the CD going on at the same time, those diplomats who drew the short straw and had to go to the CD were rewarded this time, taking part in an historic event.

Maya Brehm

Photo Credit: Alfred Gregory, May 28, 1953 [Copyright National Geographic Society]

References: 'Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice' by HRW, Landmine Action et al., May 2009.

Can the nuclear Siamese twins be separated?

2009-05-20T12:41:00.003+01:00

"Atoms for peace and atoms for war are Siamese twins."
- Hannes Alfvén, Swedish physicist and Nobel laureate

From the very outset of the nuclear age, the challenge has been to facilitate the civilian use of nuclear energy while curbing nuclear weapons. But, as Robert Oppenheimer once observed, “the close technical parallelism and interrelation of the peaceful and the military applications of atomic energy” make countering nuclear proliferation an especially difficult task. At the heart of the problem is a large overlap between civilian and military applications of nuclear energy, which both depend essentially on the same key ingredient: fissile material.

Today the world faces the prospect of a nuclear “renaissance” – a potential expansion in the use of nuclear energy worldwide. Energy supply is a critical economic, national security, and environmental issue for our planet and nuclear energy could be a vital part of the energy mix providing energy in quantities needed to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels.

We don’t know now if there really going to be a nuclear “renaissance” and what form it will it take. But the revival of interest in nuclear power could potentially result in the worldwide dissemination of uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing technologies. This presents obvious risks of proliferation as these technologies can produce fissile materials – high enriched uranium and separated plutonium – that are directly usable in nuclear weapons. As a result more states could acquire the capability to produce materials directly usable for, or easily converted to, explosive use.

And they can do it completely legally. Article IV of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) guarantees “the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes”, including technologies of uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seeks to inhibit the use of nuclear energy for military purposes through the system of international safeguards. But the acquisition of uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing facilities would bring states a long way toward nuclear weapons even without directly violating the NPT, namely without “diverting” special nuclear material and, therefore, without any possibility of being restrained by IAEA safeguards designed to verify whether material has or has not been diverted.

One does not have to look far for an example. Japan is currently the only non-nuclear-weapon state that operates all the elements of the complete nuclear fuel cycle. It has a very advanced nuclear infrastructure, including commercial-scale enrichment and reprocessing plants, large quantities of nuclear material (more than 45-metric tons of separated plutonium), modern nuclear scientific, engineering and production capabilities. It’s to Japan’s credit that it has a perfect NPT compliance record and has pursued a consistent policy of non-weaponization of nuclear technology. None of this changes the reality that the country is a “screwdriver turn” away from acquiring nuclear weapons – in months rather than years – if it took the political decision to go nuclear. Indeed, periodically this question resurfaces in Japan and just recently several retired military officials argued that the country should consider possessing nuclear weapons.

Should a nuclear “renaissance” result in more non-nuclear-weapon states acquiring enrichment and reprocessing facilities, the task of safeguarding such facilities could place significant additional work load on the IAEA – already strained both in budget and personnel. Moreover, safeguarding commercial-scale enrichment and reprocessing plants poses significant verification challenges. That’s because large plants process so much nuclear material over the course of their operation that it’s very complicated to make accurate material-accountancy measurements as part of ensuring none of this material has been diverted. Moreover, if a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) is negotiated and agreed, its verification could mean placing under safeguards enrichment and reprocessing facilities in the nuclear-weapon states and non-NPT states, which now are mainly outside the international safeguard system. All of this will require resources and strategic foresight.

All of this said, nobody should contest the right of any nation to utilize nuclear energy in a secure, safe and environmentally sound manner. So key questions are these: how should the international community address the growing security and proliferation risks from the nuclear fuel cycle? How can the international community limit access to sensitive nuclear technologies, all the while protecting states’ rights to develop the peaceful use of nuclear energy?

Continued nuclear development along national lines – the situation we have now – presents a sort of 'Catch-22' because it will create additional proliferation risks undermining the international nonproliferation regime. Even if a large-scale nuclear “renaissance” doesn’t occur, it would not help much. Many countries would not willingly agree to indefinitely preserve the de-facto existing “two-tier” system where some nations – essentially the members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group – are entitled to nuclear fuel cycle technologies, and others are not. Some of them may decide to acquire their own enrichment or reprocessing capabilities, decisions perhaps for political and national strategic reasons rather than primarily driven by economic considerations.

So, how is the nuclear puzzle to be solved? Let’s go back to 1946, when The Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy (generally known as the Acheson-Lilienthal Report) appeared. At the time, the report contained a stark warning: “A system of inspection superimposed on an otherwise uncontrolled exploitation of atomic energy by national governments will not be an adequate safeguard”. The Acheson-Lilienthal report was the first effort to define a policy on the international control of atomic energy. But, in the condition of the time, the task of establishing some form of international authority over the most dangerous aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle proved impossible. Instead, the international community eventually adopted the very approach - occasional inspection by the IAEA - criticized by the report’s authors.

More that sixty years later we face the same problem, only on a much bigger scale. And again it seems that multilateralization can offer a gateway to nuclear fuel cycle services for any nation. A multilateral approach to the nuclear fuel cycle, if appropriately arranged, has substantial potential to ensure that the benefits of nuclear energy are made available to all states, while strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime and reducing incentives to build new nuclear fuel cycle facilities in states that do not now have them.

The rationale for multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle is relatively straightforward. In the case of a multinational enrichment or reprocessing facility, in which ownership, control or operation are shared among a number of states that can watch each other, all of its participants are under a greater degree of peer scrutiny. This would make it more difficult and riskier to cheat. The possibility of seizure of the facility by the host country would always be present, but because of the ensuing confrontation between that country and the other participants and the international community, a considerable political barrier inhibits such action.

The use of multinational facilities instead of an array of national facilities would reduce the number of plants to be placed under safeguards, increasing the feasibility of continuous inspection while possibly reducing costs of these inspections. Multinational facilities could also serve as confidence-building measures, helping to reduce suspicions among participating states about each other’s nuclear weapon intentions. Moreover, large multinational fuel cycle facilities could be cost effective and provide economies of scale smaller national facilities would probably lack. Multilateral fuel cycle mechanisms could respond to the “entitlement” motivation of the customer states in terms of their participation in ownership, management, operation, decision-making, profit-sharing, and so on.

A way to solve the nuclear puzzle is ultimately to “denationalize” sensitive nuclear fuel cycle activities – first of all, uranium enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing, and fabrication of mixed plutonium and uranium oxide fuel – and convert the current “two-tier” system into a truly multilateral fuel cycle arrangement of equal rights and obligations. This multilateral fuel-cycle arrangement could benefit the whole of humankind as:

• The existing “two-tier” system would be virtually eliminated
• “Entitlement” motivations of customer states would be satisfied to a great extent, especially if new multilateral facilities were created taking into account regional considerations
• Open and non-discriminatory access to nuclear fuel services would be guaranteed
• Without nationally-controlled uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing facilities no fissile materials for military purposes would be produced
• It would be difficult to justify a national enrichment or reprocessing program
• No states with nationally-controlled “threshold” capabilities would exist, which is important in a world moving toward nuclear disarmament

The task is tremendous: it is not easy getting international support for dramatic changes in the way we use nuclear energy. Nonetheless, we have no choice if the world is to be protected from the misuse of sensitive nuclear technologies. To begin with, the international community should conduct in-depth discussions and thorough analysis of the technical, legal, political and economic aspects of various proposals and ideas for multilateral nuclear fuel cycle frameworks. The long lead-times for nuclear construction allow us to do that. But states involved cannot allow themselves just to waste this time indulging in endless and selfish politicized arguments.

This is a guest post by Dr. Yury Yudin. Yury is a Senior Researcher at UNIDIR and manages the project ‘Multinational Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle'. A pre-publication version of his new study paper, 'Multilateralization of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Assessing the Existing Proposals' is available in PDF format by clicking here.

Picture credit: photograph of a centrifuge cascade (part of the nuclear enrichment process), courtesy of the IAEA's Image Bank.

Not so apocalyptic

2009-05-14T09:09:00.009+01:00

'Where's Obama when you need him?'

It's hard not to feel a little bit like Cinderella at the moment as I plug away on completing a manuscript of a history of the Oslo process on cluster munitions, which is due to be published later this year by the United Nations. As I stare bleary-eyed and punch drunk at my computer screen, interesting developments for disarmament are happening on a couple of different fronts, one being the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Since he assumed office, there has been great optimism among many pundits (and a certain amount of dismay among some of the conservative Gaffney-types) that U.S. President Barack Obama would assume a much greater leadership role than the previous Bush administration on efforts at the multilateral level toward nuclear disarmament.

Obama seems to have become president in the middle of something of a 'perfect storm' - with a global financial crisis (including the near bankruptcy of huge American carmakers GM and Chrysler), a deteriorating security picture in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the ongoing Iranian and North Korean nuclear sagas and even a swine flu pandemic outbreak. Obama versus the four horseman of the apocalypse it would seem. So one might be forgiven for thinking that the Obama administration might put good intentions about nuclear leadership on the back burner.

And talk is cheap. The truth is, that until the NPT Preparatory Meeting that began at the beginning of last week in New York, no-one outside the U.S. government really knew what kind of tone the new administration would try to set, especially as its ambassadorship to the Conference on Disarmament has been empty, and it has generally kept pretty quiet in Geneva so far this year.

I attended parts of last year's second Preparatory Meeting in Geneva, and to be honest it was a bit of a depressing spectacle. Nevertheless, but for infernal book writing I would love to have gone to New York this May to see if the atmosphere has changed. By various accounts, the U.S. delegation, led by Rose Gottemoeller, seems to have set a very positive tone, reading a message from President Obama to the meeting, and delivering an assessment of the U.S.'s basic positions on the disarmament, non-proliferation and nuclear energy pillars ot the NPT.

From time to time, I've been reading Ray Acheson of Reaching Critical Will's very useful blog following the course of the NPT meeting, which said this about Gottemoeller's statement:

"She reaffirmed that the U.S would seek ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and negotiations on a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty. Most importantly, she reaffirmed the decision to extend the NPT in 1995 and decision made at the 1995 and 2000 Review Conferences, including the 1995 Middle East resolution."

Good one. Nevertheless, theNPT Preparatory Meeting hasn't finished yet, and Acheson noted that it remains unclear whether it will be able to agree draft recommendations by the end of the week:

"The amount of time remaining could possibly allow for a second revised document to be offered Thursday afternoon, giving the PrepCom a last chance to adopt it Friday afternoon. However, if the Committee cannot agree to adopt the revised document on Thursday, it is likely that the Chair will have to forward it to the RevCon as a working paper, despite his aversion to such a solution."

Reaching Critical Will (which is a project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom) also did great work in reporting on the Oslo process, which delivered the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) last May in Dublin, and which we also covered extensively on this blog. There are positive developments on the CCM front too.

