Disarmament Insight

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Consensus rules the Arms Trade Treaty. Or does it?
2009-11-10 17:00:00
The recent adoption of a United Nations resolution to produce legally binding international standards for the transfer of conventional arms is a real boost to the cause of international peace and security. Overwhelming support in the First Committee of the UN General Assembly for the negotiation of these new rules has set the scene for a series of preparatory meetings leading to the convening in 2012 of the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty. This is an important development on at least three levels. First, it surely reflects the international community?s new-found urgency for pursuing arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation initiatives. It follows hard on the heels of the Cluster Munitions Convention adopted in 2008. Russia and the United States in the meantime are negotiating radical cuts to their nuclear arsenals. Efforts are intensifying to resolve long-standing nuclear weapons differences with Iran and North Korea. Nations of Africa have just brought...
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Disarmament Insight: Just popped out ...
2009-10-30 09:51:00
In March 2007, along with Patrick Mc Carthy from the Geneva Forum, I started the Disarmament Insight blog to help communicate the findings of UNIDIR's project on Disarmament as Humanitarian Action: Making Multilateral Negotiations work (DHA). At that time, I think none of us involved envisaged that more than two-and-a-half years later the blog would still be running, or that it would have covered the myriad of subjects it has - from the Conference on Disarmament to the cognitive constraints on negotiators, from export controls to explosive violence, nuclear disarmament to negotiation theory - in hundreds of posts from dozens of contributors. During that time we've witnessed an almost-complete turn-over of core contributors, with Patrick having shifted to UNDP and Maya Brehm on board at UNIDIR.Along the way, the blog became one respected source of news and analysis on international efforts to address the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions, in particular. This emphasis on clu...
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Cluster munitions: eradicating a deadly legacy
2009-10-21 09:09:00
Later today, the United Nations is hosting its second Special Event on the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) at its Headquarters in New York. Apparently, the event is being webcast in real time (at www.conflictvoice.org) from around 13h15 New York time. The UN envisages the event, like last year's, to be an opportunity for States to come and sign and ratify the CCM, as well as express support for Lao PDR, which has agreed to host the First Meeting of States Parties of the CCM. In view of the swift rate of accession to the treaty, this First Meeting of States Parties is expected to be held sometime in 2010. (Article 17 of the CCM states that it "shall enter into force on the first day of the sixth month after the month in which the thirtieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession has been deposited.") Already, 100 governments have signed the CCM and 23 have acceded to it, bringing the treaty within seven ratifications of the golden thirty. This is good g...

The Conference on Disarmament: Getting Underway in 2010
2009-10-14 17:13:00
On 29 May the Conference on Disarmament (CD) adopted its programme of work for 2009 after a 10-year gestation period (as recorded on this site on 18 June). That heady moment of four months ago is not easily forgotten despite the ensuing anti-climax.The work programme (CD/1864) wasn?t, it turned out, quite still-born. But unfortunately it expired when the CD?s annual session came to an end in mid-September. ?Expired? might be too strong a word to describe the fate of the decision. It certainly lay dormant on the table while CD Members sought to give it life by agreeing on the seven individuals who would co-ordinate work on seven major issues and on a timetable that would fairly reflect the hierarchy of treatment accorded to those issues in the programme of work. Their efforts, however, were in vain. But this outcome need not mean that CD/1864 has entirely expired.There is no disputing that agreeing the work programme is an annual event. (What is actually contemplated by the term ?pro...

Unacceptable harm: Nearing the end of a long run ?
2009-07-30 13:37:00
As many of this blog?s readers know, I?ve been researching and writing a history of international efforts to address the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions as part of a project commencing at UNIDIR in March 2008 funded by the Government of Norway.I?m pleased to say that the total book manuscript of Unacceptable Harm: A history of how the treaty banning cluster munitions was won is now done, and is in the hands of UNIDIR?s copy editor.Writing a manuscript of 140,000 or more words is not something I?ve done before, and as I mentioned in April (as I was plodding along the long, uphill straight of drafting the book?s eleven chapters), running it can be a bit of a difficult, lonely business:?It?s quite tricky psychologically to keep myself properly motivated and I, for one, tend to get depressed easily about my lack of pace, especially as deadlines begin to loom. All of this, of course, against the backdrop of story of how cluster bombs were banned that?s complicated, fascinating...
