Guy Wilson-Roberts: Diplomatic hurdles for campaign against N-weapons

COMMENT

Even with their noted absence in Iraq, and lingering suspicions around uranium enrichment in Iran, nuclear weapons are not hard to find in the Middle East.

Israel has for several decades possessed an arsenal estimated at 100 to 200 warheads. Not too far away, Pakistan has about 24 to 48 warheads, and neighbouring India has about 30 to 35. India's neighbour, China, has an arsenal estimated to number more than 400.

And so it goes on, with Britain and France having 200 and 350 nuclear warheads respectively. Despite the (actually rather toothless) Moscow Treaty, the United States and Russia will continue to deploy several thousand strategic nuclear warheads for the next decade, as well as retaining sizeable reserve stockpiles.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) commits five of these nuclear weapon states (the US, Russia, Britain, France and China) to dismantle their nuclear arsenals. In return, other signatories have agreed not to develop their own nuclear arsenals.

The treaty will be reviewed at a major conference next year. The issue of how to deal with Israel, India and Pakistan remains one of the challenges.

The other is how to hold the five nuclear-weapon state signatories to their disarmament commitment.

To pressure these states towards that commitment, New Zealand is a member of the New Agenda Coalition.

The coalition, which includes Brazil, Mexico, Ireland, South Africa and Sweden, emphasises that all states should meet their commitments under the treaty, including nuclear disarmament by the nuclear-weapon states.

The entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to ban all nuclear tests is regarded by the coalition as a matter of priority.

The coalition is particularly active at the meeting of the United Nations First Committee, which is under way at the UN in New York and finishes next month. The First Committee is an opportunity for all UN states to introduce resolutions calling for arms control and disarmament measures.

The coalition's resolution is typically moderate, but will be subject to scrutiny from both sides of the debate.

This year, New Zealand and the coalition face two challenges. The first is that the nuclear-weapon states, particularly the US, are likely to have little time for a nuclear-disarmament resolution.

The focus of the US is increasingly on counter-proliferation strategies, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative for intercepting nuclear cargoes at sea (which New Zealand has endorsed). The diplomatic route is increasingly being abandoned for a mix of unilateral and, where possible, multilateral direct-action initiatives.

With North Korea the focus of counter-proliferation strategies, and Iran's uranium enrichment threatening to resurface as a major issue, the US will be in no mood to make concessions, even diplomatic, on its nuclear strategies.

Nuclear weapons remain a central part of US security policies. This lead will likely be followed by the other four official nuclear-weapon states (and Russia and China remain wary of US nuclear and missile defence intentions), and will be an important marker for the issues at next year's non-proliferation treaty review conference.

The second challenge is within the New Agenda Coalition itself. Diplomatically like-minded on nuclear issues, the group does not, however, include any of New Zealand's traditional defence and security partners.

It is one of those curious aspects of diplomacy where New Zealand can, on the one hand, be linked to defence relationships that include the US, Britain, Canada and Australia, and have deployed military forces with these countries in Afghanistan and Iraq, and, on the other hand, form a disarmament bloc with the disparate New Agenda states.

To make matters more interesting, one of the coalition members, Brazil, has been embroiled in controversy with the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency over its refusal to sign the Additional Protocol to the non-proliferation treaty.

The protocol imposes stricter inspection provisions on nuclear facilities, and Iran's recent signature has helped to allay international suspicions about its uranium enrichment programme.

No one suspects Brazil of a clandestine nuclear-weapon programme. But this controversy, although highly technical in the actual detail of Brazil's concerns around its own enrichment facilities, does undermine its nuclear-disarmament credentials.

Perhaps significantly, the New Agenda Coalition media statement before the First Committee meeting made no mention of the Additional Protocol, which is widely seen as an important means of strengthening the verification of nuclear non-proliferation.

New Zealand's statement to the plenary of the First Committee mentions only "verification provisions that are as strong as necessary".

A call for all non-proliferation treaty members to sign up to the protocol was part of the coalition's resolution last year.

For New Zealand, therefore, the diplomatic challenges for nuclear disarmament are two-fold.

Finding the nuclear weapons is straightforward.

Finding agreement on what to do about them is the challenge, given the intransigence of the nuclear-weapon states.

Even among New Zealand's supposedly like-minded supporters there are differences. The challenge for New Zealand is to reconcile these differences and achieve meaningful progress on nuclear disarmament.

An outstanding question, though, is whether the New Agenda Coalition can stay relevant in a changing diplomatic and security context. New Zealand may find that its interests are better served elsewhere.

* Dr Guy Wilson-Roberts, formerly the deputy director of Victoria University's Centre for Strategic Studies, is writing a book on New Zealand's disarmament diplomacy.