The CCM needs 30 ratifications to enter into force. 94 states signed the treaty in Oslo last December, and now the count stands at 96 with seven (Austria, The Holy See, Ireland, The Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mexico, Norway and Sierra Leone) having ratified. This is actually pretty good going, given the challenges involved in national legislation processes. It now looks like two pretty big countries - Germany and Japan - are likely to ratify by the end of May. This is great news, as is Germany's commitment to hosting a conference on cluster munition stockpile destruction issues in Berlin in June. And ratification is in the pipeline for a bunch of others, with results starting to emerge before the summer recess.

It means we could be looking at international entry into force of the CCM sometime in early 2010, all going well. Lao PDR (the most cluster munition affected country - bombed to smithereens in a secret U.S. bombing campaign in the 1960s and early 1970s) has offered to host the CCM's first meeting of states parties, which underlines the commitment of affected countries to the treaty. I believe planning for the meeting has (wisely) already started.

Under the Bush administration, the U.S. shunned the Oslo process, although American legislators like Leahy and Feinstein have been very supportive of it. It'd be great to see some of Obama's magic bridge-building in the context of the the CCM too.

John Borrie

Picture credit: Albrecht Dürer's The Revelation of St John: The Four Riders of the Apocalypse, 1497-98, Woodcut, 39 x 28 cm, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe. Image downloaded from Wikipedia.

Why we need games that aim to build peace

2009-05-06T09:07:00.007+01:00

Since the tragic school shooting in the German town Winnenden in March this year, computer war games have again been a frequent item on the Swiss news; some cantons are now considering whether to ban or regulate so-called ‘killer games’ that reward cruel violence against humans. This got me thinking about what I associated with the ‘good’ aspects of war games – the challenge of thinking strategically. While I grew up with games of chess and risk, I imagine that thousands of keen minds are calculating their next moves in complex interactive computer war games as I write. Thousands more will be addressing domestic ‘governance’ dilemmas in games like Civilization or SimCity. I don’t, however, think that many are engaged in virtually building peace after war. Although the use of the information and communications technology for peace (ICT4peace) has been well documented, and is the subject of a new blog, I have not found examples of games that simulate peacebuilding or post-conflict state-building.

This is a pity. It is a missed opportunity for gamers because the peacebuilding challenge is a great test of strategic skill, combining the challenges of governance with those of war-fighting. If war to Clausewitz was ‘politics by other means’, then peacebuilding is to the parties to a conflict often an experiment in ‘war by other means’. In other words, it is based on a rational calculation by the parties that they will benefit more from the peaceful pursuit of politics. The objective of a virtual peacebuilding game would be to achieve a just and sustainable peace. You would loose if a significant number of the actors revert to violence as a means of pursuing their interests. Your score would depend on the extent that you manage to marry stability with reform. For instance, you will get extra points for also navigating the challenges of ‘right sizing’ the army, reforming the civil service, holding elections, and luring in development assistance as well as private and public investment. Beginners could choose a simple version with a small number of actors and hints in the form of a comprehensive peace agreement, and a plan for its implementation. More difficult levels of the game might increase the number of parties to the conflict and divide external actors, giving each somewhat different preferences. It might also introduce factors such as the presence of high-value natural resources that raise the stakes of being ‘in’ government. The most difficult levels might model peacebuilding in the midst of war – where war-fighting games are combined with peacebuilding ones. Whether this was designed for a single player with the ability to manipulate all actors, or multiple players each assigned to one party, it would present the player with engaging dilemmas and strategic calculations of risk.

Gaming peacebuilding does not only have entertainment or brain-teasing potential however. It also is of academic interest; it has the potential to improve our understanding of the strategic interaction between domestic and international actors in post-conflict situations. This has been done to great effect by Barnett and Zuercher in their article The Peacebuilder’s Contract: How External State-Building Reinforces Weak Statehood. In it, they model strategic bargaining between international actors, state elites and local elites in post-conflict contexts. Their model assumes a post-colonial context in which states (even before the conflict) had little legitimacy or capacity and where regime stability was underpinned by patrimonial politics. In this model political and economic survival of the state elites depends on the ability to co-opt or deter challengers from the periphery through an (expensive) patronage system. It is assumed that state elites want to maintain their power. External actors are unified and desire first and foremost stability and secondarily liberalization. Rural elites want autonomy from the state and to maintain their power in the countryside.

The potential results of the ‘game’ include: co-operative peacebuilding, where local elites accept and co-operate with the peacebuilding programme introduced by the external peacebuilders (where there interests are aligned as, for example, in majority-Albanian parts of Kosovo); co-opted peacebuilding in which both peacebuilders and local elites have compromised their strategies to accommodated the preferences of the other (as in Tajikistan and the majority of other cases); captured peacebuilding where local elites are able to redirect the distribution of assistance so that it is fully consistent with their interests (typically in situation of instability where aid workers and peacekeepers are dependent on local warlords to carry out their mandates or access populations at risk); or conflictive peacebuilding - the threat of use of coercive tools by either international or domestic actors to achieve their objectives (where local elites obstruct the peacebuilding programme and peacebuilders are faced with considering coercive options or withdrawal, as has been the case in Northern Kosovo at times).

Barnett and Zuercher show that when you play a ‘simple’ game between peacebuilders and state elites co-opted peacebuilding is the equilibrium solution in which neither actor has an interest in defecting. A game involving peacebuilders, state elites and local regional elites is more likely to end with co-opted peacebuilding between peacebuilders and state government and captured peacebuilding between peacebuilders and local elites. The outcome that rational strategic bargaining tends to result ‘co-opted’ or ‘symbolic peacebuilding’ but not fundamental state-society reforms, resonates because it matches the empirical record. There is strong evidence that the presence of international actors has helped promote stability and reduce return to violence, but the record also shows that international interventions have been far less successful at building ‘positive’ peace based on the liberal model of the strong state (see Doyle and Sambanis for statistical rates of success).

This simple model also rings true when considering individual cases. Take the one that the West is currently most engaged in: Afghanistan. Barnett and Zuercher argue that in Afghanistan the peacebuilding ‘game’ was first characterized by co-operative peacebuilding between the new Karzai government and the peacebuilders (based on a weak government and an extraordinarily strong and generous external intervention) and captured peacebuilding between the rural elites peacebuilders (based on relatively strong elites and the fact that the US was also dependent on their co-operation for counter-insurgency purposes). As the power of the rural elites grew (in part as a result of the US war on the Taliban) state elites became increasingly reluctant to implement the liberal reforms that might alienate rural elites. Peacebuilders accepted these conditions because of their preference for stability.

Gaming the strategic interaction of peacebuilding also has operational value. Of course those who are party to a conflict at the strategic and operational level are well aware of the complex politics of peacebuilding. Most peacebuilders that ‘work on’ the operationalisation of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration of former combatants (DDR), Security Sector Reform (SSR) or financial and administrative capacity building and reform should also be acutely aware of their intended and real impact on the dynamics of the peace process. But this is not adequately reflected in policy discourse. Rather, at the international level, policy discussions about peacebuilding are first and foremost linked with efforts to address how the international community should get its act together so as to maximise its leverage in peacebuilding contexts. These typically involves debates about how best to mobilise financial and human resources, and how to promote ‘unity of purpose’, including through strengthened international leadership and improved co-ordination. These are important issues, but they do not address the domestic politics of peacebuilding. Instead, the ‘demand-side’ of peacebuilding is effectively side-lined by invoking the principle of ‘national ownership’ – a conceptual place-holder for the domestic politics of the peace process. Similarly, the call for external aid ‘alignment’ with national priorities obscures much more than it reveals. Worse, much of the language of aid implies that building national capacity or aligning international aid priorities with domestic ones is a technical issue, when it is clearly political. We need policy frameworks that recognise the conflictual nature of peacebuilding rather than ones that suggest it is a co-operative exercise. If not, the danger is that the international community support those actors with whom its interests most align, without sufficiently considering the possible reactions of the actors who stand to loose by this alliance.

Perhaps it is unhealthy for teens to be playing too many ‘killer’ computer games. But I suggest that it may improve the lives of those living in states ravished by war if those that are thinking about intervening in their country spend more time in front of a screen thinking about the different motivations and choices of actors with a stake in the war/peace. Gaming might provoke more consideration about the underlying assumptions we make about how to build peace. It would also be a useful complement to traditional leadership training. These games may even be fun and make money. To all those gaming industry bosses who are reading this (not): Can we have some peacebuilding games please?

This is a guest blog by Catriona Gourlay. Catriona is a Marie Curie Fellow at UNIDIR, currently working on a project on EU-UN cooperation in peacebuilding.

Photo Credit: ‘Day 75: Liam playing Axis and Alies' by puremango on Flickr.

References:
Michael Barnett and Christoph Zuercher, The Peacebuilder’s Contract: How External State-building Reinforces Weak Statehood. Available here.

Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace, Princeton University Press, 2006.

What could the CCW do about improvised explosive devices?

2009-04-29T18:21:00.005+01:00

If there is a weapon that reflects our times, it is the improvised explosive device (IED). These weapons come in myriad forms– whether it's the suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest approaching a checkpoint in Afghanistan, the command-detonated roadside bombs encountered by troops in Iraq or, indeed, the seizure of passenger planes in mid-air by hijackers to be used as flying bombs – as occurred on 911.

Most often on this blog, when we’ve provided commentary on the work of the UN Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) it’s been with reference to its Group of Government Experts’ efforts on cluster munitions. However, the CCW is a framework treaty that contains five protocols, two of which – Amended Protocol II on mines and booby traps, and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war – have active sub-processes of their own.

Last week, in a discussion facilitated by the Swiss, states party to Amended Protocol II began a discussion about IEDs. Presenting were Chris Clark from the UN Mine Action Service, Richard Moyes from UK NGO Landmine Action, Erik Tollefsen from the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining, and Colin King, an independent explosive ordnance consultant.
An IED is

“A device placed or fabricated in an improvised manner incorporating destructive, lethal, noxious, pyrotechnic, or incendiary chemicals or explosives and designed to destroy, incapacitate, harass or distract. It may incorporate military stores, but is normally devised from non-military components.” (IED Factsheet)

Colin King observed there has been an evolution of attacks using IEDs over the last few decades. In the 1970s, non-state armed groups like the Irish Republican Army (IRA) really did have to improvise using commonly available materials such as nitrogen-based chemical fertilizers, stolen blasting caps and mechanical or electronic timers cannibalized from devices like alarm clocks. The IEDs tended to be unreliable, and to have uncertain effects in terms of explosive yield and signature. In other words, these types of IED were low-tech, basic weapons not particularly well suited to their targets.

The 1970s seem rather halcyon days now. Armed groups making and deploying IEDs in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have become highly sophisticated in terms of funding and organisation: as their experience and access to materials began to match the scale of their ambitions and inventiveness, it has made life increasingly hazardous for both soldiers and civilians.