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A world without nuclear weapons is vital
2009-07-24 14:44:00
The video embedded above was submitted to us by WPSU/Penn State Public Broadcasting. In the video, Ambassador Richard Butler, former Australian Ambassador to the United Nations, Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), Chairman of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons , and currently distinguished scholar for international peace and security at Penn State School of International Affairs speaks about nuclear arms control and disarmament.Below are some extracts:?What exists today and is on high alert is 100'000 times stronger than Hiroshima!? ?We are at a critical point (...) where the possession of nuclear weapons is starting to expand. And I think that's truly serious.? ?They (nuclear weapons) are not just a bigger pop-gun. They are qualitatively different because of the radiation they produce and because of the extent of the damage they produce and because it takes years for any agricultural community to recover.? ?We know ex...
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The Proverbial Reset Button: Was It Pressed or Stroked in Moscow?
2009-07-16 15:50:00
Normal.dotm 0 0 1 2012 10262 UNIDIR 148 9 14085 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} In February, when U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said that ?it?s time to press the reset button? on U.S. relations with Russia he could not have imagined wh...
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War crimes: providing the means
2009-07-10 16:50:00
?People or companies that conduct (international) trade... in weapons or raw materials used for their production, should be warned that ? if they do not exercise increased vigilance ? they can become involved in most serious criminal offences. It should be made clear to them that they will face prosecution and long-term prison sentences...?Court of Appeal The Hague, Judgment, 9 May 2007 Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands upheld the conviction of a Dutch businessman, Frans van Anraat, for being an accessory to war crimes committed by the Iraqi regime in the 1980s. It thereby confirmed in most regards a 2007 judgment by the Court of Appeal in The Hague, which had found Van Anraat guilty of being an accessory to a violation of the laws and customs of war for having 'intentionally provided the opportunity and means' for attacks with mustard gas carried out in 1987 and 1988. Between 1980 and 1988, Van Anraat had supplied Saddam Hussein 's regime with at least 1...
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Warfare: the victims? perspective
2009-07-01 19:53:00
Solferino, 24 June, 1859 : A tiny village in undulating countryside, just south of Lake Garda. Close by, a swirling, intense territorial battle involving troops from Piedmont, Sardinia and France confronting Austria?s army. Ten hours of volleys of cannon fire, cavalry charges and hand-to-hand fighting among almost 250,000 soldiers. The aftermath ? more than one-tenth of them dead or wounded.This bloody event one hundred and fifty years ago has had many consequences. In territorial terms, the Franco-Sardinian victory paved the way for Italian unity and for defining Italy?s northern frontiers from east to west.In humanitarian terms, the conflict has similarly had a profound and enduring impact. A witness to the distress of the wounded arriving in great numbers in the neighboring village of Castiglione delle Stiviere, was Henry Dunant. Appalled by the lack of medical facilities and relief for the wounded, this Swiss entrepreneur (who was in the area on business) rallied support for...
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Protecting civilians from explosive violence: time for states to raise thei
2009-06-22 12:36:00
Last week the United Nations Secretary-General submitted his annual report to the Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict. The language of the report represents something of a break-though of a sort that's pleasing to see from the editorial perspective of this blog. Hopefully now states will also begin to make their voices heard in supporting the Protection of Civilians report's content both in the Security Council chamber and in elsewhere.The Secretary-General's report observed that the "choice of weapons is critical in minimizing and reducing the impacts of hostilities on civilians". While this might sound obvious, it's worth noting that heavy weapons such as artillery and rockets were nevertheless used in populated areas in conflicts in recent months such as Gaza and in Sri Lanka, something the report also commented on in its paragraph 36:"As demonstrated by this year?s hostilities in Sri Lanka and Israel?s campaign in Gaza, the use in densely popul...
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The CD lives again, but let history not repeat itself !
