INTRODUCTION

In examining a future arms control and non-proliferation policy agenda an analysis cannot escape the domination of the existing treaties and their regimes. However, the treaties themselves are prisoners, in important respects, of the time in which they were negotiated. A clear understanding of the constraints of this factor is essential for their successful implementation and enhancing international security. Not only will such an understanding help with existing treaties but also with the negotiation of new ones. A failure to appreciate the limits of treaties—in their political, economic, scientific and technical dimensions—can result in less security rather than more. At its extreme the most dangerous aspect is an almost ideological drive to enforce the implementation or negotiation of a treaty without taking full account of these limits. For example, the possibilities for effective verification of compliance with a treaty depend on the scientific and technical nature of the subject of the treaty. It is easier to verify the presence or absence of a missile with clearly defined characteristics, than to monitor a wide range of activities in, for example, the chemical or biotechnology industry.

SECURITY FIRST

  At the end of the Cold War it seemed that arms control became an unfashionable phrase. In the perception of some it even acquired pejorative overtones. Books and articles appeared with such titles as "House of Cards—Why Arms Control Must Fail"[41] or, perhaps with a title more apt for this conference "Arms Control—What Next?"[42] These authors were rightly challenging the conventional wisdom, but unfortunately some of the Cold War era attitude to treaties still prevails. This is particularly true in the sense of seeing treaties as global instruments at the leading edge of arms reduction or elimination detached from the deep-rooted regional security concerns such as those in the Middle East, South Asia and the Korean peninsula. However, seen overall, the second half of the 1990s, despite setbacks, has seen a revival of arms control in some important respects. This is illustrated by such developments as the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1995 along with its increase in membership and the entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention and its increased number of adherents. There are now 187 States Parties to the Treaty; a greater number than any other security treaty. Also, with the events in South Asia and North Korea, it is easy to overlook the fact that there are now fewer states with active nuclear weapon programmes than at the start of the decade. South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapons in 1993; Argentina and Brazil ended their nuclear weapons and missile programmes by 1992. Russian nuclear weapons, along with their delivery systems, have been removed from Belarus, Kazakstan and Ukraine. These actions were a direct result of cathartic change in their domestic politics and the international security environment. All these countries are now members of the NPT. When arms control regimes are perceived to have failed it can be the result of a failure to appreciate the limits of treaties and their place in international security policy. Some would see the opening for signature of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTB) and the treaty banning anti-personnel land mines as successes—others would point to failure of certain important states not joining these treaties as serious setbacks which undermine the norms set out in these accords.

ARMS CONTROL AND SECURITY POLICY

  In analysing future security policy agenda there is a danger in falling into compartmentalised thinking about the treaties. This is particularly true of the nuclear treaties. A sound analysis must encompass legally and politically binding arrangements, non-proliferation and confidence-building measures. These arrangements might be multilateral, bilateral or unilateral. Limits must be set somewhere thus, for the purpose of my remarks, excluded are policy and plans for war fighting and the destruction of weapons and their production facilities by military action. As always the real world undermines attempts to draw conceptual boundaries in thinking about arms control and security policy. In addition to disarmament of arms limitation by military action and negotiation there is a third means, which is by imposition. The 1919 Versailles treaty is an early 20th century example. A more recent one is the UN Security Council's mandate for the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM), and its successor organisation the UN Monitoring and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to dismantle Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and missile programmes. This task is astride the boundary described above. On the one hand the mandate derives from a cease-fire arrangement imposed on a losing side after a war, on the other hand it deals with breaches of arms control treaty obligations to which Iraq is party. However, this does not undermine the utility of a conceptual boundary. On the contrary, it can enhance understanding by making clear limits of arms control treaties and agreements. It also helps make clear which lessons from Iraq are relevant for arms control and which are not. It is important to take into account activities outside but related to the treaties. For example, the 1994 Framework Agreement involving South Korea, Japan, the European Union and the US is an important part of the process by which North Korea may be brought back into compliance with the NPT. Also, legitimately part of the arms control agenda, is the bilateral leverage exercised very recently by the US in stemming North Korea's long-range missile programme—which, while its relationship to weapons of mass destruction are obvious it is not an activity directly related to a legally-binding treaty regime. In dealing with these difficult cases extra-treaty arrangements, perhaps associated with a regional or bilateral agreement, may be more successful than attempting to modify treaties or working solely through the treaty organisations.

THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION TREATIES

  To expand on the thought that treaties are prisoners of their time a brief examination of the three principal weapons of mass destruction treaties (the Biological Weapons Convention (BWCP), CWC and the NPT) will serve to illustrate this perspective. The discussion is confined to three aspects: political, economic and technical (or scientific). Before doing so a cautionary reminder is necessary that these weapons treaties deal almost entirely with the supply side of the weapons proliferation problem. They take second place to the resolution of the political, ethnic and social conflicts that give rise to weapons of all kinds.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

  The implementation of the NPT has a particular and historical difficulty to overcome in that the treaty recognises five nuclear weapon states, while all other parties undertake not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons. Many non-nuclear weapon states view this as an inequity and seek to redress this through the NPT provisions and the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The compliance monitoring provisions of the NPT are conducted on behalf of the treaty parties by the IAEA through separate bilateral agreements. At least two-thirds of the IAEA's resources are taken up by activities other than compliance monitoring. There are legitimate reasons for this, which flow from its primary purpose in the original mandate to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear energy through technical cooperation and assistance and advice on safety. The safeguards system focuses on materials accounting and does not have a state-to-state challenge inspection provision. The director-General initiates all types of inspection activity. This contrasts sharply with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), in which the implementation organization, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is devoted solely to the treaty and is under the direct control of the member states. Nearly three-quarters of the personnel of the CWC organization, and two-thirds of its financial resources, are devoted to verification of compliance. While the routine inspection system under the CWC is the most costly element, and has some of the drawbacks of the IAEA system, there is a state-to-state challenge inspection provision, which is a valuable deterrent to would-be violators. These stronger compliance provisions could only be negotiated in the immediate post-Cold War political and security environment. With regard to the economic incentives, these do not lie so much within the NPT but more in the IAEA that acts as an agent for the treaty members in operating the safeguards system.

Chemical Weapons Convention

  In the case of the CWC negotiated some 20 years after the NPT, it was possible to incorporate an economic element more directly into the treaty. Members of the CWC are precluded from trading with non-members in certain widely traded chemicals listed in schedules that are an integral part of the treaty. There is a strong economic incentive for states to join the CWC in order not to suffer trading disadvantages by being on the outside of the treaty regime. Unlike the nuclear industry the chemical industry is largely in the private sector and in dollar terms vastly greater and, particularly at the low technology end, involves production in a much greater number of countries.

  While this factor is an incentive for joining the treaty it also represents a verification challenge. The routine inspection system under the CWC can look at only a small fraction of this industry and unless these inspections are targeted to places of particular concern it does not represent a strong deterrent. The targeted part of the verification system, the short notice inspection provisions, which can be initiated by any member state. Also these inspection provisions are an integral part of the treaty and do not require each member state to sign a separate protocol with the treaty organisation, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Biological Weapons Convention

  The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is a stark example of a treaty that sets a global norm banning a weapon as a legal arrangement without verification provisions. After the treaty came into force (in 1975) one of the three depository powers, the Soviet Union, continued an illegal offensive biological weapons programme, even expanding it in the 1980s with the investment of substantial additional resources. The Soviets exploited developments in biotechnology to gain a technical military advantage that they could not achieve in other strategic military capabilities. The United States and the United Kingdom are engaged with Russia, under a trilateral agreement[43], in what has become a protracted confidence-building process to gain assurance that this program has ended. This process involved intrusive visits to biological facilities in Russia and, as part of the bargain, reciprocal visits in the United States and the United Kingdom. While the trilateral process is stalled for the time being it represents a method by which investigations can take place using national resources as opposed to an international organisation.