The IRA’s best chance of destroying a vehicle in Britain or Northern Ireland in the 1970s, for instance, was by physically attaching a time-delay bomb. More recently, insurgents in Iraq and many other places have long had access to shaped-charge explosives like the High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) rounds launched from rocket-propelled grenade launchers. But in recent years they’ve also been able to hold of explosively formed penetrators able to destroy modern armoured vehicles - potentially from a significant distance, we were told. And along with the technology, methods of attack involving sophisticated means of coordination have made counter-measures against IEDs a difficult cat-and-mouse game for military forces.

And, as Richard Moyes pointed out, IEDs are certainly an issue in humanitarian terms too. Landmine Action’s research into incidents of explosive ordnance based on English language news reports of 1,836 incidents in 38 countries over six months revealed that 60 per cent related to IEDs causing many civilian deaths and injuries.

It’s a moot point what the CCW can actually do – if anything – about IEDs, not least because the primary makers and users of IEDs are armed non-state actors, not governments bound by agreements like Amended Protocol II. And, as the International Committee of the Red Cross pointed out, there isn’t anything especially novel about the fact a munition is improvised from a humanitarian law perspective. IHL rules still apply.

Nevertheless, in a ‘food for thought’ paper for the meeting, the Swiss set out some possible avenues for discussion about specific measures such as:

“What are specific best practices to cut the supply?
• What can be done in order to avoid that AXO, UXO, badly managed stockpiles, and commercially available products provide the explosives)?
• Could the CCW APII work towards a best practice guide for the improved storage, security, and transport of explosives?
• What mechanisms would help better controlling the manufacture and trafficking of explosives?
• Are there different approaches to deal with IEDs under domestic criminal law?”

Certainly last week’s CCW talks didn’t come up with any clear answers about what to do next. But, as presenters like King pointed out, a lot of IEDs are ‘local manufactures’ – mass produced, but using parts like abandoned or stolen military munitions. Artillery shells have become a favoured source of explosive for many roadside or vehicle-borne IEDs in Iraq, for instance.

So, governments undertaking practical work at the national level to tighten up stockpile management and storage of explosive material in places under their jurisdiction or control would be an important start. Another thing states can do is to join and fully implement the CCW’s ERW protocol to ensure that unexploded and abandoned ordnance is cleared up quickly, and not diverted to putting the bang into IEDs. Not sexy stuff, but worthwhile.

John Borrie

Image: IEDs made from military munitions found in Baghdad (retrieved from Wikipedia Commons, sourced in turn from U.S. Department of Defense).

A corrupt trade

2009-04-23T13:07:00.007+01:00

Yesterday, South Africans headed to the polls to elect their national and provincial leaders in the fourth democratic elections since the end of Apartheid. In spite of bad weather conditions and various other difficulties that have beleaguered these elections, the leader of the African National Congress (ANC), Jakob Zuma is widely expected to take over as South Africa’s next President.

Until recently, Zuma faced charges of corruption relating to a massive arms deal signed in 1999 to modernize the South African defence force. The procurement package comprised the acquisition of aircraft, helicopters, submarines and ships at a cost of 29 billion Rand (then 4.8 billion USD). Evidence supporting allegations that Zuma had accepted bribes came to light in 2005 during the trial of his former financial advisor Shabir Shaik, who was convicted for his role in the deal. But earlier this month, the National Prosecuting Authority dropped the charges against Zuma on procedural grounds.

Zuma is by no means the only high ranking government official to be implicated in a defence-related corruption scandal, nor is it the first time that an investigation into such a scandal has been called off before it could unearth the whole truth. According to Transparency International, a leading civil society organization in the fight against corruption, the defence sector is among the top three sectors for bribery and corruption. The industry’s share of corruption is grossly disproportionate to its share of trade. Arguably, corruption in the arms trade accounts for about half of all corrupt transactions globally.

The controversial South African arms deal involved companies from Germany, Italy, Sweden, Britain, France and South Africa. The French arms manufacturer Thales, for instance, allegedly paid Zuma 500’000 Rand a year (about 85’000 USD in 1999) as an incentive to sign a 400 million USD contract for South Africa’s new warships and in exchange for protecting Thales against an investigation into the arms deal. The French police raided Thales’ headquarters in Paris, but the case was allowed to go cold after a visit by former South African President Mbeki to France. Thales has been the subject of several other judicial inquiries, including its 1991 sale of six La Fayette frigates to Taiwan. French industrialists are suspected of having paid hefty commissions to politicians in Taiwan and of having organized a system of payback of money to French politicians. In 2003 Taiwan sued Thales to recover 590 million USD in kickbacks deposited in Swiss banks.

Also involved in the South African arms deal was the British arms manufacturer BAE and its Swedish partner Saab. According to the British Guardian newspaper, BAE paid more than 100 million GBP in commissions through various secret routes, including Swiss bank accounts and a Swiss-based off-shore company, to win a contract to supply fighter jets to South Africa. BAE has also been the subject of investigations by British and foreign authorities regarding its activities in Bosnia, Nigeria, Zambia, Costa Rica and Egypt, Tanzania, Romania, Chile, the Czech Republic, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The investigation by the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into the Saudi arms deals was stopped after threats from the Saudi ruling family and the intervention of then British Prime Minister Tony Blair (read all about it here). This caused international uproar and Britain was severely criticised by the OECD in a 2008 report. A month ago, the British government finally acted on one of the OECD’s demands and submitted a draft bribery bill to Parliament.

Corruption, it appears, is not peripheral to the arms trade, it is at the centre of procurement decision-making. But why is the international arms trade so prone to corruption? Among the factors that contribute to this sordid state of affairs, Transparency International lists excessive secrecy invoked in the name of national security, the technical complexity of arms deals and the high value of products, widespread use of off-sets in the form of investments in the local economy by the company winning the contract, widespread use of agents and embedded networks of intermediaries, extensive use of single source bidding, use of military expenditures not approved by Parliament, and lack of implementation of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention by States Parties.

The payment of huge bribes and corruption in the arms trade distorts and inflates the prices. It leads to unnecessary spending and waste of resources in both, importing and exporting countries and hampers economic development. In exporting countries tax payers’ money is used to pay massive subsidies to the indigenous arms industry and for export credit guarantees. Governments thereby become complicit in defence companies’ bribery. Corruption scandals can seriously undermine public confidence in democratic institutions, as a German case demonstrates, where some of the profits from an arms deal with Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s flowed back to Germany in the form of party donations to the Christian Democrats.

As roughly two thirds of arms transfers are to developing countries, corruption in the arms trade diverts colossal sums away from much needed investment in public health, education and infrastructure projects. This represents a huge opportunity cost for the citizens of these countries. In addition, the supply of arms can contribute to the destabilization of regions, exacerbate arms races and increases the global burden of armed violence.

Some believe that if the international legal arms trade ‘ceased to be a honey-pot for the enrichment of the well-connected, it would dwindle into an irreducible strategic reality.’ Consequently ‘removing or even significantly reducing corruption would do more to reform the trade than any other single act.’ Transparency International and other NGOs have undertaken important initiatives to that effect. Their recommendations include the creation of industry consortia against corruption, integrity pacts, the development of good practices, the strengthening of national and international instruments against bribery in the defence sector and their effective application, increased civil oversight into the defence establishment, democratic control of the procurement sector and parliamentary oversight over all military expenditures, as well as procurement reforms and external periodic procurement reviews as part of broader security sector reform.

Military procurement has always been an intensely political activity, but today, it is perhaps ‘realistic - and increasingly possible - for civil society organizations to play an active and critical role in defence governance’.

Maya Brehm

References:

Tranparency International, Reducing Corruption in the Defence & Security Sectors, Update Note 3, 30 April 2006.
Roeber, Joe, Parallel Markets: Corruption in the International Arms Trade, Goodwin Paper no. 3, Campaign Against Arms Trade, June 2005.
The Guardian, The BAE files.

Photo Credit: 'South Africa's Latest Fighter - Gripen from Sweden' by DanieVDM on Flickr.

CCW cluster munitions: work without end ...

2009-04-17T17:58:00.001+01:00

As suggested in my preceding post, although this was the last formal week of time allocated in 2009 for negotiating a proposal for a protocol on cluster munitions in the UN’s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)’s expert group (which had already missed its end of 2008 deadline and awarded itself two more sessions, of which this week’s was the second), its Chair came up with an effective fudge today to allow efforts to continue.

Basically, the group’s Chair, Mr. Ainchil of Argentina, told delegates that he would need more time: he would write to government shortly, he said. The upshot is that the Chair intends to hold ‘informal consultations’ later in the year – tentatively scheduled for the week of 17 to 21 August in Geneva.

The Chair then opened the floor and the Czech Republic (as European Union President), Brazil, Croatia, Japan, Canada, France, Austria, India, China, Ukraine, Switzerland, the United States, Norway, Germany, Russia, Israel, Turkey, Ecuador, Republic of Korea, Pakistan, Mexico and Cuba spoke. Some huffed and puffed about the need for flexibility (from others, mostly, of course), some tut-tutted about the weakness/rigorousness/absence/presence of specific provisions, but all assented to the further consultations.

What does this mean? It means – on the face of it – that the chances of some sort of Protocol VI on cluster munitions is increasingly likely to be presented this November at the CCW’s next meeting of State Parties.

To this end, the Chair was able to get his procedural report agreed, annexed to which is an updated ‘consolidated text’ based on his consultations bilaterally and in small groups over the course of the week. That this text has evolved further toward a final product since his last text issued in February is undisputed. But it has not grown noticeably any more robust in its provisions, and some argued that on key issues such as definitions, general prohibitions and restrictions, and articles on stockpile storage and destruction clearance, as well as rules on cluster munition transfers, the new text was a backward step.

States that have shunned the Oslo process and the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) such as Brazil, China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia and the United States are the keenest to forge ahead. They insist that the CCM should not be the benchmark for the CCW’s efforts (certainly the strength of that Convention’s provisions make the ‘consolidated drafts’ proposals look wan indeed), and that any product of the CCW will automatically have substantial humanitarian benefit by virtue of the fact that (if they joined and applied its rather loose provisions) the protocol would apply to their large current stocks of cluster munitions. As it has argued before, the US argued that the text, if agreed, would have implications for 95 per cent of its cluster munition arsenal.

In the other corner are many countries, including many in the European Union, as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Cluster Munition Coalition who argue the CCW exercise has some way to go before it delivers real humanitarian benefit, will not conflict with the CCM’s more robust provisions or contain much in the way of meaningful prohibitions.

And, they argue their proposals to improve the text have not been reflected in the new version of the consolidated text to any great degree. Several pointed out that the emphasis on submunition reliability as a basis for acceptability in the consolidated text is based on assumptions about testing that were discredited during the course of the Oslo process, and that the Chair’s draft has little to say to address the inaccuracy of cluster munitions and the hazards that poses to civilians.

These are sound arguments, in my view. The problem for the maximalists at present is that however firmly they make their points, the psychological advantage lies with the more minimalist in the negotiation. It is easier for the Chair to believe that the latter may play procedural games to prevent an outcome too strong for their liking, rather than others blocking an agreement on the grounds that they perceive it to be weak.

