Back to square One

The diplomatic battle over negotiations for a treaty banning the production of bomb making nuclear material will shift next week to the UN’s General Assembly in New York.

The GA’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security will be the venue for renewed debate over how to get discussions started in the 65-member Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva on a Fissile Material Cut off Treaty (FMCT).

These discussions could set the stage and give a direction to what happens next year in the CD. For now Pakistan’s demand that the proposed treaty should include reduction of fissile material stockpiles and not just ban future production – a position supported by many nations – has halted talks in the world’s sole multilateral negotiating body on disarmament.

The upcoming debate in the First Committee will take place against the backdrop of a diplomatic climb down by the US, which had for the past year or more, been threatening to take the FMCT negotiations outside the CD if the stalemate persisted.

Faced with both the unfeasibility of a course of action that lacked significant support as well as its unpredictable consequences, Washington seems to have returned to square one. What evidently produced this turnaround was the risk of losing the ‘consensus rule’ that governs the CD’s work, which an alternate forum would not provide. This ‘safeguard’ enables countries to protect their interests, as agreement is required of all states. Washington appears to have determined it would lack a ‘steering wheel’ and ‘brakes’ over negotiations in the absence of the consensus rule. And if the threat to take the FMCT negotiations outside the CD was a diplomatic bluff to pressure Pakistan to change its principled stance on the treaty, this did not work.

Instead Pakistan was able to secure its objectives in the just concluded session of the CD by ensuring that no serious move materialised to shift the talks elsewhere. In fact its efforts in Geneva supported by like-minded countries urged the US to come around to accepting what it had rejected for the past two years – that discussions rather than negotiations should just take place for an FMCT acceptable to all nuclear powers.

But because of various moves that the US launched over the past year, other countries including some of Washington’s close allies began to initiate their own efforts to break the deadlock in the CD. The unintended dynamics thus unleashed by Washington held out the prospect of the process spiralling out of its control. This prompted the US to firmly signal its opposition to moves to transfer negotiations outside the CD, which it reaffirmed as the “only appropriate venue for fissile material cut off talks”.

But this does not mean that the unintended effects of America’s previous diplomatic manoeuvres have disappeared. In fact the First Committee’s proceedings will test how far the US is able to rein in moves by erstwhile allies that it fears might push the disarmament process into uncertain territory and jeopardise its interests.

When it convenes on October 3, the First Committee is expected to consider three options on the FMCT issue. These are being put forward by Canada, Mexico, and some European nations. The first option could be for the GA to adopt a Canadian-sponsored resolution calling for negotiations for an FMCT to begin “at the earliest” in the CD, roughly similar to ones passed every year for the past decade but with a ‘technical update’. Last year’s resolution urged the Conference on Disarmament to agree on a programme of work and immediately “commence negotiations on a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”

Pakistan and a number of other countries did not vote for such a resolution last year. Islamabad is likely to again adopt this stance given its position on negotiations that do not accommodate its vital security concerns.

The second option before the First Committee could come from proponents of the FMCT in the form of a resolution calling for technical-level discussions involving scientific experts either in or outside the CD framework.

A third option could be a resolution that urges the setting up of a group of government experts from among CD members to negotiate the FMCT in Geneva but outside the CD. Its aim would be to fashion a ‘prior’ consensus on an FMCT and then take that for endorsement to the disarmament forum or directly to the UN in New York.

Only when these options are formally tabled in the First Committee and their shape becomes clear will countries begin to stake out their positions. As of now any move that aims to take discussions out of the CD will be opposed by Pakistan and the G21 states (the grouping of developing nations in the CD). China and Russia will be certain to oppose option three. Given the position the US has now taken, it will likely object to options two and three, as will France and the UK, as they would risk pushing the process in an uncontrollable direction. This would urge Washington to settle for option one and dissuade countries from following other courses of action.

The US has in fact been pursuing another path in recent months aimed at evolving a common position among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (P5). In two successive meetings of P5 representatives in Paris and Geneva, in July and August respectively, convened to consider a broad agenda of issues, the US sought to convince the others to establish a P5 Contact Group. Its purpose being to negotiate the FMCT and at a later stage engage with the N3 (Pakistan, India and Israel) and other nuclear energy producing states to bring them on board a treaty worked out by the P5.

So far America has been unable to make headway on this idea. Statements issued after these meetings called for starting FMCT negotiations but omitted any mention of a Contact Group. China opposed this with Russia also demurring on it.

When the P5 plus N3 idea was broached with the three nuclear weapon states, Israel declined to engage and India gave a non-committal and evasive reply. Meanwhile Pakistan’s envoy in Geneva, Zamir Akram told the US assistant secretary of state for arms control, Rose Gottemoeller last month that Pakistan was a member of the G21, which did not recognise any P5 grouping within the CD. And unless efforts were made to address Pakistan’s security concerns aggravated by America’s discriminatory policy of nuclear exceptionalism for India and a special waiver for its membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, it should not expect Pakistan to modify its position on the FMCT.

As currently envisaged the treaty obliges Pakistan to accept a limit on its deterrent capability, which does not apply to India because of the preferential treatment it has received from the US and several other countries. This is what makes the proposed treaty a discriminatory instrument for Pakistan.

Irrespective of which option is agreed to in the First Committee the protracted diplomatic dance that now lies ahead on FMCT talks can be avoided if the US and its allies come to terms with the ineluctable principle that determines every state’s approach to arms control negotiations: safeguarding its core security interests. Countries agree to negotiations for treaties and then become signatories to these instruments when their fundamental interests are accommodated. Pakistan is no different.

The past two years have shown that this reality cannot be trumped by short cuts, diplomatic pressure or extra-institutional manoeuvres. The only way to ensure that discussions proceed on an FMCT is to hold out a level nuclear playing field to all and offer talks on the principle of equal and undiminished security for all states.