2009-06-18 09:47:00
29 May 2009 was a red-letter day in the Conference on Disarmament. The Conference has secured a new lease of life. Its future must be informed by its past.Just over 30 years ago, the UN General Assembly held a special session devoted to disarmament. It saw the need for a ?single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum of limited size taking decisions on the basis of consensus?, i.e., without voting. This Geneva-based body became the Conference on Disarmament (CD) comprised now of 65 states.Important treaties emerged from the CD, culminating in the Comprehensive Test Ban agreement in 1996. Since then, the CD has failed to agree ? with one exception ? even on a mandate to negotiate a treaty, let alone a treaty itself. Meanwhile several disarmament treaties have emerged from processes other than the CD. Conventions banning anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions were agreed in negotiations that were purposely conducted by like-minded states outside of another consensus-observ...
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The tip of the iceberg
2009-06-10 12:08:00
As regular readers of the blog may have gathered, I've been working this year on a history of international efforts to address the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions.This history, to be published before the end of the year, focuses in particular on the Oslo process, which culminated in a Convention on Cluster Munitions in negotiations in Dublin in May 2008. But it also casts an eye much further back to the origins of international cluster munition work, which date from the Swiss Diplomatic Conferences in the 1970s and proposals there by Sweden and others to prohibit "cluster warheads".Chronologically speaking, the Oslo process, which ran for approximately 15 months from February 2007 until the end of May 2008, was just the tip of the iceberg. There was a lot more under the surface. Concerns had been raised about the hazards cluster munitions pose to civilians both at time of use and post-conflict for many, many years by governments and NGOs. My impression is that this isn't...

On this day?change can happen !
2009-05-29 18:44:00
29 May is a memorable date indeed. On this day, in 1953, two men for the first time reached the summit of Mount Everest and conquered the top of the World. Similar feelings of exhilaration and relief (and also of exhaustion) prevailed on that same day, in 2008, when 107 States adopted the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in Dublin ? a treaty that outlaws virtually all cluster munitions that have been used to date, provides for assistance to victims, the clearance of contaminated land, and the destruction of existing stockpiles.Today?s launch of the report ?Banning Cluster Munitions ? Government Policy and Practice? marks the first anniversary of the CCM?s adoption and the beginning of the Global Week of Action on Cluster munitions. The 288 pages long report was written by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in partnership with Landmine Action and produced by Landmine Monitor. Compiled in record time, the report gives an introduction to cluster munitions, the ?Oslo Process on Cluster Munit...
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Can the nuclear Siamese twins be separated?
2009-05-20 13:41:00
"Atoms for peace and atoms for war are Siamese twins."- Hannes Alfvén, Swedish physicist and Nobel laureateFrom the very outset of the nuclear age, the challenge has been to facilitate the civilian use of nuclear energy while curbing nuclear weapons. But, as Robert Oppenheimer once observed, ?the close technical parallelism and interrelation of the peaceful and the military applications of atomic energy? make countering nuclear proliferation an especially difficult task. At the heart of the problem is a large overlap between civilian and military applications of nuclear energy, which both depend essentially on the same key ingredient: fissile material.Today the world faces the prospect of a nuclear ?renaissance? ? a potential expansion in the use of nuclear energy worldwide. Energy supply is a critical economic, national security, and environmental issue for our planet and nuclear energy could be a vital part of the energy mix providing energy in quantities needed to decrease our de...
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Not so apocalyptic
2009-05-14 10:09:00
'Where's Obama when you need him?'It's hard not to feel a little bit like Cinderella at the moment as I plug away on completing a manuscript of a history of the Oslo process on cluster munitions, which is due to be published later this year by the United Nations. As I stare bleary-eyed and punch drunk at my computer screen, interesting developments for disarmament are happening on a couple of different fronts, one being the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).Since he assumed office, there has been great optimism among many pundits (and a certain amount of dismay among some of the conservative Gaffney-types) that U.S. President Barack Obama would assume a much greater leadership role than the previous Bush administration on efforts at the multilateral level toward nuclear disarmament.Obama seems to have become president in the middle of something of a 'perfect storm' - with a global financial crisis (including the near bankruptcy of huge American carmakers GM and Chrysler)...

