After The Humanitarian Pledge What?
Paul Meyer
The annual session of the UN General Assembly’s First Committee (Disarmament
and International Security) wrapped up on November 6 with final votes on the 58
resolutions before it. This year the differences among states over nuclear
disarmament and how it can best be advanced were much in evidence. The divide
between the nuclear weapon states and the allies that shelter with them under the
so-called “nuclear umbrella” and the rest of the international community was
starkly manifested during the month-long First Committee debates.
The lightening rod for this division was a resolution entitled “Humanitarian Pledge
for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”. It represented the
culmination of sorts of an extraordinary series of meetings on the humanitarian
impact of nuclear weapons that were hosted by Norway, Mexico and Austria in the
2013-2014 timeframe. These international conferences highlighted the catastrophic
humanitarian consequences of any nuclear weapon detonation and the need to
prevent this ever occurring. They were inspired by a one sentence reference in the
final document of the 2010 NPT Review Conference and subsequent resolutions of
the international Red Cross/Red Crescent movement that proclaimed there was no
adequate response to the humanitarian catastrophe that would ensue with the use
of nuclear weapons and the only sane course was prevention through their
abolition. The injection of a humanitarian perspective into the often abstract and
arid security discourse surrounding nuclear deterrence and strategic stability was a
breath of fresh air and galvanized civil society engagement to a degree not seen for
decades.
The Austrian government, the host for the last of the series of these conferences
held in Vienna in December, sought to build on this momentum by issuing a national
pledge to work to end the legal gap on the prohibition of nuclear weapons and called
on other states to follow suit. Impressively, 121 states answered this call and
endorsed the commitment, which was renamed as “The Humanitarian Pledge”.
Austria then introduced the pledge at the UN in the form of a resolution that “calls
upon all states to identify and pursue effective measures to fill the legal gap for the
prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”. This resolution was put to the vote
on November 2 with 128 states voting in favour, 29 opposing and 18 abstentions.
Four of the five nuclear weapon states recognized by the NPT voted against the
resolution (i.e. the US, Russia, UK and France) while China, India, Pakistan and North
Korea abstained.
For the non-nuclear weapon states the “no” camp on the resolution was comprised
of Canada and the rest of NATO member states alongside US allies Australia and
South Korea (Japan abstained). As many of these non-nuclear weapon states had
participated in and been supportive of the series of conferences devoted to the
humanitarian imperative for nuclear disarmament a casual observer would have
questioned why such states would have opposed the pledge. The answer apparently
lies in the priority they attach to maintaining alliance solidarity with the nuclear
weapon states in the latter’s espousal of the security benefits of these arms. They
also reject the utility of developing a legal ban on the possession and use of nuclear
weapons, at least at this stage. In the words of the German representative who
delivered an explanation of vote statement on behalf of the 28 states: “focusing
prematurely on legal measures or perceived legal gaps is not a panacea to our
steadfast efforts to proceed with a pragmatic approach to nuclear disarmament”.
Such sentiments might have greater credibility if the proponents of the “pragmatic
approach” could point to actual achievements in nuclear disarmament. Regrettably,
multilateral nuclear disarmament has been in a moribund state for decades. The
authorized forum for multilateral disarmament negotiation, the Conference on
Disarmament in Geneva, has not been able to agree on a program of work for 19
consecutive years, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has still not entered into
force almost 20 years after its conclusion, the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty an
agreed objective for decades has yet to witness the start of negotiations and the
central Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference this May was a failure.
Add to this the stagnation in the bilateral US-Russian nuclear arms reduction
process that now has further deteriorated with reciprocal charges of cheating on the
earlier Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty and we are left with precious little to
show by way of tangible results the “pragmatic approach” has brought us.
As for work on a legal ban on nuclear weapons (to match those in existence for the
other weapons of mass destruction – chemical and biological) being “premature”
this is rather a lame objection. It is easy to deflect an idea that one is uncomfortable
addressing by claiming it is “premature” especially when no attempt is made to
define when the timing would be right to undertake this task. The appearance
unfortunately is left that the non-nuclear allies are simply running interference for
their nuclear weapon state patrons given the latter’s discomfort with the prospect of
having to deliver more on the nuclear disarmament commitments they have made.
A more credible posture was struck by neutrals Sweden and Switzerland, which
supported the pledge resolution but stressed in their joint explanation of vote “that
any process towards the elaboration of new legal instruments will need to be
undertaken with the participation and engagement, not the stigmatization of
countries possessing nuclear weapons and their allies”. They are right that the
international community is not going to be able to shame the nuclear-armed states
into eliminating their weapons. These weapons are still too central to the security
policies of the states possessing them for stigmatization to be effective and their
engagement in future nuclear disarmament processes will be required for these to
yield meaningful results. At the same time, the security interests of the vast majority
of states that do not possess nuclear weapons and view them rightly as posing an
existential threat to humanity cannot indefinitely be subordinated to the perceived
security interests of the nine states that still cling to them.
The contradiction between these two views of what constitutes security will only
continue to build in the absence of major progress on nuclear disarmament. The
underlying political pressures behind the opposing positions will also intensify with
corrosive consequences. Despite the admirable efforts of Austria in trying to channel
the humanitarian momentum generated in the last few years, these pressures are
unlikely to find an outlet in further declaratory UN resolutions on the subject.
At this same session of the General Assembly, the First Committee also adopted a
resolution entitled “Taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations”
led by Mexico that tried to set out a mechanism to advance the aims of the
Humanitarian Pledge resolution. This resolution established an open ended working
group to convene in Geneva for up to three weeks in 2016 “to substantively address
concrete effective legal measures, legal provisions and norms that will need to be
concluded to attain and maintain a world without nuclear weapons”. Significantly it
also specified that the group would operate under the rules of procedure of the
General Assembly (that permit voting) rather than on a consensus basis.
The vote on this resolution was 135-12-33, with the five nuclear weapon states plus
Israel voting no. NATO NNWS members were split between “no” votes (six East
European member states) and “abstentions” on the part of the others. In a joint EOV
the NWS 5 rejected the resolution as attempting “to promote nuclear disarmament
whilst ignoring security considerations. We do not believe that such an approach
can effectively lead to concrete progress”. This appears to set up a situation similar
to that occurring in the summer of 2013 when an earlier open ended working group
was boycotted by the five NWS.
It is not a promising prospect for proponents of nuclear disarmament and one
wonders how the extraordinary momentum built up over the last two years by the
humanitarian impact movement can be sustained and operationalized going
forward. Is the security card simply going to trump the humanitarian one or will the
121 states endorsing the Humanitarian Pledge find an effective way to act upon it?
Under a new government will Canada maintain its position opposing the
Humanitarian Pledge and fence sitting on the open ended working group or will we
see a pro-active policy and a renewal of the bridge-building efforts that
characterized Canadian diplomacy in the past? We won’t have long to wait for an
answer.