Introduction

Abstract

The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), launched by US President Bush in May 2003, is intended to prevent traffic in elements of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Most WMD traffic moves by sea, and the focus of the PSI is on maritime interdictions and seizures. Although the PSI has had some significant successes, it has been criticised for lacking sufficient public accountability, stretching international law to the limits, undermining the UN system, potentially limited effectiveness and being politically divisive. Moreover, Asian countries that are key to PSI's successful implementation – notably China, India, Indonesia and South Korea – have deferred active involvement despite US pressure. Options for increasing PSI participation and enhancing its effectiveness include changes to existing international law; expanding existing conventions or developing a new one; obtaining an unambiguous empowering UN Security Council Resolution; obtaining NATO endorsement; arguing pre-emptive self-defence; and building a coalition of countries willing to perform such interdictions on each other's ships and aircraft on or over their territorial seas. However, each of these options would face obstacles and limitations that must be overcome for the PSI to be fully effective.

Notes

¹ ‘Experts Predict 70pc Likelihood of WMD Attack in Decade’, The Newealand Herald, 23 June 2005.

² ‘Nonproliferation Initiative Talks Being Held in Paris’, http://vilnius.usembassy.gov/pas/hyperFile/evr316.htm

³ Glenn Kessler, ‘North Korea May Have Sent Libya Nuclear Material, U.S. Tells Allies’, Washington Post, 2 February 2005. This allegation may have been false or important information purposefully omitted angering North Korea as well as US allies and casting further doubt on the credibility of US intelligence. Dafna Linzer, ‘U.S. Report Blamed for North Korea Impasse’, Washington Post, 20 March 2005; Jon Wolfsthal, ‘Not So Fast’, Nautilus Institute 10 February 2005.

⁴ ‘Five Nations Mulling Pressure on North Korea: NYT’.english.chosun.com, 11 April 2005, http://English.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200504/200504100010.html. During an apparent stalemate in the talks, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the United States was ‘not wholly dependent on negotiation to get this done’ and pointedly referred to the PSI. Although the Six-Party Talks appear, as this paper goes to press, toas this paper goes to press, to have achieved a breakthrough, the ‘devil is in the details’. The chief US negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hull, stated at the closing plenary of the fourth round of the talks that ‘we should also note on the record that the United States will take concrete actions necessary to protect ourselves and our allies against any illicit and proliferation activities on the part of the DPRK’. This statement raises the interesting question of whether US co-operation or direct involvement in an interdiction of a North Korean vessel under the PSI would constitute an ‘attack’, an action the United States has affirmed, as part of the six-nation joint statement at the close of the fourth round of talks, itit has no intention of taking.

⁵ Mark T. Esper and Charles A. Allen, ‘The PSI: Taking Action Against WMD Proliferation’, The Monitor, vol. 10, no. 1, spring 2004, p. 4.

⁶ Timothy Westmyer, ‘Congress Seeks Nonproliferation Measures’, Arms Control Today; ‘U.S. Wants Greater Co-operation in WMD Interdiction’, Middle East Newsline, 9 March 2005; ‘U.S. Sets New Defense Strategy,’ www.DefenseNews.com, 21 March 2005.

⁷ John Bolton, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, ‘Remarks to the First Anniversary Meeting of the Proliferation Security Initiative’, Krakow, Poland, 31 May 2004, http://www.state.gov/t/us/rm/33046.htm

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ ‘Proliferation Security Initiative Marks Second Anniversary’, www.i-Newswire.com, 1 June 2005; ‘U.S. Intercepts Two Deliveries of Nuclear Material for North Korea’, The Korea Herald, 2 June 2005.

¹⁰ ‘State's Joseph Urges “Diplomacy of Action” Against WMD Threat’, http://usinfo.state.gov/eur/Archive/2005/Aug/17-306543.html

¹¹ ‘US Promotes Arms Interception Efforts Independent of UN’, New York Times, 1 June 2005.

¹² Barry Schweid, ‘Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice Claims Success in Plan to Intercept Weapons Technology’, The Associated Press, 1 June 2005.

¹³ Michael Roston, ‘Polishing Up the Story on the PSI’, The National Interest, 9 June 2004.

¹⁴ Andrew C. Winner, ‘The Proliferation Security Initiative: The New Face of Interdiction’, The Washington Quarterly, spring 2005, pp. 129–143.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark J. Valencia

Mark J. Valencia is a maritime policy analyst with a special interest in Asia.