Why we need games that aim to build peace
2009-05-06 10:07:00
Since the tragic school shooting in the German town Winnenden in March this year, computer war games have again been a frequent item on the Swiss news; some cantons are now considering whether to ban or regulate so-called ?killer games? that reward cruel violence against humans. This got me thinking about what I associated with the ?good? aspects of war games ? the challenge of thinking strategically. While I grew up with games of chess and risk, I imagine that thousands of keen minds are calculating their next moves in complex interactive computer war games as I write. Thousands more will be addressing domestic ?governance? dilemmas in games like Civilization or SimCity. I don?t, however, think that many are engaged in virtually building peace after war. Although the use of the information and communications technology for peace (ICT4peace) has been well documented, and is the subject of a new blog, I have not found examples of games that simulate peacebuilding or post-conflict sta...
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What could the CCW do about improvised explosive devices?
2009-04-29 19:21:00
If there is a weapon that reflects our times, it is the improvised explosive device (IED). These weapons come in myriad forms? whether it's the suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest approaching a checkpoint in Afghanistan, the command-detonated roadside bombs encountered by troops in Iraq or, indeed, the seizure of passenger planes in mid-air by hijackers to be used as flying bombs ? as occurred on 911.Most often on this blog, when we?ve provided commentary on the work of the UN Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) it?s been with reference to its Group of Government Experts? efforts on cluster munitions. However, the CCW is a framework treaty that contains five protocols, two of which ? Amended Protocol II on mines and booby traps, and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war ? have active sub-processes of their own.Last week, in a discussion facilitated by the Swiss, states party to Amended Protocol II began a discussion about IEDs. Presenting were Chris Clark from the UN Mi...
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A corrupt trade
2009-04-23 14:07:00
Yesterday, South Africans headed to the polls to elect their national and provincial leaders in the fourth democratic elections since the end of Apartheid. In spite of bad weather conditions and various other difficulties that have beleaguered these elections, the leader of the African National Congress (ANC), Jakob Zuma is widely expected to take over as South Africa?s next President.Until recently, Zuma faced charges of corruption relating to a massive arms deal signed in 1999 to modernize the South African defence force. The procurement package comprised the acquisition of aircraft, helicopters, submarines and ships at a cost of 29 billion Rand (then 4.8 billion USD). Evidence supporting allegations that Zuma had accepted bribes came to light in 2005 during the trial of his former financial advisor Shabir Shaik, who was convicted for his role in the deal. But earlier this month, the National Prosecuting Authority dropped the charges against Zuma on procedural grounds.Zuma is by ...
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CCW cluster munitions: work without end ...
2009-04-17 18:58:00
As suggested in my preceding post, although this was the last formal week of time allocated in 2009 for negotiating a proposal for a protocol on cluster munitions in the UN?s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)?s expert group (which had already missed its end of 2008 deadline and awarded itself two more sessions, of which this week?s was the second), its Chair came up with an effective fudge today to allow efforts to continue.Basically, the group?s Chair, Mr. Ainchil of Argentina, told delegates that he would need more time: he would write to government shortly, he said. The upshot is that the Chair intends to hold ?informal consultations? later in the year ? tentatively scheduled for the week of 17 to 21 August in Geneva.The Chair then opened the floor and the Czech Republic (as European Union President), Brazil, Croatia, Japan, Canada, France, Austria, India, China, Ukraine, Switzerland, the United States, Norway, Germany, Russia, Israel, Turkey, Ecuador, Republic of ...
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CCW: Still searching in the undergrowth
2009-04-14 16:00:00
The UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)?s Group of Governmental Experts began a four-day meeting today, the latest ? and perhaps the last ? in its efforts to negotiate a protocol on cluster munitions.When the last CCW Meeting of States Parties wrapped up late last year it had not been able to produce an agreement. Two-third of the CCW?s membership were about to sign the new Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in Oslo, and concerns were widespread and deeply felt that the CCW product being touted by Denmark, the GGE?s Chair at the time, would deliver too little humanitarian benefit, and would conflict with the CCM?s obligations to ban the weapon and help victims. They dug in, much to the chagrin of CCW members shunning the CCM and unhappy at being depicted as international bad guys in the media and by civil society.So, the compromise achieved was for two more short GGE sessions in early 2009 to see what could be salvaged. Argentina took over from Denmark as GGE Chai...
