SPEECHES
March 14, 2005
GENEVA, Switzerland
2005/13
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
NOTES FOR AN ADDRESS BY
THE HONOURABLE PIERRE PETTIGREW,
MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
AT THE
CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT
The delegations to the Conference on Disarmament constitute more than just the
representatives to a specific multilateral forum: they are a community of diplomats
devoted to the field of non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament as it is dealt with
throughout the United Nations system and beyond. I know that despite the paralysis
that has afflicted the Conference on Disarmament during the last eight years, many of
you are constructively engaged in a variety of disarmament activities, from small arms
and light weapons through to weapons of mass destruction.
Many of these activities are bearing fruit, and we are heartened to have witnessed in
the recent past such accomplishments of multilateral and human security cooperation
as the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Protocol on Explosive Remnants
of War, the Action Plan adopted at the Nairobi Summit to guide further work on
implementing the Ottawa Landmines Convention and the practical exchanges of
information at expert and annual meetings of States Parties to the Biological and Toxin
Weapons Convention.
These and other achievements of the diplomats assigned here, however, cannot
diminish our disappointment over the failure of the principal body, the Conference on
Disarmament, to engage in substantive work. I agree with your President and
Secretary-General that the revitalization of this Conference and its ability to overcome
its protracted impasse will be enhanced by greater political-level support “for its noble
causes.” If progress is to be made on multilateral cooperation dealing with crucial
issues of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and the non-weaponization of
outer space, there has to be a political value attached to doing so and a political cost to
be paid for not allowing the enterprise to proceed. Focusing political attention on the
Conference on Disarmament’s deadlock and its negative consequences for our
individual and collective security interests is one way to get us out of the rut we are in.
It will, however, take more than a handful of foreign ministers showing up this week at
the Conference on Disarmament to effect a real change. It will take a realization in
certain capitals that continued blockage of agreement on a Conference on
Disarmament program of work is more detrimental to the security interests of those
countries than it is beneficial. Unfortunately, in a 65-member body based on consensus,
it is all too easy to obstruct and very difficult to obtain the universal support necessary
to adopt a program of work. Canada, as a committed multilateralist, has always tried to
be a constructive force in this forum, and we have shown flexibility in adjusting our
preferences to accommodate the views of others in the interest of the common good.
We call upon the members of the Conference on Disarmament to demonstrate similar
flexibility.
I have already referred to the important issues before this forum that it has been unable
to address in a manner befitting a multilateral negotiating body. The negotiation of a
Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, the consideration of the state of nuclear disarmament
and the prevention of the weaponization of outer space are all issues that affect our
security environment. They are all issues that have suffered from diplomatic neglect
during a period when disturbing political and military developments relating to them
have occurred. They are all issues for which the Conference on Disarmament is the
ideal forum for action. But our ideals must be tempered by realism, and inaction is no
substitute for action. If the Conference on Disarmament is prevented from taking up
these issues, we believe that other multilateral avenues for addressing them should and
need to be explored.
A few days ago, on March 5, we marked the 35th anniversary of the entry into force of
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT]. This treaty, with 188 States Parties, is the
most widely adhered to international security agreement and has served as a
foundation for the multilateral nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime. This
May the Seventh Review Conference of the NPT will be held in New York. This Review
Conference will come at a crucial juncture for the Treaty, which has suffered several
major shocks to its authority and integrity in recent years.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [North Korea] demonstrated its complete
disregard for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts by its withdrawal from
the NPT. North Korea’s recent assertion that it now possesses nuclear weapons,
together with its reluctance to re-engage in the Six-Party Talks, underlines the grave
risk to regional and international peace and security posed by its nuclear program.
Iran’s extensive past undeclared nuclear activities, together with its efforts to acquire
the full nuclear fuel cycle, have resulted in deep concerns about its commitment to
nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and strong suspicions that Iran has nuclear
weapons ambitions. Permanent cessation of Iran’s uranium enrichment and other
proliferation-sensitive activities is the only acceptable objective guarantee of the
peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program. Although Canada supports the diplomatic
efforts under way that are trying to resolve this issue, as Prime Minister Paul Martin has
recently indicated, “we must be prepared to stand behind our words with stronger
measures if necessary.”
Canada wants to see the NPT emerge from the Review Conference strengthened in its
power and effectiveness.
This, in our view, will require a balanced outcome that incorporates tangible progress
on the three key elements of the Treaty: non-proliferation, peaceful use of nuclear
energy and nuclear disarmament. Reaffirmation of the NPT’s goal of nuclear
disarmament and a renewed commitment to achieving this goal should be a key
conclusion of the Review Conference. We also want to reinforce States Parties’
collective ownership and accountability for the Treaty and its implementation, through
revised meeting arrangements.
Here at the Conference on Disarmament, the focus is naturally on the disarmament
dimension of the Treaty. The inability of the Conference on Disarmament to commence
work has a direct and significant impact on the NPT Review Conference. At the last
Review Conference in 2000, the Conference on Disarmament was specifically tasked to
start work immediately on negotiations of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty to ban
production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and to establish an appropriate
subsidiary body to deal with the issue of nuclear disarmament. Five years later, the
Conference on Disarmament has not managed to accomplish one iota of this work plan.