John Borrie

CCW: Still searching in the undergrowth

2009-04-14T15:00:00.004+01:00

The UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)’s Group of Governmental Experts began a four-day meeting today, the latest – and perhaps the last – in its efforts to negotiate a protocol on cluster munitions.

When the last CCW Meeting of States Parties wrapped up late last year it had not been able to produce an agreement. Two-third of the CCW’s membership were about to sign the new Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in Oslo, and concerns were widespread and deeply felt that the CCW product being touted by Denmark, the GGE’s Chair at the time, would deliver too little humanitarian benefit, and would conflict with the CCM’s obligations to ban the weapon and help victims. They dug in, much to the chagrin of CCW members shunning the CCM and unhappy at being depicted as international bad guys in the media and by civil society.

So, the compromise achieved was for two more short GGE sessions in early 2009 to see what could be salvaged. Argentina took over from Denmark as GGE Chair, and we reported in February that the new Chairman had made some progress – although the differences between the ambitions of major possessors and producers shunning the CCM (like Brazil, China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States) for a cluster munition protocol still seemed very different from the higher humanitarian standard others expected. The European Union, for instance, has repeatedly stated that any new protocol should deliver measurable humanitarian benefit, be compatible with the obligations of the CCM, and must contain some sort of substantive prohibition, whether on use, transfer or some other aspect of cluster munitions.

In this morning’s general debate to start off the four days of GGE meetings this week, there seemed little new of note. Argentina’s “consolidated Chair’s text” distributed at the end of the February meeting was generally accepted as a basis for work, although most countries also raised problems about key Articles such as its definitions, how the protocol’s obligations would sit with existing international humanitarian law obligations, the nature of its prohibitions, and derivative questions related to stockpile destruction such as transition periods.

None of these issues are new, although many delegations speaking today seemed keen to sound as constructive as possible. Even so, it is difficult to see how a protocol agreeable by consensus could be agreed in the space of four days: the International Committee of the Red Cross has pointed out in detail a number of serious problems remaining in the text, which many Europeans and others agree with, for instance, and which others will resist.

That said, while the GGE mandate for meetings (which cost money, and therefore need the CCW Meetings of States Parties to okay them) effectively runs out at the week, it doesn’t necessarily mean negotiations will end. There is nothing to stop Argentina continuing bilateral and small group consultations with a view to having a final draft to offer to the next CCW Meeting of States Parties later this year. That is what I suspect it will do.

John Borrie.

Photo by author of battle area clearer searching for unexploded submunitions. From a photograph in an exhibition in the Esplanade des Nations (outside the CCW's meetings in the Palais), taken in November 2007.

What I talk about when I write about cluster bombs

2009-04-02T09:10:00.005+01:00

As the world financial crisis deepens and the G-20 meet in London (and as anarchist protesters angle for a bit of argey-bargey with London’s bobbies) it was at least a lovely spring day in Geneva yesterday.

It found me holed up in my apartment fighting spring hay fever and roughly halfway through researching and writing a history of efforts to address the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions to be published by the United Nations later this year. The history looks at the earliest efforts to place restrictions on the weapon in the 1970s, as well as the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapon process’s subsequent attempts to engage with addressing the proven hazards of cluster munitions to civilians. But the book’s main focus is on why and how the Oslo process unfolded (which regular readers of this blog will know I’ve followed since its origins) and what some of its lessons might be.

I find writing a rewarding but lonely and difficult business. It’s quite tricky psychologically to keep myself properly motivated and I, for one, tend to get depressed easily about my lack of pace, especially as deadlines begin to loom. All of this, of course, against the backdrop of story of how cluster bombs were banned that’s complicated, fascinating and ultimately inspiring as an example of how the world’s less powerful states, international organisations and civil society can make a positive difference to human security – I have no real reason for complaint!

In the second half of last year I decided I’d get myself into shape after a long and intense period of work on the Oslo process and my UNIDIR research. I entered to run L’Escalade, a 7.5 kilometre running race held every December in Geneva to commemorate an attack by the Duke of Savoy’s troops the Genevois repulsed in 1602. (According to Genevois legend, Catherine Cheynel, originally from Lyons and the wife of Pierre Royaume, ("Mère Royaume"), a mother of 14 children, seized a large cauldron of hot soup and poured it on the attackers. The Royaume family lived just above the La Monnaie town gate. The heavy cauldron of boiling soup landed on the head of a Savoyard attacker, killing him. The commotion that this caused also helped to rouse the townsfolk to defend the city.)

Now 7.5 km isn’t far. But I’d been travelling the two preceding weeks and only arrived back in Geneva from the Oslo signing ceremony for the Convention on Cluster Munitions the previous evening. But I did run l’Escalade despite the dark, the freezing temperature and it being my first-ever running race (being jostled by a thousand bony elbows took a bit of getting used to). I even ran a respectable time (for me!) and managed to overtake some of those sets of sharp elbows later in the run.

In retrospect I think it was good mental preparation for tackling a book – since with researching and writing like this you certainly have to take a long-view and pace yourself, but keep going whatever happens.

At the moment I’m reading a memoir by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. He’s one of my favourite novelists, and a lot of what he says in the book strikes a chord with me. I loved this passage:

“No matter how much long-distance running might suit me, of course there are days when I feel kind of lethargic and don’t want to run. Actually, it happens a lot. On days like that, I try to think of all kinds of plausible excuses to shake it off. Once, I interviewed the Olympic runner Toshihiko Seko, just after he retired from running and became manager of the S&B company team. I asked him, “Does a runner at your level ever feel like you’d rather not run today, like you don’t want to run and would rather just sleep in? He stared at me and then, in a voice that made it abundantly clear how stupid he thought the question was, replied, “Of course. All the time!”

Now that I look back on it I can see what a dumb question that was. I guess even back then I knew how dumb it was, but I suppose I wanted to hear the answer directly from someone of Seko’s calibre. I wanted to know whether, despite being worlds apart in terms of strength, the amount we exercise, and motivation, when we lace up our running shoes early in the morning we feel exactly the same way. Seko’s reply at the time came as a great relief. In the final analysis we’re all the same, I thought.”

Moreover, for Murakami, the motivation to write, just like his motivation to run at least a marathon every year, has to be a sense of accomplishment rather than competition with others:

“What’s crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you’ve set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something you can easily explain away. When it comes to other people you can always come up with a reasonable explanation, but you can’t fool yourself. In this sense, writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike.”

I’m neither a novelist nor do I have much inclination at the moment to train for a full marathon.
But I did feel a sense of accomplishment after completing L’Escalade – however modest the objective; one similar to the feeling I get when I finish a piece of decent research. The feeling doesn’t last long, and it always just gets me thinking about what’s next, but for a short while it’s tangible.

I guess time will tell how apt Murakami’s advice is in the context of me getting my manuscript finished by deadline. But it did at least encourage me to gulp down some hayfever medicine and go for a decent run next to the lake yesterday evening as a break from my own historical marathon.

John Borrie

Photo ('Run like hell!!!) of a Baku roadsign by 'Today is a good day' retrieved from Flickr.

A step towards a U.S. cluster munitions ban?

2009-03-26T16:15:00.019+01:00

On March 11, U.S. President Obama signed the Omnibus Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2009. Some have called this piece of legislation a ‘major turnaround in U.S. arms policy’. It contains the following passage:

No military assistance shall be furnished for cluster munitions, no defense export license for cluster munitions may be issued, and no cluster munitions or cluster munitions technology shall be sold or transferred, unless
(1) the submunitions of the cluster munitions have a 99 percent or higher functioning
rate; and
(2) the agreement applicable to the assistance, transfer, or sale of the cluster munitions or cluster munitions technology specifies that the cluster munitions will only be used against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present.

A similar restriction on the export of cluster munitions was first introduced in the 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act in December 2007. Compared to the 2008 Act, this year’s law represents advancement, but some of its wording calls for further clarification. Questions arise in particular regarding the ‘agreements’ concluded with the recipients of US cluster munition exports. These agreements usually not being public, how will recipients’ compliance be assessed and how will they be held accountable if they do not respect the terms of the agreement?

As to the content of these agreements, what is meant by ‘clearly defined military targets’, for instance? Will recipients be held to the generally accepted standards on the conduct of hostilities and the definition of a ‘military objective’ contained in Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions - a treaty that the U.S. has never ratified? Further, the phrase ‘where civilians are known to be present’ raises questions about the level of knowledge that is required at any time during and preceding an attack. Will it for instance be in order to use cluster munitions where civilians are possibly or probably present? What measures does the attacker have to take to ascertain whether there are civilians in the area? And if there are civilians, can the attacker assume that they are no longer present after they have been warned of an impending attack?

Apart from these open questions, the 2009 Act introduces a more restrictive export policy, notably due to the reformulation of the 1% failure rate criterion. Whereas in 2008, cluster munitions had to have a ‘99 percent or higher tested rate’ to be exportable, now, they have to have a ‘99 percent or higher functioning rate’. The term ‘functioning rate’ was already used in the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act (a bill aimed at limiting the use, sale, and transfer of cluster munitions) that was introduced by Senators Feinstein and Leahy in February 2007 (and which was stalled in the various Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives). The 99 % functionning rate criterion limits exportable cluster munitions to those that in actual combat situations produce no more than 1% duds, as opposed to the failure rates measured under the ideal conditions of a test. But how the ‘functioning rate’ of a cluster munition will exactly be determined and by whom remains to be seen.

Interestingly, the cluster munitions policy presented by Secretary of Defence’s Gates in June 2008 contains yet another formulation of the 1% failure rate criterion. It refers to:

cluster munitions containing submunitions that, after arming, do not result in more than 1% unexploded ordnance (UXO) across the range of intended operational environments

The U.S. delegation introduced similar wording into the text that the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons’ (CCW) Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) is discussing in Geneva. And the 2009 bill for a Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act introduced in the U.S. Senate on February 11 this year also uses the phrase ‘range of intended operational environments’. This formulation of the reliability criterion suggests that the failure rate is calculated on the basis of instances of cluster munitions use in different terrains and weather conditions. It does beg the question, however, what ‘unintended operational environments’ are.

Another part of the phrase also gives rise to concern. In fact, it seems to address only those submunitions (or depending on the reading, cluster munitions) that, after arming, do not result in more than 1% dud rate. This would mean that submunitions that for various reasons fail to arm during descent (respectively, those cluster munitions that fail to disperse their load) do not enter the 1% calculus. However, unarmed submunitions (whether dispersed or not) also represent a danger to civilians. Years after their deployment, movement can cause them to arm - and detonate.