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What I talk about when I write about cluster bombs
2009-04-02 10:10:00
As the world financial crisis deepens and the G-20 meet in London (and as anarchist protesters angle for a bit of argey-bargey with London?s bobbies) it was at least a lovely spring day in Geneva yesterday.It found me holed up in my apartment fighting spring hay fever and roughly halfway through researching and writing a history of efforts to address the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions to be published by the United Nations later this year. The history looks at the earliest efforts to place restrictions on the weapon in the 1970s, as well as the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapon process?s subsequent attempts to engage with addressing the proven hazards of cluster munitions to civilians. But the book?s main focus is on why and how the Oslo process unfolded (which regular readers of this blog will know I?ve followed since its origins) and what some of its lessons might be.I find writing a rewarding but lonely and difficult business. It?s quite tricky psychologicall...
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A step towards a U.S. cluster munitions ban?
2009-03-26 16:15:00
On March 11, U.S. President Obama signed the Omnibus Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2009. Some have called this piece of legislation a ?major turnaround in U.S. arms policy?. It contains the following passage: No military assistance shall be furnished for cluster munitions, no defense export license for cluster munitions may be issued, and no cluster munitions or cluster munitions technology shall be sold or transferred, unless(1) the submunitions of the cluster munitions have a 99 percent or higher functioningrate; and(2) the agreement applicable to the assistance, transfer, or sale of the cluster munitions or cluster munitions technology specifies that the cluster munitions will only be used against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present.A similar restriction on the export of cluster munitions was first introduced in the 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act in December 2007. Compared to the 2008 Act, this year?s law repres...

CCM: Positive developments
2009-03-20 09:23:00
Earlier this week, the Lao People's Democratic Republic ratified the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) at a special event in New York at United Nations Headquarters.Lao PDR?s accession to the CCM is significant not least because this South East Asian nation is the most heavily affected country in the world from unexploded submunitions due to a secret American bombing campaign in the 1960s and 1970s that pulverised entire areas of the country such as the Plain of Jars. A generation on, and Lao PDR?s people ? the majority of them not even born during the bombing period ? are saddled with a deadly legacy of unexploded ?bombies? (submunitions) in their fields, rivers and woods that threaten livelihoods and their very lives.The figures are staggering. Lao PDR?s National Unexploded Ordnance Programme believes that, even under ideal firing conditions, at least 30 percent of the more than 260 million submunitions dropped on the country during the Indochina War would have failed to...

WOT R U DU-ING? Primates on Facebook (and in disarmament negotiations)
2009-03-11 10:25:00
"Have opposable thumb - will Twitter."The Economist ran an interesting article in late February concerning the British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar's hypothesis about primate neocortex size and Facebook .Dunbar's hypothesis years ago was that?the cognitive power of the brain limits the size of the social network that an individual of any given species can develop. Extrapolating from the brain sizes and social networks of apes, Dr Dunbar suggested that the size of the human brain allows stable networks of about 148. Rounded to 150, this has become famous as ?the Dunbar number?. Many institutions, from neolithic villages to the maniples of the Roman army, seem to be organised around the Dunbar number. Because everybody knows everybody else, such groups can run with a minimum of bureaucracy.?Dunbar?s hypothesis is not without its critics, including among other anthropologists. But recently The Economist teamed up with the in-house sociologist at social net...

Guns at the ballot box
2009-03-05 09:31:00
Since many of our regular readers belong to what?s referred here as the ?Geneva disarmament community?, it might be of interest to have a brief look at what their Swiss hosts have recently been up to on the weapons regulation front.As many who live in Switzerland are aware, Swiss citizens enjoy the right to ?popular initiative?; that is, they can propose a change to the federal constitution and submit it to a nation-wide vote, provided they manage to collect 100?000 voter signatures within 18 months in support of the initiative.One such popular initiative recently managed to gather the required number of signatures and even made it into the foreign press.The initiative for the ?protection against gun violence? proposes stricter regulation in Swiss law of the private use, acquisition and carrying of weapons and munitions. It would require legislators to specify the licensing requirements for hunters, collectors, sportsmen and other professionals who wish to possess weapons, and calls...
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Biden?s speech in Munich: ?Press the reset button?, and then what?