  Concerns about non-compliance in Russia and elsewhere have led to efforts to negotiate a verification protocol for the BWC, which has been under consideration by parties to the treaty for the past six years. There are particular technical challenges in going beyond a confidence-building measure regime to enhance compliance with the BWC. To stand a chance of being an effective deterrent to cheating, a verification regime would have to be even more demanding than that of the CWC, which is generally recognized to represent the limits of what was politically possible in the political and security environment of the early 1990s. For a determined violator it is possible to hide an offensive programme in a small clandestine facility, or in an otherwise legitimate commercial or academic activity. A routine inspection system would stand little chance of being effective. A challenge inspection system would work only if it were conducted with a strong state-to-state element enabling the use of intelligence resources available from national sources.

  The use of intelligence from national sources, as the recent UNSCOM experience shows, is understandably a particularly sensitive issue in multilateral compliance monitoring activities. Nevertheless, it is an aspect that needs to be dealt with directly and does not apply only in the BWC context. It is hard to see how in the difficult cases where states are determined to avoid their obligations, particularly in areas such as biotechnology that are relatively easy to hide, how multilateral inspection activities can be successful without this kind of assistance. The use of intelligence in multinational verification processes needs to be maintained and careful study is required into how this may be achieved. A dilution of the contribution of intelligence will limit further the role these organisations can play in assuring compliance with treaties. In scientific and economic terms the biotechnology industry has experienced phenomenal growth in the past decade. This rapid growth seems set to continue. The verification protocol under negotiation in Geneva is in danger of being overtaken by events. The industry has spread well beyond the traditional pharmaceutical industry into agriculture, the food industry and may even enter the information technology sector. Billions of dollars and substantial proprietary stakes are involved. A global verification system even with very intrusive rights and a very large inspection organisation would face a daunting task.

ENHANCING SECURITY-REGIONAL APPROACHES

  It is a much easier task to point to the difficulties in the effective implementation of multinational treaties than propose solutions. Beyond the important role of establishing international legal norms there is a limit to what the treaties and their organisations can do. The parties to a treaty are "bound only by ropes of paper" as a distinguished ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament once said. Treaties depend on a confluence of interests between the member states for their implementation and evolution. It is easier, but still often difficult, to achieve such a confluence at the bilateral or regional levels. The major advantage of a regional approach is that it can take place in the context of a security discussion that deals directly with the security concerns of the states involved. It can also help free the treaties from the political and security constraints of the past. This approach can draw on the existing treaties and establish regional compliance and verification systems that could have more intrusive rights and obligations than a global regime. In particular, regional approaches can more easily accommodate national inspectors as do the US-Russia bilateral nuclear agreements such as START I, the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty and a number of confidence-building measure regimes around the world. Regional arrangements can and should be supported by the appropriate treaty organisation if one exists, as is the case with the NPT and CWC. Perhaps, for example, in the case of the Middle East it is not too optimistic to look forward to a revival of the Arms Control and Regional Security Working Group (ACRS). Technological developments will increasingly favour states playing a role with national surveillance means on a more equal basis than in the past at the regional level. In particular the enhanced capabilities of remotely piloted vehicles are likely to be more generally available within the next decade. They will provide an overhead surveillance capability on a par (or perhaps better in terms of response time and in certain weather conditions) with that enjoyed by major powers with satellite capabilities.

  Regional arrangements can be an integral part of either a regional or sub-regional security agreement or a peace settlement, and are not a new idea. Examples include the Multilateral Force Organisation in the Sinai and, more recently, the arms control arrangements under the 1995 Dayton Agreement for Bosnia. The dismantling of weapons of mass destruction programmes and reductions and limits on deployment of conventional weapons are likely to form part of security agreements for the Middle East and the Korean peninsula, in the event of the unification of the two Koreas. In these situations what would be needed is an oversight organisation or commission which integrates all the disarmament and arms limitation activities. The single-issue organisations (such as the IAEA, OPCW and other bodies that in future may be operating under the BWC and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation) should be called upon to support an organisation of this kind as appropriate. Such an organisation could be set up as part of a regional agreement or by the UN Security Council.