Participants in the Oslo Process on Cluster Munitions that led to the successful adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in May last year, have recognized that the reliability of cluster munitions depends on a multitude of factors and is difficult to determine in a universally acceptable, objective way. Therefore, the CCM’s approach has been to address all the criteria that have in practice caused the unreliability and indiscriminate effects of cluster munitions. The CCW GGE, in contrast, continues to grapple with failure rates. But in practice, the U.S. 1% failure rate policy, whatever its formulation, is tantamount to a de facto export ban on ‘cluster munitions causing unacceptable harm to civilians’ because ‘only a very tiny fraction of the cluster munitions in the U.S. arsenal meet the 1-percent standard’.

The other major step towards an export ban on cluster munitions lies in the fact that the export limitation in the 2009 Appropriations Act may well be a permanent one. In difference to the export restriction of the 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which was only valid for the duration of fiscal year 2008, the 2009 Act contains no such time limit. How U.S. policy on the use of cluster munitions, as opposed to their export, will shape up is still unclear. Supporters of a complete ban on cluster munitions are working toward motivating Senators to co-sponsor the recently introduced Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2009. They hope that growing co-sponsorship of this legislation might in time encourage President Obama to join the CCM.

Maya Brehm, with thanks to Laura Chirot and Virgil Wiebe for their helpful comments.

Photo Credit: 'Go toward the light' by J.Star on Flickr.

CCM: Positive developments

2009-03-20T09:23:00.005+01:00

Earlier this week, the Lao People's Democratic Republic ratified the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) at a special event in New York at United Nations Headquarters.

Lao PDR’s accession to the CCM is significant not least because this South East Asian nation is the most heavily affected country in the world from unexploded submunitions due to a secret American bombing campaign in the 1960s and 1970s that pulverised entire areas of the country such as the Plain of Jars. A generation on, and Lao PDR’s people – the majority of them not even born during the bombing period – are saddled with a deadly legacy of unexploded ‘bombies’ (submunitions) in their fields, rivers and woods that threaten livelihoods and their very lives.

The figures are staggering. Lao PDR’s National Unexploded Ordnance Programme believes that, even under ideal firing conditions, at least 30 percent of the more than 260 million submunitions dropped on the country during the Indochina War would have failed to function as intended, leaving an estimated 78 million bombies to pose hazard to people going about their daily lives. Fifteen of Lao’s seventeen provinces were left affected by cluster munitions and other unexploded ordnance, and today ten provinces are still severely infested – with an estimated 300 people injured or killed per year.

As such, Lao PDR is always going to be a special case for the new treaty. It is generally (if tacitly) recognised by others involved in the Oslo process that – even with the international assistance promised by other members of the CCM – Lao PDR is unlikely to achieve the treaty’s ten-year deadline for clearance and will eventually require an extension (as has just occurred in the Mine Ban Treaty context, for example, for certain countries that have not completed anti-personnel mine clearance activities for various reasons). But, hopefully, membership of the CCM will be a means to continually draw attention to and resources for post-conflict activities to reduce the hazards of unexploded submunitions and other ordnance on Laotian civilians.

At the same ceremony, the Democratic Republic of the Congo – another cluster munition-affected country – signed the CCM, which makes it the 96th to do so. And Iraq made a statement indicating its intent to join the CCM once domestic steps have been completed. Also, a week earlier, on 11 March, the Mexican Senate approved that country’s ratification of the CCM.

Although a country can provisionally apply the CCM at any time, to enter into force internationally the CCM needs to be ratified by 30 states. Less than five months after the CCM’s signing ceremony in Oslo last December, the treaty can already count on 6, and more will surely follow as 35 other states have publicly committed to ratify as soon as possible. As Iraq’s statement indicated, the number of signatories, which presently stands at 96, is also certain to increase soon.

So far many of the world’s largest producers and users of cluster munitions remain outside of the treaty. But there were encouraging developments last week in the US. On 11 March, President Obama signed the Omnibus Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2009, already passed by Congress. It enacts a ban on American exports of most cluster munitions, and has been described as a “qualified ban”.

Meanwhile, many members of both chambers of Congress have apparently cosponsored legislation to enact a ban on most cluster bombs – galvanised by Senators Patrick Leahy and Dianne Feinstein. And President Obama’s transition team are apparently studying the issue of whether the US should go the whole hog and join the CCM.

We’ll seek to provide more analysis in coming weeks.

John Borrie

Photo credit: Mary Wareham. Ambassador Kanika Phommachanh, Permanent Representative of the Lao PDR to the UN in New York, depositing her government's ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions with the UN's Office of Legal Affairs represented by Treaty Section Chief Annebeth Rosenboom. Laos became the fifth state to ratify - a total of 30 are required for the treaty to enter into force.

Lao reference: Lao PDR National Regulatory Authority, Lao National Unexploded Ordnance Programme and UNDP, Hazardous Ground: Cluster Munitions and UXO in the Lao PDR (2008).

WOT R U DU-ING? Primates on Facebook (and in disarmament negotiations)

2009-03-11T10:25:00.005+01:00

"Have opposable thumb - will Twitter."

The Economist ran an interesting article in late February concerning the British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar's hypothesis about primate neocortex size and Facebook.

Dunbar's hypothesis years ago was that

“the cognitive power of the brain limits the size of the social network that an individual of any given species can develop. Extrapolating from the brain sizes and social networks of apes, Dr Dunbar suggested that the size of the human brain allows stable networks of about 148. Rounded to 150, this has become famous as “the Dunbar number”. Many institutions, from neolithic villages to the maniples of the Roman army, seem to be organised around the Dunbar number. Because everybody knows everybody else, such groups can run with a minimum of bureaucracy.”

Dunbar’s hypothesis is not without its critics, including among other anthropologists. But recently The Economist teamed up with the in-house sociologist at social networking website Facebook, with its trove of data, to crunch some numbers and see if light could be shed on the validity of Dunbar’s idea.

Their findings as detailed in The Economist’s article tend to confirm Dunbar’s hypothesis. The average number of “friends” in a Facebook network is around 120, and women tend to have somewhat more “friends” than men (although some Facebook members’ networks are far larger, of course. For the record: mine isn’t, and I seem to be somewhat under-endowed in the network size department. Ahem.).

Strikingly, “the number of people on an individual’s friend list with whom he (or she) frequently interacts is remarkably small and stable. The more “active” or intimate the interaction, the smaller and more stable the group.”

This would seem to equate with my own experience of Facebook; phrased another way: Facebook involves a lot of superficial social contact, but isn’t a good way to improve trust with “friends” I don’t know well already – my most active interactions are with people I already know well.

For this and many other reasons, I’m a reluctant and somewhat ambivalent Facebook user, and have long suspected another point in The Economist article, that, on the whole:

“people who are members of online social networks are not so much “networking” as they are “broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle,” says Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a polling organisation. Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.”

Dunbar’s hypothesis was also of interest to me because previously on the Disarmament as Humanitarian Action project we’d observed that a lot of activity on the margins of negotiations seems to be as much about “social grooming” – that is, informal trust building – than about the direct exchange of information. Dunbar’s work provided a number of interesting ideas we explored in our last two volumes of work (see column at left).

For example, negotiating processes tend to involve many hundreds of people. The sheer mechanics of managing this means that exchanges in conferences often become very set piece in terms of social interaction. In our third volume of articles on ‘Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Disarmament Negotiations’ we suggested that in conference diplomacy processes of sizes beyond the “Dunbar number”, cognitive difficulties for individuals in following evolving dynamics could become overwhelming.

Therefore, an important part of evaluating what makes negotiations ‘successful’ should entail not only analysis of substantial political issues, but also some thought about the structural aspects of negotiators’ interactions since this can make things easier or harder. We described this as ‘cognitive ergonomics’, and explored it in greater detail as part of our recent publication on ‘The Value of Diversity in Multilateral Disarmament Work’. The general idea is that improving opportunities for dialogue and trust building at a face-to-face level should improve negotiators’ chances of success. And it links to arguments about perspective diversity from Scott E. Page and others that are highly relevant to group prediction and problem solving issues.

I’ve noticed that many of my disarmament diplomat colleagues are pretty active Facebookers. Well and good, but as long as nobody sees it as a substitute for the face-to-face dimension of trust building in diplomatic work.

In fact, I have my doubts whether Facebook is even a useful trust building supplement, as it doesn’t seem of much relevance beyond a broadcasting tool. But I predict that as the year unfolds and there are plenty of long disarmament-related conferences to sit through, Twitter is going to be the next thing many disarmers pick up on. I’m not a Twitterer, but I understand the idea is that you broadcast to other Twitterers on your network what you’re doing in messages of no more than 140 characters (“What are you doing?”).

Ironically, Twitter might conceivably be good for diplomatic trust building if it dawns on enough people that they could be more productively using their time interacting in person in smaller groups outside the formal conference room than passively behind the nameplate. (“What am I doing? Same as you – sitting here. What the hell are we doing?”) Whatever happens, it’s hard to see newfangled technology winning out over the lure of coffee and cigarettes anytime soon.

John Borrie

'Chimp hand' by John_X downloaded from Flickr. His caption said: "Biologically, the chimpanzee is closely related to humans, so many of their characteristics may seem familiar. The most remarkable physical similarity between chimpanzees and humans is the opposable thumb. The thumb allows chimpanzees to grab objects and use tools much like we do. Unfortunately, chimpanzees are currently on the endangered species list. Populations have decreased because of foresting, hunting, commercial exportation, and collection for scientific research." Taken at the Los Angeles Zoo on June 18, 2008.

Guns at the ballot box

2009-03-05T09:31:00.006+01:00

Since many of our regular readers belong to what’s referred here as the ‘Geneva disarmament community’, it might be of interest to have a brief look at what their Swiss hosts have recently been up to on the weapons regulation front.

As many who live in Switzerland are aware, Swiss citizens enjoy the right to ‘popular initiative’; that is, they can propose a change to the federal constitution and submit it to a nation-wide vote, provided they manage to collect 100’000 voter signatures within 18 months in support of the initiative.

One such popular initiative recently managed to gather the required number of signatures and even made it into the foreign press.The initiative for the ‘protection against gun violence’ proposes stricter regulation in Swiss law of the private use, acquisition and carrying of weapons and munitions. It would require legislators to specify the licensing requirements for hunters, collectors, sportsmen and other professionals who wish to possess weapons, and calls for the establishment of a federal firearms registry. In addition, the law would oblige the federal authorities to advocate the reduction of small arms availability at the international level.

But what has really caused a stir among the Swiss is that, outside of military service, army weapons would have to be deposited in secure military facilities. Switzerland has a militia army, and military service is (in principle) compulsory for men. It means that about 200’000 Swiss men undertake military service in annual courses of a few weeks in duration every year. Outside of this period, such men are required to keep their military weapon at home and cannot leave it in the military arsenal.

Proponents of the initiative argue that to store military guns in cupboards or under the bed is not required for effective national defence. They say the practice can be connected to gun homicides and relatively high suicide rates in Switzerland. Nevertheless, the initiative strikes at the heart of the Swiss ‘keep-your-gun-at-home’ tradition. Opponents, including, naturally, the right wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP/UDC) see this as undermining the very foundations of the militia army (which plays an important role in Swiss national identity), and is thus a threat to the security, independence and sovereignty of the country. When exactly this initiative will be put to the vote – and whether Switzerland’s Parliament will present a counter-proposal – is yet to be decided.