2009-02-26 11:06:00
From 6 to 8 February 2009, more than a dozen heads of state or government, ministers and scores of international experts met for the 45th Munich Security Conference in Germany. There, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden presented a much-anticipated indication of America?s foreign policy under President Barack Obama ?s new administration.As Russia n officials hope that U.S.-Russian relations will improve under Obama?s presidency, the Biden speech would have been keenly examined in Moscow. So what signals did the U.S. Vice President send to Russia from Munich? Actually, nothing very reassuring.It seems that Vice President Biden in Munich was purposefully vague on many important international issues. His speech contained many hints and some colourful but not too meaningful rhetoric, like this now famous line:it?s time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia.If only world matters were as easy to reset as a personal computer...
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CCW: The Sounds of Science...
2009-02-23 14:31:00
"Now here we go dropping science, dropping it all overLike bumping around the town, like when you're driving a Range RoverExpanding the horizons and expanding the parametersExpanding the rhymes of sucker MC amateurs"Naugels, Isaac Newton, Scientific EZBen Franklin with the kite, getting over with the keyNow rock shocking the mic, of the many times times the times tablesRock well to tell dispel all of the old fables"- Beastie Boys, Sounds of Science "Last week I postulated Borrie's third law of CCW diplomacy (I'll tell you about the others some time - but it will cost brave readers at least a drink, and perhaps some sanity). The hypothetical law states that the CCW process will expand to fill all available time, and is based on my empirical observations of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons process over a long period - especially when the CCW is held over a steady flame and shaken, for example by proximate precipitation of a weapons ban treaty like a Convention on Cl...

Look into my eyes: CCW and the kinetic theory of gases
2009-02-19 10:31:00
In my preceding post, I posed the question: has anything really changed since last year's difficulties in the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)'s efforts to negotiate a protocol on cluster munitions in the wake of agreement by 107 states in Dublin in May on a Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) that comprehensively prohibits the weapon?As the CCW Group of Governmental Experts meeting this week approaches its end, the answer looks like 'No'. As foreshadowed, the incoming GGE Chair, Argentina, has focused his efforts on informal consultations at the bilateral and small group level, and there have been few meetings in Plenary, except for an hour on Monday morning and a few minutes yesterday. In each case Argentina distributed "elements for discussion papers". Monday's paper contained textual options on general "prohibitions and restrictions" for a putative agreement, "storage / and destruction" and "transfers". On Wednesday morning the Chair's second discussi...
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CCW: From pause to play?
2009-02-12 16:33:00
Next week, the big bag of diplomatic hurt the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) process on cluster munitions seems to have become will resume again in Geneva, for the first of what might be two sessions to see if something can be salvaged from last year's fraught efforts to "negotiate a proposal" on restrictions or prohibitions on the weapon.At the end of 2008, Argentina bravely stepped up to the plate to chair the CCW's Group of Governmental Expert (GGE) sessions in February and (optionally) April 2009, and to try to fashion a consensus in that timeframe. This week, the incoming Argentinian Chair, Mr. Gustavo Ainchil, shared his views in consultations with states and others here in Geneva about how he intends to proceed.In sum:- Next week's agenda remains the same as the previous Group of Governmental Experts' meeting in November 2008;- The Friends of the Chair (FoC) on various issues have been re-confirmed in their roles for next week's session, although the...
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Ripples from Dublin
2008-06-05 21:08:00
It was a bit of an anti-climax coming back to Geneva following the historic breakthrough in Dublin last week that led to the adoption by 111 States of a new, legally-binding Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). (This will be opened for signature in Oslo in December and will enter into force as soon as 30 States have ratified it).After the suspense, drama, emotions and celebrations of Dublin, getting back to ?business as usual? in Geneva has not been easy. Not that most Geneva-based disarmament diplomats have had any choice in the matter: On Monday morning it was straight into a week of meetings of the Standing Committees of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. After two weeks of intense negotiations on cluster munitions, a further week of implementation discussions on landmines would not seem to me to be the ideal way to wind down. But the disarmament calendar has no mercy this year it seems.The Conference on Disarmament (CD) also continues to plod along, trying - valiantly but...