The failure of the Conference on Disarmament to make progress on these two key
items of business, when coupled with other failures to deliver on agreed disarmament
measures, will diminish the disarmament side of the NPT equation. This failure will
make it more difficult to obtain major new commitments on the non-proliferation side. So
what happens here, or doesn’t happen here, has real consequences for the larger
question of the NPT and the maintenance of what is a near-universal consensus
around the Treaty and its goals.
I spoke earlier about the need for flexibility and compromise if a program of work is to
be agreed upon in this forum. Canada has shown this in its own approaches. Last
summer, we suggested that a “streamlined” program of work involving Fissile Material
Cut-off Treaty negotiations, coupled with discussions on nuclear disarmament
(including the issue of negative security assurances) and the prevention of an arms
race in outer space [PAROS] would represent a realistic and balanced package.
More recently, we have indicated that we could also agree to the four ad hoc
committees outlined in “food for thought” paper from the previous Conference on
Disarmament President, provided that approach enjoyed universal support. We see the
return very soon to substantive work by the Conference on Disarmament as the
principal objective, and we have done our part in making the compromises necessary to
bring this about. We expect no less from every member of this Conference.
On the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty for example, we have long believed that this
accord would represent a crucial step on the road to the elimination of nuclear
weapons, by turning off the production tap of the material needed to fashion them. A
former Canadian ambassador, the late Gerald Shannon, worked hard in the mid-1990s
to develop a negotiating mandate for the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, which until
recent months enjoyed universal support in this forum. We are convinced that this
mandate remains the best basis for initiating negotiations. But precisely because our
priority is the initiation of negotiations, rather than debates over the merits of any
particular mandate, we are prepared to engage in negotiations toward a Fissile Material
Cut-off Treaty without any preconditions. It would be our hope that in the course of
these negotiations, the benefits of “a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally
and effectively verifiable treaty,” as envisaged in the Shannon mandate, would become
evident to all. We are willing to put our preferences aside in order to commence a
genuine negotiation, and we would ask others to demonstrate a similar flexibility so that
work can begin.
On nuclear disarmament, we would have preferred to see a more ambitious mandate
that would consider specific measures and new instruments. We were not alone in this
preference; however, in the interest of achieving a consensus on a program of work, a
simple discussion mandate has been proposed. Canada is prepared to go along with
this proposal so that the important topics connected with this theme are addressed.
On PAROS, Canada has long been associated with those who believe that an
international agreement banning the deployment of weapons in outer space is an
increasingly necessary goal and can be a practical exercise in preventive diplomacy.
Here again, in order to foster a consensus, concessions were made and an original
negotiating mandate was circumscribed as a discussion mandate. This issue is of
sufficient import that we would be supportive if the Conference on Disarmament, as a
first step, merely started to discuss it. Unfortunately, the flexibility shown by the earlier
advocates of negotiation in agreeing to a dilution of the PAROS mandate has not been
reciprocated, and the Conference on Disarmament has not been able to create a
committee to begin to consider this theme.
This issue of ensuring the non-weaponization of space is a topical, real-world security
issue that is not going to go away just because the Conference on Disarmament hasn’t
got its act together to formally consider it. The Government of Canada has already
sponsored two symposiums on space security in Geneva and will be sending official
speakers to a follow-up symposium to be held here on March 21 and 22 with
co-sponsorship this time by China, Russia, the UNIDIR [United Nations Institute for
Disarmament Research] and Canada’s Simons Foundation.
Foreign Affairs Canada has funded and helped direct the work of an international group
of experts in preparing a “space security index,” which we hope will become an annual
record of the state of security in outer space and which will highlight developments
affecting this realm. Diplomatically, the time has come to examine a variety of options to
ensure that PAROS does not become just another empty acronym, whose content and
purpose are forgotten even as it is ritually reaffirmed at UN gatherings.
Last September, in his address to the General Assembly, the Prime Minister of Canada
did more than just lament the “tragedy it would be if space became one big weapons
arsenal and the scene of a new arms race.” He proposed a course of action in calling
for the extension of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty’s ban on weapons of mass
destruction to include all weapons based in space. The Conference on Disarmament
remains our preferred forum for taking this work forward, but if it is unable to include this
subject in a program of work and start implementing it soon, we and others will have to
look elsewhere. Outer space may be infinite, our patience is not.
I know that the vast majority of countries represented in this historic hall are as eager as
the Canadian delegation to resume significant work.
In our view, a practical, balanced program of work is at hand and needs only a
modicum of flexibility in a couple of capitals in order to be realized. It is time for this
work to be done. Canada supports the efforts of the current Conference on
Disarmament President, Ambassador [Tim] Caughley, to obtain an accounting from
member states as to what exactly prevents them from joining a consensus on a
program of work and what realistic alternatives they can advance to achieve this end.
The “noble cause” of multilateral cooperation in the field of disarmament requires no
less.
Thank you.
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