  In this regard there are a number of valuable lessons, both political and technical, which should not be lost sight of in the fog of current events. One of the many political lessons is that the task of disarming Iraq of all three weapons of mass destruction, and its missile programmes, was dogged by divided responsibilities between the IAEA and UNSCOM. The recent difficulties with Iraq should not obscure the remarkable achievements by UNSCOM and the IAEA in finding and dismantling major portions of Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and missile programmes by non-military means—although from time to time being backed by the threat, or use of force. The technical lessons from the experience are many and some have already been taken on board, for example, the improved IAEA safeguards (93+2 agreement) have incorporated environmental monitoring procedures. One of the more challenging lessons for standing organisations to deal with is the wide range of up-to-date scientific and technical capabilities required of inspectors in order to uncover a clandestine programme. Some of UNSCOM's more successful biological weapons inspections, included inspectors with a wide range of disciplines such as civil engineering, veterinary science, chemical engineering, medicine and an explosives expertise. This spread of expertise within a single inspection team was not uncommon. It would be too much for an international organisation to be able to keep such a range of expertise, and for it to be up to date, within its permanent staff. At least arrangements should bemade to call on such people when needed. They would have to be designated and declared to the inspecting organisation in advance to make such a system work.

ESCAPING THE PAST

  No treaty can escape the prison of the past entirely. Greater empowerment of and investment in treaty organisations will not necessarily improve the implementation of the treaty regimes and enhance the security interests of their members. There are dangers in expecting too much of the global treaties in trying to deal with the more difficult cases at the expense of their vital role in reinforcing global norms. To deal more directly with the interests of member states, and to overcome some of the anachronisms in them, support should be given to processes that deal with the total regional security environment. The existing treaty organisations can have an important role in this regard provided they have sufficient flexibility to inter-operate with the regional arrangements in a coordinated way, particularly if a range of different weapons is involved. An important issue that should not be ducked because of the recent difficulties over UNSCOM and the creation of its successor organisation, is the use of information from a variety of sources to support verification and monitoring activities.

  In analysing the arms control agenda for the future, however, the leading edge of arms elimination and reduction is the resolution of the major political differences in the various regions of the world. The arms are not necessarily the problem but deadly symptom of the failure to resolve these differences. In policy terms this means that investment in processes which reduce the demand for weapons of mass destruction is likely to bring a higher return than reinforcing global monitoring regimes which deal only with the supply side. Given the nature of the developments in global trading, and the speed at which technology diffuses, the latter investment can bring only a very modest return at best; at worst single minded devotion to this approach can undermine security. The two approaches are complementary and one does not exclude the other. However, pragmatic policies that support the dismantling of weapons of mass destruction, such as the US Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programme with Russia under which many hundreds of nuclear weapons are being dismantled[44] is a substantial activity that enhances international security. The UK and its European partners have contributed to similar activities in Russia in a modest way with similar activities but substantially more resources could be devoted to this kind of activity by the Europeans to good effect in reducing a major source of proliferation. As far as other parts of the world are concerned policies that support conflict resolution in the Middle East, the Gulf region, South and East Asia will bring greater dividends in stemming proliferation than modest enhancements to global weapons of mass destruction treaties. The limits of these treaties need to be fully recognised to avoid raising unjustified expectations and creating what could be in effect false security.

42   Lewis A Dunn, Westview Press, 1993. Back

43   The Trilateral Agreement between Russia, UK and US was signed on 19 September 1992.  Back

44   The CTR programme was extended for four years by a protocol signed between Russia and the US in June 1999. It also covers the dismantling of chemical weapons. Back