Another popular initiative, ‘against new fighter jets’, is currently at the stage of signature collection. If this initiative reaches the voting stage, the Swiss will have to decide on whether to impose a moratorium on the purchase of new fighter jets from 2010 until December 2019. The initiative was launched mainly with a view to decreasing Swiss military expenditure, but also because there is no possibility to call for a referendum once a decision on an armaments purchase has been made. Whether the committee initiating this effort will succeed in collecting the necessary signatures is unclear. It is worth recalling that an initiative ‘against the noise of fighter jets in tourism regions’ failed at the ballot in February last year, and several previous initiatives to limit the size of the Swiss army were also voted down.

One initiative deposited successfully in 2007 called for a ‘prohibition on the export of war materials’. It obliges the federal authorities to support and further international disarmament and arms control efforts and it would prohibit the export of war materials (regulated by the ‘Swiss Federal Act on War Materials’), including small arms, light weapons and ammunition, and special military goods (subject to the Swiss ‘Goods Control Act’), as well as technologies that are of particular importance for the development and use of these goods. The brokering of the transfer of these goods to recipients abroad would also be prohibited. Exceptions are provided for mine clearance, sport and hunting devices, as well as weapons that Swiss authorities use abroad and re-import subsequently. The proponents of the initiative consider that Switzerland’s ‘business with death’ is at odds with the country's world-wide humanitarian engagement and peace promotion policies, and is also inconsistent with its claim to neutrality. Moreover, they express concern about the impact of this trade on international peace, security and sustainable development in recipient countries.

The Federal Council has advised the Swiss Parliament to reject the initiative, though. Parliament has to take a decision by March 2010. Whereas the government acknowledges that an export ban on war materials would not have severe consequences for the Swiss economy, it warns that the Swiss army would depend on foreign armaments production to ensure the country’s defence as, without exports, Switzerland's arms industry would largely perish. As independence from other states is – for many Swiss – still part of their self-understanding (Switzerland is not in the EU and has joined the UN only in 2002) this argument could cause many to reject the initiative.

On the other hand, revelations about the use and misuse of war materials and related goods ‘made in Switzerland’ in conflicts abroad have repeatedly shocked the Swiss public. The latest such incident involved a Swiss Pilatus aircraft exported to Chad for military pilot training, which was later equipped for and used in an attack in Darfur in January 2008. This prompted the federal council to call for a strengthening of the licensing criteria of such goods. Additional grounds for denying an export license in cases where the recipient state is involved in an internal or international armed conflict or where there is a risk that the good would be used against the civilian population were initially envisaged. However, the draft amendment of the Goods Control Act presented last month turned out to be rather vague. On the basis of the new paragraph the Federal Council may deny a license if the ‘protection of substantial interests of the country so demands’.

Whether this change in legislation will indeed be enough to avoid further war materials export scandals is doubtful. Many might find this kind of response inadequate and support more radical measures, such as a total ban on war materials exports.

Maya Brehm

Photo credit: Image used by the women's magazine 'Annabelle' in their campaign against army guns at home. Taken from IANSA's website.

Biden’s speech in Munich: “Press the reset button”, and then what?

2009-02-26T11:06:00.007+01:00

From 6 to 8 February 2009, more than a dozen heads of state or government, ministers and scores of international experts met for the 45th Munich Security Conference in Germany. There, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden presented a much-anticipated indication of America’s foreign policy under President Barack Obama’s new administration.

As Russian officials hope that U.S.-Russian relations will improve under Obama’s presidency, the Biden speech would have been keenly examined in Moscow. So what signals did the U.S. Vice President send to Russia from Munich? Actually, nothing very reassuring.

It seems that Vice President Biden in Munich was purposefully vague on many important international issues. His speech contained many hints and some colourful but not too meaningful rhetoric, like this now famous line:

it’s time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia.

If only world matters were as easy to reset as a personal computer! His remarks provided little reassurance on three issues that represent Moscow's main security concerns today: missile defence, NATO expansion, and the aftermath of the Georgian-Russian conflict.

Firstly, Biden said that the U.S. “will continue to develop missile defense”. Even if the rumors are true that President Obama may for some reason postpone the deployment of the third missile defence site in Poland and the Czech Republic, that would in any case not change the equation much: the Eastern European site is not important by itself, but only as an integral part of the whole U.S. missile defence system being developed and fielded, an open multi-tiered system already including land, sea, and space-based components. If, as Biden said, the U.S. will continue to develop this system, it is going to enhance and expand, and today nobody can say how this system will look in 15 or 20 years. Eventually the U.S. missile defense system may reach a level of capability sufficient to seriously undermine the deterrent capability of diminishing Russian nuclear forces. That is why Russian politicians and the country’s military are not reassured: they simply cannot afford not to think about what impact this system may have on Russian security.

Secondly, Biden said, “the United States rejects the notion that NATO’s gain is Russia’s loss [...] We will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence. It will remain our view that sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances.” To many Russians, this resembles a double standard. It seems as if Biden’s message was taken from George W. Bush’s playbook, which had strongly advocated further NATO expansion, including admission of countries in Russia’s immediate neighborhood. In Moscow, NATO’s advance to its borders is seen as a direct threat to Russian security.

Biden’s speech signals that the new administration in Washington is not likely to remove its support for further NATO expansion - NATO’s boundaries being viewed by many Russians and others as Washington’s own primary sphere of influence. Perhaps decision makers in Moscow can draw some relief from the realization apparent among some European leaders that, having witnessed Georgia’s military campaign in South Ossetia, which prompted a strong response from Moscow last August, and the latest gas dispute between Ukraine and Russia that left European countries without fuel this January, Ukrainian and Georgian membership of NATO in the foreseeable future may not be such a great idea.

Thirdly, the U.S. Vice President said “the United States will not recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states”. Nobody is going to dispute the sovereign right of the United States to recognize those states it so chooses. But, in my view, hearing from Washington a balanced political assessment of the conflict between Georgia and Russia last August (that is, one more sympathetic to Moscow’s interests) would substantially contribute to “resetting” U.S.-Russian relations.

So, is there a bright side? Biden proposed “to negotiate deeper cuts in both our [nuclear] arsenals.” This is a good idea that should only be welcomed. But nuclear disarmament cannot, and does not, exist in a vacuum. It is a part of a broader political picture, and negotiating partners should take into account their differing security concerns. Otherwise disarmament processes are either doomed to failure, or come to resemble Gorbachev’s disastrous policies of perestroika and “new thinking” in which the Soviet Union made one major concession after another, but got nothing in exchange but ephemeral talks about “new world order”, “globalization” and “acceptance into the club of civilized states”. The size of Russian and American nuclear arsenals were slashed at the end of the Cold War, but in my view no long-term gains in security were achieved by Russia in this process. The U.S. even violated a gentlemen’s agreement that NATO wouldn’t expand to Russia’s borders if the Soviet Union withdrew from Eastern Europe.

It still remains to be seen what the foreign policy of the Obama administration will be and how U.S.-Russian relations will develop. As the saying goes, “hope dies last”, so maybe the Biden speech was not a declaration of future policies simply perpetuating the ones of the previous U.S. administration, but a prelude to more innovative strategies to build better relations between the two countries.

This is a guest post by Dr. Yury Yudin. Yury is a Senior Researcher at UNIDIR and manages the project ‘Multinational Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle'.

Photo Credit: 'Reset' by Tomás Rotger on Flickr.

CCW: The Sounds of Science...

2009-02-23T14:31:00.004+01:00

"Now here we go dropping science, dropping it all over
Like bumping around the town, like when you're driving a Range Rover
Expanding the horizons and expanding the parameters
Expanding the rhymes of sucker MC amateurs

"Naugels, Isaac Newton, Scientific EZ
Ben Franklin with the kite, getting over with the key
Now rock shocking the mic, of the many times times the times tables
Rock well to tell dispel all of the old fables"

- Beastie Boys, Sounds of Science"

Last week I postulated Borrie's third law of CCW diplomacy (I'll tell you about the others some time - but it will cost brave readers at least a drink, and perhaps some sanity). The hypothetical law states that the CCW process will expand to fill all available time, and is based on my empirical observations of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons process over a long period - especially when the CCW is held over a steady flame and shaken, for example by proximate precipitation of a weapons ban treaty like a Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM).

I invited falsification of my theory by observation or physical experiment. Yet, the theory still stands for now. On Friday, the Argentinean Chair of the 2009 CCW Group of Governmental Experts, Gustavo Ainchil, adjourned the meeting after he quickly gavelled through a procedural report that included agreement for a further four days of meetings in April in Geneva, based on an agreement in late 2008 that:

"The GGE will meet for up to two weeks in 2009, from 16 to 20 February 2009 and subsequently, if required, from 14 to 17 April 2009".

As explained in the preceding blog post, although the atmosphere at last week's GGE was significantly improved over a testy November Meeting of CCW States Parties, there are no firm signs anything will come of the extra sessions. The positions of states still seem to be too far apart. An annex to Friday's procedural report containing the Chair's take on a "consolidated text" of a draft protocol appeared to display the same characteristics that caused substantial disagreement over November's text. Implicitly, this is recognised in the new Chair's text, with various footnotes noting delegations' "expressions of concern" and that "discussions continue".

This should not detract from Mr. Ainchil's efforts, which appear to have been exemplary so far. Argentina is really giving the negotiation its best shot and most of last week's allotted time to the GGE was mostly taken up with various Chair-faciliated bilaterals and other informal meetings, and it was a clearly tired Mr. Ainchil who adjourned Friday's session. But few in the room envy him his rather thankless task - of achieving a protocol that looks as far from agreement as in November, or of winding down the process in as face-saving a manner as possible, thus sparing the CCW regime any damage.

April will tell whether the CCW's work will be a Solid Gold Hit, or or the end of the road for the GGE work. And, of course, another test for the hypothetical third CCW law....

John Borrie

Papers from the CCW GGE meeting should eventually turn up on the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs' website here.

Look into my eyes: CCW and the kinetic theory of gases

2009-02-19T10:31:00.004+01:00

In my preceding post, I posed the question: has anything really changed since last year's difficulties in the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)'s efforts to negotiate a protocol on cluster munitions in the wake of agreement by 107 states in Dublin in May on a Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) that comprehensively prohibits the weapon?

As the CCW Group of Governmental Experts meeting this week approaches its end, the answer looks like 'No'. As foreshadowed, the incoming GGE Chair, Argentina, has focused his efforts on informal consultations at the bilateral and small group level, and there have been few meetings in Plenary, except for an hour on Monday morning and a few minutes yesterday. In each case Argentina distributed "elements for discussion papers". Monday's paper contained textual options on general "prohibitions and restrictions" for a putative agreement, "storage / and destruction" and "transfers". On Wednesday morning the Chair's second discussion paper was circulated, this time on "Protection of civilians, the civilian population and civilian objects" - previously the purview of the Japanese Friend of the Chair on these issues, who has now left.

