Obama gets big victory in UN Security Council agreement on nuclear policy
Marian Houk
September 27, 2009
U.S. President Barack Obama presided over a major diplomatic victory at the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, with the unanimous adoption of a new resolution endorsing many of the major aspects of American nuclear policy.
While the U.S. had said that the focus of the meeting would be broad, and would not dwell on any specific countries, many individual statements made by world leaders attending the UN Security Council meeting did name names -- especially Iran and North Korea.
It was the Security Council's first comprehensive action on nuclear issues since the mid-1990s.
The new UN Security Council resolution is a major policy document, full of nuance.
And it is long -- the Associated Press counted, and reported that it contains 2,300 words.
Resolution 1887 emphasizes that the Security Council has a primary responsibility to address nuclear threats, and that all situations of non-compliance with nuclear treaties should be brought to the Security Council's attention.
The resolution says that its main aim is, eventually, "to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons". When former U.S. President Ronald Reagan said this to Mikhail Gorbachev at a summit meeting in Iceland, many thought he had misspoken -- or that he had lost it.
A world without nuclear weapons -- this would be a total reversal of the doctrine of mutually-assured destruction (MAD) that is believed to have kept the Cold War from developing into a very hot one.
None of the five nuclear powers is really ready to give up their nuclear weapons, at least not now, though they did agreed to do so when they accepted the grand bargain laid out in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
With this new UN Security Council resolution, the nuclear powers can at least pretend that they intend to carry out their obligation for eventual disarmament, someday.
The resolution also notes, among other things, that "enjoyment of the benefits of the NPT by a State Party can be assured only by its compliance with the obligations thereunder". That is a nice, consensus phrase — and one directed specifically at Iran, which is claiming the right to a full enrichment cycle of uranium for nuclear fuel, but which is accused of not having reported the development of its program in a timely manner.
Resolution 1887, adopted Thursday, "Calls upon all States that are not Parties to the NPT to accede to the Treaty as non-nuclear-weapon States so as to achieve its universality at an early date, and pending their accession to the Treaty, to adhere to its terms". Israel is one of the countries most affected by this clause — as are also India and Pakistan (and apparently also now North Korea). These are countries which were regarded as "threshhold" countries when the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) was adopted in 1967, but which have since reportedly become nuclear weapons states (though Israel maintains its policy of "nuclear ambiguity").
The only states recognized as official nuclear powers by the NPT are the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council — but this is just the purest coincidence, according to some of these council members.
Most of these former-threshhold states are not likely to be happy at the prospect that they can only join the NPT as non-nuclear-weapons states.
In any case, it was a rare UN Security Council summit, with 14 of the 15 UN Security Council members represented by their Heads of State and/or Government — and only Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi was absent (though he addressed the UN General Assembly in New York earlier this week, and Libya is currently one of the non-permanent members of the UNSC).
Instead, this SC meeting was addressed by Libya's UN ambassador, Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgam, who told the meeting that Israel's nuclear sites should be subject to international oversight, or "Otherwise, all the states of the Middle East will say, `We have a right to develop nuclear weapons. Why Israel alone?'."
Last week, members of the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna adopted a resolution expressing concern about Israel´s nuclear weapons. It was a surprising victory. The adopted text, sponsored by Arab countries, was opposed by 45 countries including European Union members and the United States – but it was supported by 49 other countries, including Russia and China, It also called on Israel to accede to the Nuclear Non- proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to put its entire nuclear program under IAEA inspections. The resolution was proposed to counter an Iranian draft which targeted Israel when it called for a ban on attacking nuclear installations.
A group of countries including Western Europeans and the U.S. are due to meet again on 1 October with an Iranian delegation in Geneva, Switzerland for "Geneva Talks Two", a continuation of a day-long meeting held in Geneva in July 2008.
Israel has not ratified the NPT, and thus cannot be accused of having violated its provisions. John Bolton, when he was in charge of disarmament matters for the American State Department, said once in Geneva when pressed by a journalist that, yes, the U.S. does believe Israel should join the NPT -- but eventually, in the far distant future. Another American official later added that Israel would have to join as a "non-nuclear-weapon State".
