Abstract
Reviewed by: Tariq Rauf (TariqRauf@icloud.com ), Global Nuclear Solutions (Vienna, Austria)
Navigating the plethora of international arms control treaties and fora can be a challenge, both for an experienced diplomat or scholar and for a novice foreign service officer or undergraduate student. Since the end of the Second World War and the establishment of the United Nations (UN), a number of multilateral conventions and treaties have been negotiated to control, limit, or prohibit different types and classes of conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction. Publications such as the United Nations Disarmament Yearbook, 1 published annually by the Office of Disarmament Affairs, present a summary of the developments and trends each year on key issues considered multilaterally at the international and regional levels, and review the related activities of the General Assembly, the Disarmament Commission, and the Conference on Disarmament. They are not designed, however, to provide the background and detail needed to appeal to a wide audience.
This book, written by a retired practitioner and negotiator from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, fills a crucial niche in the literature by covering, in an accessible manner, the principal disarmament, arms control, and non-proliferation agreements, and by providing useful recommendations for further development of the international legal framework in these areas.
The first part of the book gives an overview of the historical development of international law in the areas of disarmament and arms control. This section is concise and sufficient for novice readers, and will not confuse them with unnecessary details. Coverage includes the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, the League of Nations and the UN, as well as the Conference on Disarmament. Reference is made to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties that governs the rules of treaty interpretation (interestingly, as pointed out by the author, some key states—including France, India, Iran, and the United States of America—remain outliers to the Convention). Verification of disarmament and arms control is discussed, but it should be emphasized that such verification is successful only in a collaborative environment between the international inspectorate (such as the International Atomic Energy Agency) and the inspected state. Coercive verification is rarely successful.
The second part of the book covers the principal regimes and international instruments on the disarmament and non-proliferation of the three categories of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, biological, and chemical. In addition, conventional weapons are also covered, including heavy weapons, small arms, light weapons, anti-personnel mines, and cluster munitions, together with military expenditures and export control arrangements. On nuclear weapons, Iran’s nuclear programme is referred to briefly, along with the landmark July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that was negotiated between Iran and the European Union (EU); France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (E3); and China, the Russian Federation, and the United States (+3), collectively known as the EU/E3+3. It is ironic that the author, who is from an EU member state, erroneously refers to the JCPOA as being the product of a negotiation between the “P5+1”—that is, the five permanent members of the Security Council (a small but telling detail on how the “P5” can dominate the thinking of Western arms controllers). On the other hand, the author correctly characterizes the deployment of US nuclear weapons in Western Europe under the framework of extended deterrence to be in violation of the non-proliferation provisions of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) (it is quite uncharacteristic for a diplomat from a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) country to say so!). There is also a useful discussion on the attempts to achieve the prohibition of nuclear weapons, and on the humanitarian consequences of these weapons. Such a focus is timely, since in March and June–July of 2017, a majority of non-nuclear-weapon states successfully negotiated in New York a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on, 2 though the nuclear-armed states and states in nuclear defence arrangements did not attend (except for the Netherlands, which in the end voted against the TPNW). Although UN Security Council resolutions on non-proliferation, such as 1540 (2004) and 1887 (2009), are noted by the author, it would have been useful if he had commented on the so-called “instrumental role” of the Council in adopting non-proliferation resolutions, especially under chapter VII of the Charter with its mandatory application, by bypassing normal multilateral negotiating fora. Nor should it be forgotten that the P5 have been, and remain, the greatest proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, as well as of conventional weapons and munitions.
The third part of the book features the author’s recommendations for further action, and discusses the necessity of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Most of the recommendations in the nuclear field echo those from sources such as the outcome documents of the 1995, 2000, and 2010 NPT review conferences and IAEA General Conference resolutions, and it is fitting that they are included in this book. The study concludes by drawing attention to the dangers and risks of nuclear weapons, such as accidental detonation and close misses from “broken arrows,” or accidents involving nuclear weapons during storage, transport, and exercises. These types of dangers have been amply highlighted in three international conferences held in Oslo (2013), Nayarit (2014), and Vienna (2014). In light of the author’s call for the abolition of nuclear weapons, it is unfortunate that Canada is making common cause with nuclear-armed states and “nuclear alliance” states in opposing and boycotting the efforts of the vast majority of the world’s countries to negotiate a prohibition of nuclear weapons—which remain the only category of weapons of mass destruction not yet banned, with prohibitions on biological weapons agreed to in 1979, and chemical weapons in 1993.
In conclusion, John Kierulf has done a great service in writing this book, which should make for educational and accessible reading for new diplomats, high school and college students, the media, and for the world’s citizens who continue to live under the shadow of more than 15,000 nuclear weapons.