Note: The opinions presented are not necessarily those of the Government of Canada.

Policy Position Paper

Topic: Non-Proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament

University: Universidad EAFIT
Course: North American Studies
Professor: Maria Alejandra Calle
Date Submitted: Monday, October 2nd, 2006

Group Member Names: Maria Adelaida Uribe, Gabriel Jaime Pérez

LEADING A PROPOSAL TO ACHIEVE NUCLEAR POWER BALANCE WITHIN A MULTILATERAL APPROACH

According to Canada’s International Policy Statement “security in the 21st century is a common interest and a shared responsibility”. Therefore, multilateralism as a way of acting inside the international scenario constitutes the base of the Canadian Foreign Policy. The point is that “multilateral constraint on the development, production, proliferation and use of weapons of war are accepted by states and civil society on the understanding that such constraint makes a concrete contribution to their peace and security objectives” .

Before introducing our proposals, it is important and basic to Canada to take into account several requirements:

• Concerted international action: because “proliferation poses a global challenge it requires a collective international response”. (www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca)
• New legal and legitimate mechanisms to facilitate the identification of weapons in other countries without invading their sovereignty.
• Knowing that the multilateral system is not perfect: It needs to be strengthened, to create a more effective multilateralism to enhance Canadian security.
• More real compromises from those countries who give assistance to other countries.

Having those issues in mind, we wish to draw attention to those states currently outside of the regime of nuclear non-proliferation, because according to Canada’s international policy statement “a number of countries remain outside of the treaty, and several of them have shared nuclear material”, such as India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

In order to analyze these situations is important to outline the Treaty. “The legal and political foundation of Canada’s multilateral nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation efforts remains in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)”. (www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca). It is the “most effective international instrument to achieve Canada’s fundamental objectives of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and to ensure peaceful, non-explosive uses of nuclear energy” . (www.international.gc.ca)

There’s no doubt that the state of the world right now is confronting east and west since the terrorist strikes of 9/11, and with the wars in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and the allegations regarding Iran, the tensions have unarguably increased. The USA claims will not be seen as fair within the group of Middle East countries, because they could easily accuse USA of playing a two handed role since for instance they claim for no nuclear proliferation, but still has a program of nuclear cooperation with the countries of the NATO, accuses Iran of developing a nuclear program but has not stopped Israel from developing this technology.
Within this context we worked on our proposal. It stands that members of the UN Security Council should collaborate by focusing on the specific need of each state of proliferation; this means that rich countries must concentrate efforts on:

• Technical and technological assistance
• Economic rehabilitation
• Fomentation of long term loans with soft credits
• Enhancing quality of life of the citizens

There are “only 5 Nuclear weapon states (NWS) that are allowed by the treaty to have nuclear weapons: USA, China, France, Russia and the UK, which are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council” (United Nations). Israel alleges that there are no moral reasons to conceive that only these 5 countries may have this condition and therefore they are unwilling to sign the treaty.

The parties of the UN security council are in different ways associated as a single group that could not individually reach approaches without USA acceptance, but on the other hand, Canada is viewed internationally as an important and independent allied to the USA but with an autonomy from the UN Security Council (for not being a country allowed to have nuclear weapons). That may grant them with moral authority to persuade those countries (India, Pakistan, Israel and DPRK) and lead them into a coalition that would seek to align them within the NPT.

Landmines’ problem

Putting aside the problem of nuclear proliferation, we have arrived at the problem of landmines, another topic important to evaluate, since we are writing from Colombia. Colombia is one of the most affected countries by anti-personnel mines, which are made not only to destroy parts of the human body at once, but to isolate communities, innocent people and soldiers. These small weapons are put by the guerrilla (in most of the cases) in order to cause fear and reflect power, but the civil society is the main victim.

Aware of the problem, many countries subscribed the Ottawa Convention , including Colombia with the objective of diminishing the landmine’s problem. It is important to clear up that “today, Colombia is the fourth country in the world in number of anti-personnel mine victims, after Chechnya, Afghanistan and Angola, and the only country to destroy its arsenal of anti-personnel land mines amid ongoing armed confrontation” (www.unicef.org)

Having that issue in mind, we developed a proposal to be lead by Canada’s government within the Convention  (since it commits signatories to give assistance). The plan is divided in two: it consists on utilizing funds to develop new technologies in order to inactivate the landmines in a different way, because “mines that cost as little as $3 on the open market can cost as much as $1,000 each to clear” (dsp-psd.communication.gc.ca). Therefore, it is important to facilitate the eradication of these mines with technology.  The other part of the proposal consists on developing an “insurance plan” to those civilians affected by the mines, because they should have the right to be returned into the society and to have psychological treatment. This proposal has to be lead by Canada, because it continues to play a leadership role in promoting the Ottawa Convention, and taking into account the specific needs of each affected country.

Conclusion