This would be consistent with the position of the declared nuclear weapons powers after India announced it was a nuclear weapons power in 1998. This position would not, apparently, mean that any former "threshhold" states who become nuclear weapons powers would have to eliminate their arsenals, but rather that they would not be allowed to assume the title (or perquisites) of nuclear weapons powers – and could not claim permanent seats with the right of veto on the UN Security Council.
When India announced it was a nuclear weapons power, in a statement to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, after conducting successful tests in 1998, the British representative immediately rejected this self-designation, arguing that India was not recognized as a nuclear power in the NPT itself, in 1967. There was no further public mention of the matter. (Pakistan did not make such a claim, when it immediately matched the Indian achievement.)
This new UN Security Council Resolution was promoted by the U.S., and adopted in a UNSC meeting chaired by the President of the U.S., which calls for all states to "sign and ratify" the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), "thereby bringing the treaty into force at an early date". The CTBT was, in fact, promoted by the U.S., and which then-U.S. President Bill Clinton did sign in 1996 (after the text of the treaty was finally agreed in international negotiations in which the U.S. actively participate) did not even try to take to the U.S. Congress for approval in 1999, because Republican opposition to curbs they said would be imposed on U.S. sovereignty so clearly indicated that the move would have been defeated.
This resolution also calls for the negotiation of a treaty limiting the production of fissile material -- this has been the chief U.S. goal in the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament for years, but it has been held up because the U.S. has not agreed to deal with China's main concern, which is the prevention of an arms-race in outer-space. The Conference on Disarmament works on consensus, and China's position has been backed by Russia.
Other countries have also objected to other aspects of this proposal, including the fact that the proposed new Fissile Ban treaty would only limit future production of the fissile material needed to make nuclear explosions -- meaning that the big and powerful countries would be able to keep the large stockpiles they already have of fissile material. This, however, would leave all the other countries as fissile material "have-nots" (just as with nuclear weapons themselves).
This is the same problem that some former "threshhold" countries who have since become self-declared nuclear weapons states, as India did in 1998, have with the NPT itself – they object because it creates a special class of nuclear "haves", and they say this discriminates against the "have-nots".
The full text of the new UNSC Resolution 1887 (including all of its many preambular paragraphs), can be read in full here.
While the U.S. had said that the focus of the meeting would be broad, and would not dwell on any specific countries, many individual statements made by world leaders attending the UN Security Council meeting did name names -- especially Iran and North Korea.
It was the Security Council's first comprehensive action on nuclear issues since the mid-1990s.
The new UN Security Council resolution is a major policy document, full of nuance.
And it is long -- the Associated Press counted, and reported that it contains 2,300 words.
Resolution 1887 emphasizes that the Security Council has a primary responsibility to address nuclear threats, and that all situations of non-compliance with nuclear treaties should be brought to the Security Council's attention.
The resolution says that its main aim is, eventually, "to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons". When former U.S. President Ronald Reagan said this to Mikhail Gorbachev at a summit meeting in Iceland, many thought he had misspoken -- or that he had lost it.
A world without nuclear weapons -- this would be a total reversal of the doctrine of mutually-assured destruction (MAD) that is believed to have kept the Cold War from developing into a very hot one.
None of the five nuclear powers is really ready to give up their nuclear weapons, at least not now, though they did agreed to do so when they accepted the grand bargain laid out in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
With this new UN Security Council resolution, the nuclear powers can at least pretend that they intend to carry out their obligation for eventual disarmament, someday.
The resolution also notes, among other things, that "enjoyment of the benefits of the NPT by a State Party can be assured only by its compliance with the obligations thereunder". That is a nice, consensus phrase — and one directed specifically at Iran, which is claiming the right to a full enrichment cycle of uranium for nuclear fuel, but which is accused of not having reported the development of its program in a timely manner.
Resolution 1887, adopted Thursday, "Calls upon all States that are not Parties to the NPT to accede to the Treaty as non-nuclear-weapon States so as to achieve its universality at an early date, and pending their accession to the Treaty, to adhere to its terms". Israel is one of the countries most affected by this clause — as are also India and Pakistan (and apparently also now North Korea). These are countries which were regarded as "threshhold" countries when the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) was adopted in 1967, but which have since reportedly become nuclear weapons states (though Israel maintains its policy of "nuclear ambiguity").