Where does this leave us? Pretty much where we were in November, in my view. The Chair's "elements for discussion" do not differ significantly from what was put on the table by the previous Chair, Ambassador Wigotski of Denmark, in November, and which was unacceptable then to a significant proportion of the CCW's membership . Nor are there really any signs of significant shifts in position since: if anything, the more issues of ratification and practical implementation loom for CCM signing countries, the less keen they will be on weaker restrictions being agreed in the CCW. Russia has made noises that it is now willing to go along with agreeing a protocol in principle, but really this confirms the hunch most operated on previously. The US has reiterated its position, and unlike the other major users and possessors of cluster munitions outside the CCM, has explained in clear terms what the implications of its proposals (as taken up in the Wigotski draft and new elements papers) would have for its national arsenal. But it is unclear whether there actually is anyone at a senior policy level to give them further instructions right now in Washington D.C. with the change in administration.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) perhaps put it best. The ICRC has noted its surprise to the Chair that what is in effect the Wigotski package is still on the table since it is hard to imagine it being either effective or agreed upon. At best, the package is a menu of things countries might do, and would have the effect of legitimising for decades a weapon type that the majority of the international community have now specifically prohibited. The ICRC (again) urged a very different approach: a comprehensive transfer ban on cluster munitions and a prohibition on use of the weapon in populated areas - as has been argued previously on this blog, these would have real humanitarian impact.

It is a very peculiar situation. As several colleagues (who shall remain nameless) put it to me; if the CCW were working on, say, torture issues rather than cluster munitions, it would never be acceptable to negotiate a package of weak restrictions allowing the continued use of torture by the biggest culprits after the establishment of a standard prohibiting it. It would be seen as an egregious double standard and there would be outcry. Yet it seems to be acceptable to many in the CCW on the assumption that weak restrictions capturing non-CCM likely candidates is better than nothing. I'm not convinced of that: those countries would be better (as the Cluster Munition Coalition has argued) to take national level actions until such time as they're in a position to join the CCM.

Meanwhile, in side meetings and lunchtime events, the members of the CCM along with international organisations and NGOs such as the CMC have been getting on with the task of figuring out how to bring the treaty into force as soon as possible and position the new regime for implementation.

I would be very surprised if the CCW Chair - despite his patient, best efforts, which are to be commended - is in a position to present a protocol package tomorrow that can command agreement among the CCW's membership, which operates on a consensus practice. The question remains whether, then, use will be made of the CCW GGE's optional four days of further talks after Easter from 14 to 17 April.

Borrie's third law of CCW diplomacy (itself derived from the kinetic theory of gases, naturally) states that the CCW process will expand to fill the available time. In this way, it will be compelled to award itself its short week in April, just as this session was awarded by the CCW despite its undertaking to "negotiate a proposal" by the end of 2008.

Like any Popperian I invite falsification of my theory. Come on CCW, this is your chance to prove me wrong ... ;-)

John Borrie

Image of the 19th century Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (who developed a kinetic theory of gases), aged 31 with his wife, Henrietta, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

CCW: From pause to play?

2009-02-12T16:33:00.007+01:00

Next week, the big bag of diplomatic hurt the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) process on cluster munitions seems to have become will resume again in Geneva, for the first of what might be two sessions to see if something can be salvaged from last year's fraught efforts to "negotiate a proposal" on restrictions or prohibitions on the weapon.

At the end of 2008, Argentina bravely stepped up to the plate to chair the CCW's Group of Governmental Expert (GGE) sessions in February and (optionally) April 2009, and to try to fashion a consensus in that timeframe. This week, the incoming Argentinian Chair, Mr. Gustavo Ainchil, shared his views in consultations with states and others here in Geneva about how he intends to proceed.

In sum:

- Next week's agenda remains the same as the previous Group of Governmental Experts' meeting in November 2008;
- The Friends of the Chair (FoC) on various issues have been re-confirmed in their roles for next week's session, although the Japanese FoC (who was dealing with thorny international humanitarian law questions) has departed;
- The Argentinian Chair will not present any new papers before next week's meeting starts.

In effect, next week's GGE presses the play button after a three-month pause. Will the message on the tape now sound sweeter, or will it self-destruct? Mr. Ainchil's task of consultation to identify where some forward progress might be achieved on the contentious issues in the paper put forward by the 2008 GGE Chair, Ambassador Wigotski of Denmark (which was one basis for last November's talks and which looks set to continue for now) will not be easy.

The Argentinian Chair also stressed that he doesn't want to re-open issues for which he already considers there is consensus, preferring to focus only on contentious ones. But such delineations may not be easy to maintain in view of the nature of these negotiations in which "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed". He looks willing to take a shot at trying his hand at some compromise text, in any case.

So, we'll see what happens. Personally, I'm not hopeful anything will be achieved, especially as the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) has now been signed by 95 countries and the tactical importance of negotiating work in the CCW may have passed, both for those strongly supportive of the new CCM, as well as those unfriendly toward it.

But, of course I've been proven wrong before. Nevertheless, it's a pretty safe bet that if clear evidence of a consensus doesn't emerge in the course of next week's CCW GGE, the likelihood of a new, sixth CCW protocol on cluster munitions will be considerably diminished.

John Borrie

Image of 'Tape' by Ronald K, sourced from Flickr.

Patterns of explosive violence

2009-02-05T18:45:00.009+01:00

The shelling of a hospital in North East Sri Lanka has brought the battle that the government armed forces wage there against the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) back into international headlines. The humanitarian situation has deteriorated to the point of being called ‘nightmarish’ as hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped between the front lines, in an area now quite inadequately named ‘the safe zone’.

Like the recent events in Gaza, the situation in Sri Lanka is another sad illustration of the severe humanitarian harm that the use of explosive force in populated areas consistently causes. A recent Policy Brief by Landmine Action emphasizes the direct link between the use of explosive weapons in populated areas and the civilian harm that predictably results from it.

The policy brief notes that media coverage and policy analysis on the Gaza conflict tended to focus on the use of white phosphorous (including on this blog) and other ‘unusual’ weapons, a focus which risks to ‘normalise’ the use of explosive force generally. It should, however, be recognized that explosive weapons caused ‘by far the greatest number of deaths and injuries’ in the Gaza conflict, that explosive force in general is ‘particularly associated with psychological harm’, especially among children, and that in an armed conflict it is usually explosive weapons that cause most damage to infrastructure, such as houses, hospitals, schools, and the electrical power, water and sewage systems. Moreover, unexploded explosive ordnance presents ongoing health risks to the civilian population for years after a conflict has ended.

Landmine Action calls in its policy brief for more explicit recognition of the humanitarian impact of the use of explosive force in populated areas and encourages humanitarian organizations to challenge the prevailing attitude towards this ‘technological pattern of force’ as ‘normal’ or ‘conventional’. In order to further stigmatize the use of explosive force in populated areas ‘a collective and explicit recognition that explosive weapons used in populated areas tend to result in a predictable pattern of indiscriminate and severe humanitarian harm’ can help to ‘shape the public and political discourse about what is right and wrong’.

Maya Brehm

Photo Credit: 'p012877' by Conseil Régional de Basse-Normandie / National Archives USA, available at: PhotosNormandie on Flickr.

References:
Explosive violence: Israel and Gaza, Landmine Action Policy Brief, 30 January 2009.
Explosive Violence blog by Richard Moyes.

The Value of Diversity in Multilateral Disarmament Work

2009-02-02T12:08:00.004+01:00

Although 2008 was a busy year on other fronts, we also completed the final publication of the current 'Disarmament as Humanitarian Action' series, which is entitled The Value of Diversity in Multilateral Disarmament Work.

Although there have been recent stand-out achievements like the new 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), success has been hard to attain in recent years in other areas of multilateral disarmament and arms control work. Political problems exist, to be sure, but they're not the sole problem. Professional diplomatic or journalistic shorthand like "lack of political will" can take on the mantra of an explanation that obscures specific underlying problems - problems that also differ across processes. However, to quote Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (Act 1, Scene 2) in this regard:

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves ...

In our third volume, Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations, we explored some of the potential obstacles that are worth considering with a view to improving negotiators' performance that aren't often noticed by many of those in the thick of disarmament work. For instance, obstacles to progress can be the unintended consequences of past practice, or they can stem from the complex challenges those involved must deal with.

It's also likely that aspects of multilateral disarmament practice compound cognitive challenges individuals face in managing their perceptions and interactions with others. This has been an abiding theme of some of the posts on the Disarmament Insight blog, as some readers know.

We were keen to examine some of these aspects in greater depth, and to try to give form to some of the disparate observations and insights we've gathered within the project over the last few years that weren't included in the first three DHA volumes or other published work we produced. And a key catalyst was a workshop we held as part of the Disarmament Insight symposium series in September 2007, when two of our speakers on the topic of complexity and arms control, Philip Ball and Paul Ormerod, discussed Scott Page's book, The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies.

Page's book contains a lot of useful generic insights about group prediction and problem solving - often in conditions of conflict, as well as cooperation - that prompted Ashley Thornton and I to consider how this might link up to some of the DHA project's research and observations about disarmament negotiating environments.

Drawing on the work of Page and many others from a range of disciplines, our little book makes the argument that while there is no way to ensure success in multilateral disarmament endeavours, practitioners can improve their chances by recognizing and harnessing cognitive diversity (or 'perspective diversity', in Page's parlance). This is effectively what humanitarian perspectives in disarmament processes such as the Ottawa process leading to the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention and the Oslo Process resulting in the CCM have shown.

And progress in multilateral disarmament needn't stop there. The Value of Diversity in Multilateral Disarmament Work discusses practical suggestions to help achieve this.

John Borrie

Reading the Tea Leaves: Obama and Cluster Bombs

2009-01-29T22:26:00.022+01:00

What will US President Obama do about cluster bombs? The new administration announced immediate changes in some defense and national security related matters, most notably on interrogation methods and the closing of Guantanamo Bay detention center within the next year. No such quick action on cluster munitions took place, however. For clues about future action, we can look at President Obama’s voting record as a Senator, positions taken after the campaign, and the orientation of his senior and midlevel appointments in national security positions.

Obama’s Record in the Senate

In September 2006, Senator Obama voted for Senator Feinstein’s proposed amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill:

No funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be obligated or expended to acquire, utilize, sell, or transfer any cluster munition unless the rules of engagement applicable to the cluster munition ensure that the cluster munition will not be used in or near any concentrated population of civilians, whether permanent or temporary, including inhabited parts of cities or villages, camps or columns of refugees or evacuees, or camps or groups of nomads.

