Does the Conference of Disarmament Have a Future?

ABSTRACT

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) has been in a prolonged state of paralysis. Since its negotiation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, it has not produced any other agreement and has been unable even to agree on a Programme of Work. The dysfunction of the CD has been a product of its extreme version of the consensus rule for decision-making and a counter-productive dynamic among its 65 member states that privileges national preference over the collective good that compromise could yield. The bankruptcy of the CD erodes the credibility of the multilateral disarmament enterprise as does the complicity of its members in perpetuating a diplomatic charade. Moving its core issues out of the CD and into negotiating forums not vulnerable to a de facto “veto” provides an escape route for those states genuinely interested in making progress. Without the political will to engage in creative diplomacy to break out of the CD’s straitjacket, the outlook for the future of the UN’s “single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum” looks bleak.

KEYWORDS:

• Conference on disarmament
• disarmament diplomacy
• UN General Assembly
• multilateral disarmament
• nuclear disarmament
• fissile material production ban

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Notes

¹ “Principles and Objective for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament” Decision 2, NPT Review and Extension Conference, 1995.

² CD/2187/Add.1 conveying text of Note Verbale of 13 February 2020; 8 April 2020.

³ Report of the CD to the UN General Assembly, A/75/27, 30 September 2020, 7.

⁴ CD/2189 conveying text of a Note Verbale of 27 April 2020; 7 May 2020.

⁵ CD/2119 of 16 February 2018. It has been pointed out to the author that this Programme of Work while delayed was eventually implemented in part in the summer of 2018 (CD/2126). The Programme of Work adopted on 29 May 2009 (CD/1864) the implementation of which was blocked by Pakistan is the better example of obstruction.

⁶ Message of Secretary General Guterres to the CD 20 January 2020, CD/PV 1525.

⁷ Statement to the Conference on Disarmament by Ms. Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, 12 September 2017, 5.

⁸ Statement to the Conference on Disarmament by Ms. Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, 12 September 2017, 6.

⁹ Statement to the Conference on Disarmament by Ms. Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, 12 September 2017, 7.

¹⁰ “Initiating work on priority disarmament and non-proliferation issues,” Draft resolution for 60^th session of UNGA, https://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/1com/1com05/documents/draftelementsinitiating.pdf, and associated Explanatory Note, https://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/1com/1com05/documents/explanatorynoteinitiating.pdf. Commentary on the initiative appears in the First Committee Monitor, First Edition, 3–7 October 2005, 4–5.

¹¹ “Back to Basics – the Programme of Work” working paper submitted by the Delegation of the Netherlands, CD/2165, 8 August 2019.

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Notes on contributors

Paul Meyer

Paul Meyer is a Fellow in International Security and an Adjunct Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver (since 2011). Previously, he had a 35-year career with the Canadian Foreign Service, including serving as Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations and to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva (2003–2007). He is the current Chair of the Canadian Pugwash Group. He teaches a course on diplomacy at SFU and writes on issues of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, space security and international cyber security.