The only states recognized as official nuclear powers by the NPT are the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council — but this is just the purest coincidence, according to some of these council members.
Most of these former-threshhold states are not likely to be happy at the prospect that they can only join the NPT as non-nuclear-weapons states.
In any case, it was a rare UN Security Council summit, with 14 of the 15 UN Security Council members represented by their Heads of State and/or Government — and only Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi was absent (though he addressed the UN General Assembly in New York earlier this week, and Libya is currently one of the non-permanent members of the UNSC).
Instead, this SC meeting was addressed by Libya's UN ambassador, Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgam, who told the meeting that Israel's nuclear sites should be subject to international oversight, or "Otherwise, all the states of the Middle East will say, `We have a right to develop nuclear weapons. Why Israel alone?'."
Last week, members of the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna adopted a resolution expressing concern about Israel´s nuclear weapons. It was a surprising victory. The adopted text, sponsored by Arab countries, was opposed by 45 countries including European Union members and the United States – but it was supported by 49 other countries, including Russia and China, It also called on Israel to accede to the Nuclear Non- proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to put its entire nuclear program under IAEA inspections. The resolution was proposed to counter an Iranian draft which targeted Israel when it called for a ban on attacking nuclear installations.
A group of countries including Western Europeans and the U.S. are due to meet again on 1 October with an Iranian delegation in Geneva, Switzerland for "Geneva Talks Two", a continuation of a day-long meeting held in Geneva in July 2008.
Israel has not ratified the NPT, and thus cannot be accused of having violated its provisions. John Bolton, when he was in charge of disarmament matters for the American State Department, said once in Geneva when pressed by a journalist that, yes, the U.S. does believe Israel should join the NPT -- but eventually, in the far distant future. Another American official later added that Israel would have to join as a "non-nuclear-weapon State".
This would be consistent with the position of the declared nuclear weapons powers after India announced it was a nuclear weapons power in 1998. This position would not, apparently, mean that any former "threshhold" states who become nuclear weapons powers would have to eliminate their arsenals, but rather that they would not be allowed to assume the title (or perquisites) of nuclear weapons powers – and could not claim permanent seats with the right of veto on the UN Security Council.
When India announced it was a nuclear weapons power, in a statement to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, after conducting successful tests in 1998, the British representative immediately rejected this self-designation, arguing that India was not recognized as a nuclear power in the NPT itself, in 1967. There was no further public mention of the matter. (Pakistan did not make such a claim, when it immediately matched the Indian achievement.)
This new UN Security Council Resolution was promoted by the U.S., and adopted in a UNSC meeting chaired by the President of the U.S., which calls for all states to "sign and ratify" the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), "thereby bringing the treaty into force at an early date". The CTBT was, in fact, promoted by the U.S., and which then-U.S. President Bill Clinton did sign in 1996 (after the text of the treaty was finally agreed in international negotiations in which the U.S. actively participate) did not even try to take to the U.S. Congress for approval in 1999, because Republican opposition to curbs they said would be imposed on U.S. sovereignty so clearly indicated that the move would have been defeated.
This resolution also calls for the negotiation of a treaty limiting the production of fissile material -- this has been the chief U.S. goal in the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament for years, but it has been held up because the U.S. has not agreed to deal with China's main concern, which is the prevention of an arms-race in outer-space. The Conference on Disarmament works on consensus, and China's position has been backed by Russia.
Other countries have also objected to other aspects of this proposal, including the fact that the proposed new Fissile Ban treaty would only limit future production of the fissile material needed to make nuclear explosions -- meaning that the big and powerful countries would be able to keep the large stockpiles they already have of fissile material. This, however, would leave all the other countries as fissile material "have-nots" (just as with nuclear weapons themselves).
This is the same problem that some former "threshhold" countries who have since become self-declared nuclear weapons states, as India did in 1998, have with the NPT itself – they object because it creates a special class of nuclear "haves", and they say this discriminates against the "have-nots".
The full text of the new UNSC Resolution 1887 (including all of its many preambular paragraphs), can be read in full here.
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