The amendment failed by a vote of 70-30. The proposal was certainly a modest one and came before the ban movement got traction, but that the future President was willing to take a positive stand is certainly an encouraging sign. While the focus of this blog is on the Obama administration, it should be noted that the US Congress is likely to consider similar legislation again this year.

After the Election

Following the election and on the eve of the signing of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in Oslo, a spokesperson for the incoming President gave the following statement:

President-elect Obama is deeply concerned about the well-being of civilians in situations of conflict, as reflected by his support of the legislation in 2006 that would have prohibited the use of cluster munitions near concentrations of civilians. As president, he will carefully review the new treaty and work closely [with] other countries to ensure that the United States is doing everything feasible to promote protection of civilians in conflict.

Not a resounding endorsement of the Oslo treaty, but it holds some promise.

Do Obama’s cabinet and staff picks give us any clues?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voted against the September 2006 Feinstein amendment. As did Joe Biden (now the Vice President) and another cabinet member, Ken Salazar (now Secretary of the Interior). More recently, written questions about the broad principles that are likely to guide the Obama Administration’s policy review on cluster munitions were put to her as a part of Secretary of State confirmation procession in the US Senate. The written response was as follows:

The incoming Administration has not taken a position on the new cluster bomb treaty. I look forward to working with the President-elect and the rest of the national security team on this issue in order to develop a policy that upholds our moral obligations while protecting our troops. The new Administration will carefully review the treaty in consultation with military commanders and work closely with our friends and allies to ensure that the United States is doing everything feasible to promote protection of civilians - especially children.

In the words of one observer close to the process: “they punted.”

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ position on cluster munitions, while he was serving at the pleasure of President Bush is well known. On June 19, 2008, after the CCM had been adopted but not signed, Gates issued a new Department of Defense Policy on cluster munitions. That policy, in part, states that:

DoD recognizes that blanket elimination of cluster munitions is unacceptable due not only to negative military consequences but also due to potential negative consequences for civilians. Large-scale use of unitary weapons, as the only alternative to achieve military objectives, could result, in some cases, in unacceptable collateral damage and explosive remnants of war (ERW) issues.

President Obama decided to retain Gates as Defense Secretary. Will it be President Obama’s pleasure to change Gates’ mind?

National Security Advisor James Jones, Jr. is a retired marine who began his career as a platoon leader in Vietnam. In the late 1990s, he served as a military assistant to President Clinton’s Defense Secretary William Cohen.

It’s not clear how much he was involved in the formulation of the now abandoned Cohen policy on cluster munitions, which required all cluster munitions produced after 2005 to have a failure rate of no more than 1%.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice was on the National Security Council (NSC) staff as Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping and then became Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs during the Clinton Administration. Eventually, she moved over to the State Department as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.

When the Eritrea/Ethiopia War broke out in 1998 , she was tasked with trying to negotiate a settlement. She likely remembers the carnage caused when the Eritrean air force dropped cluster bombs on Mekele, Ethiopia in the opening days of that conflict. In 1999, Rice co-wrote an op-ed piece in the International Herald Tribune castigating the conduct of the Sudanese government against its own people.

Rice is certainly no John Bolton (the former US ambassador to the UN who openly disdained the organization – he was eventually replaced by Zalmay Khalilzad), and will take a much more multilateral approach to issues. Being in New York may limit her impact on conventional arms control issues, though.

Mid Level Appointments

Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn has been the Senior Vice President for Government Operations and Strategy at Raytheon. Prior to that he has served in a variety of DoD positions. Raytheon manufactures various versions of the Joint Stand Off Weapon (JSOW), a “precision attack glide bomb”. Among the payloads for the JSOW are both the BLU-97 CEM bomblets (tagged as one of the “dirty dozen” cluster munitions by Human Rights Watch) and Textron’s Sensor Fuzed Weapon.

Lynn’s confirmation ran into a snag because of the new president’s ethics rules that “ban lobbyists who join his administration for two years from working on issues they were previously involved with.” Not to worry – President Obama waived that rule for Lynn.

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, president and co-founder of the Center for a New American Security, is counted among the “counterinsurgents”. She held several positions in the Clinton administration (including Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy). She does not appear to have directly addressed the issue of cluster munitions, but an approach that stresses connecting with local populations would likely place a premium on reducing harm to civilians. In a piece published in October of 2008, Flournoy and Shawn Brimley called on “the new civilian leadership in the Pentagon” to “adopt an ethic of responsible stewardship.”

Department of Defense General Counsel Jeh Charles Johnson has been a partner at the DC office of the Paul Weiss law firm. Beginning in 1998, he served for 27 months as General Counsel to the Department of the Air Force. In that position he very likely had to consider the legality of the use of cluster munitions, as the weapon was used extensively by the USAF in the Kosovo campaign. Johnson is certainly a change from William Haynes III, his predecessor, who has been seen as one of the most aggressive defenders of the Bush era interrogation policies.

Deputy Secretary of State for Policy Jim Steinberg served as Deputy National Security Advisor under Clinton from 1996 to 2000, covering the time of the Kosovo campaign. He held other positions in the State Department and served as Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brooking Institution. Along with Kurt Campbell, Steinberg recently launched a book entitled Difficult Transitions: Foreign Policy Troubles at the Outset of Presidential Power in which they caution against quick changes in policy, but also the need to consult with allies.

So, what does all this reading of the tea leaves tell us?

Unlike the immediate decisions to reverse Bush administration policies on torture and the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, no such quick turnaround in policy will likely result on cluster munitions unless there is considerable pressure to do so. That said, there is a general sense of “out with the old and in with the new.” The new administration is committed to multilateralism and listening in a way not usually associated with the Bush administration, so there is room for strong NATO proponents of the CCM to make an impact. The decision makers discussed above at least on the surface appear to have a greater respect for the opinions of their military counterparts. If US allies who are supporters of the Oslo Treaty are to have a positive impact, they will need to be working at convincing not only civilians in the new administration, but also their US military colleagues.

This is a guest blog by Virgil Wiebe, Director of Clinical Education and Associate Professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, Minneapolis.

Photo: ‘Paragon Fortune Telling Teacup’ by Beads by Laura on Flickr.

White Phosphorus: Setting off Firestorms of Protest

2009-01-22T11:47:00.014+01:00

Along with the global financial crisis and Obama’s presidential inauguration, events in Gaza have occupied news headlines for the last three weeks as Israel undertook a military campaign it said was to stop Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket attacks on surrounding Israeli settlements. Despite Israel’s denial of access to international journalists to see what was happening in Gaza for themselves, reports from inside the Palestinian enclave indicate massive destruction from Israeli bombardment, and an escalating humanitarian crisis. Yesterday ‘The Times’, a British newspaper, estimated the terrible damage to the 1.5 million people in Gaza, who had nowhere to run during the conflict: 1,300 men, women, and children dead, 5,000 maimed and injured, 100,000 homeless, and 14 per cent of Gaza’s buildings damaged or destroyed.

Humanitarian agencies are now taking advantage of the Gaza cease-fire to try to deliver much-needed aid, and in due course a more detailed sense of the full scale of the suffering and devastation will come to light. The dreadful conditions in which much of the civilian population are made to live, and the fact that the majority of direct casualties from the fighting are civilians, has led to sharp criticism about the way in which the war was conducted by both Israel and Hamas.

Some incidents, such as the killing of refugees at UN schools, the bombing of the UN Relief and Works Agency’s compound with white phosphorus (burning, in the process, a large quantity of food and medical supplies), and the failure to provide medical aid to wounded civilians were particularly shocking. In a rare public rebuke, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has publicly stated with respect to one incident that it believed 'the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded' and that the delay in allowing rescue services access was 'unacceptable'.

These incidents have led to a renewed debate about Israel’s targeting decisions and weapons choices. In particular, Israel was accused of using cluster munitions, although currently there seems little evidence to support that claim. In contrast, there is ample evidence emerging that Israel used devices containing white phosphorus (WP). WP is a toxic chemical agent that ignites when exposed to air. It produces extremely high temperatures, is luminous in the dark and emits white smoke: its potential for use on the battlefield was noted as early as 1789, according to SIPRI’s 1975 report on incendiary weapons, although use was sporadic until World War I. WP was deployed extensively during World War II, and later in Vietnam. Since then WP has been used in Grozny, Chechnya (1994) and Iraq. Its use by US forces in Fallujah (2004) was the subject of much controversy.

The use of WP as an incendiary weapon (for instance, to set off firestorms like those that devastated Hamburg in 1943) is greatly restricted by 1980 Protocol III (on Incendiary Weapons) to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). And the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the reliance on the toxic properties of WP as a method of warfare. (A legal analysis of WP under these conventions is available here.) But phosphorous compounds are used by military forces in devices such as artillery shells as an illuminant, to mark targets, or to create a smoke screen. These uses of WP are not specifically prohibited under international law.

Nevertheless, the fallout from air-burst WP covers a wide area, as photographs from Israeli use over Gaza published in various newspapers appear to show. The danger this creates to civilians can be enormous, both through their direct contact with WP and due to the fires it causes. In contact with the skin, WP causes painful, deep chemical burn injuries that require specialized medical treatment. Burning WP is very difficult to put out, and it burns until the material is consumed or deprived of oxygen (see a film here).

Until yesterday, the Israeli authorities would neither deny nor confirm allegations of WP use, but said that all weapons their forces deployed in Gaza were used in accordance with international law. Now, they acknowledge that its troops may have used WP shells in contravention of international law.

Israel is neither a party to Protocol III to the CCW, nor to the Chemical Weapons Convention. But Israel is bound by conventional and customary international rules on the conduct of hostilities and is therefore prohibited from employing a weapon the effects of which cannot be limited as required by international humanitarian law (IHL) and which is consequently of a nature to strike combatants and civilians without distinction. Israel also has to take all feasible precautions in the choice of the weapons it uses. When incendiary weapons are used, customary law requires that 'particular care' be taken to 'avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.' (Rule 84, ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law). In the opinion of NGOs like Human Rights Watch, the use of WP in densely populated areas as seen in Gaza violated this requirement.

Israel has always claimed that its use of cluster munitions in the 2006 war in Southern Lebanon did not violate international law either. And, cluster munitions were not prohibited at that time. But the hazards of cluster munition use as shown by such conflicts has since led to an international treaty banning them on the basis that the harm they cause to civilians is unacceptable – whatever their purported military utility. Although there are important differences between cluster munitions and WP, both can affect a wide area and are unable to discriminate between civilians and combatants.

The question with regard to WP should therefore not so much be whether an existing treaty prohibits every one of its many uses (incendiary, target marker or smoke screen) or whether it would in principle be permissible under existing international law. Rather, we should ask what the effects of WP on civilians and combatants really are in conflicts where they have been used. We should document these, collect victims’ statements and consult health professionals on the matter. And militaries should be expected to convincingly demonstrate why the harm WP use causes is acceptable. Arguably, WP is another case where 'the necessities of war ought to yield to the requirements of humanity'.

Maya Brehm

Reference: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Incendiary Weapons (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1975).