Joint Security through Disarmament: 10-point plan for a comprehensive disarmament and arms control policy

Common Security through disarmament: Meeting of the SI Committee on Disarmament in Berlin, 21 April 2009

  • Joint security through disarmament and cooperation are the cornerstones of a social democratic peace and détente policy.

  • Treaty-based, multilateral arms control and disarmament must become the firm and binding basis of international relations.

  • All states should disarm on this basis, in particular the great powers must set a good example by unilaterally and irreversible reducing their arsenals and by cutting the production and trading of arms.

  • The time for this is long overdue. Joint negotiation is urgently needed to maintain and re-energise the global disarmament regime.

  • We support the worldwide initiative for a world free of nuclear weapons. We welcome the international commitment and also the new commitment in the USA to disarmament and arms control.

 

1. Strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty
 

  • Only when the nuclear states are ready to reduce their arsenals will we be able to irreversibly stop the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. Not for nothing are both of the following required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT): non-proliferation and internationally binding progress in nuclear disarmament.

  • We advocate the implementation of the 13-point programme agreed at the Non-Proliferation Treaty review in 2000. This includes the urgent ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), the opening of negotiations in the Geneva Disarmament Conference over the verifiable ban on the use of fissile material for weapons purposes (FMCT) and the continued implementation of the disarmament obligation under Article VI of the NPT.

  • We urge the nuclear weapons states to commit to a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons and undertake not to use or threat to use them against non-nuclear weapons states and nuclear weapons free zones.


2. For a zero solution to tactical and strategic nuclear weapons

  • Against the background of global terrorism, the insufficiently controlled arsenal of thousands of tactical nuclear weapons represents a security risk. We demand more effective control of tactical nuclear weapons and the inclusion of these weapons in the disarmament negotiations with the aim of achieving a zero solution.

  • The tactical nuclear weapons still stored in certain non-nuclear states since the era of the Cold War should be dismantled as a first step.

  • We welcome the agreement between US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to begin negotiations on the drastic and verifiable reduction of strategic nuclear weapons even before the START I treaty expires at the end of 2009. This is an important step in reviving the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in which the nuclear powers commit themselves to total nuclear disarmament.We also support the Russian proposal to include not just the dismantling of nuclear warheads, but of intercontinental ballistic missiles and heavy bombers as well.

  • We welcome the fact that US President Obama wants to promote early consent to the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). We call for the CTBT to be ratified by the US Congress as soon as possible as a decisive signal to the NPT Review Conference that the nuclear powers are taking their disarmament obligation under Article VI of the NPT seriously.

 

3. Strengthen multilateral controls through better verification and multilateralisation of the nuclear fuel cycle
 

  • We demand an expansion of on-site inspections, the deployment of new monitoring technologies and the setting up of qualified impartial teams of inspectors. Under the aegis of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), we need to work for all NPT members to sign the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements and Additional Protocols and to bring them into force swiftly. The right of the IAEA to make special inspections including of non-declared installations must be strengthened and expanded.

  • We demand the non-discriminatory multilateralisation of the nuclear fuel cycle under the supervision of the IAEA, in order to combat the risk of uncontrolled proliferation of nuclear fuels and technologies.

  • This will allow for a non-discriminatory access of NPT member-states to the civilian use of nuclear technology.

 

4. For a new arms control agreement on missile defence
 

  • Ever more countries and alliances are planning to develop or expand their missile defence systems. A new arms race in this area, which is leading to new uncertainties, must be prevented.

  • We need a new arms control agreement to limit missile defence (ABM treaty), which covers as many regions of the world as possible. The outer space must be kept totally free of weapons.

 

5. For an effective control of carrier technologies
 

  • Missile proliferation has significantly increased in recent years and involves serious risks for entire regions. The effectiveness of the “Missile Technology Control Regime” (MTCR) export control regime is extremely limited.

  • The Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (HCOC) of 2002 must be developed into an international treaty.

  • We welcome the Russian-American initiative for the multilateralisation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on the abolition of medium-range ballistic missiles.

 

6. Strengthen the chemical weapons ban through disarmament, drive forward the Biological Weapons Convention
 

  • We demand that all chemical weapons be destroyed within the period to which the signatory states signed up under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), and the continued development of new verification technologies.

  • 162 states have so far become members of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). We welcome this and urge other important states, especially those in the Middle East such as Israel, to join the convention as well.We call upon the United States to overcome the resistance to an effective inspection and control system, with the aim of establishing a control system with comprehensive rights of inspection at the next BWC Review Conference in 2011.

  • We support the programme to reduce the threat from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons (Cooperative Threat Reduction Agreement), the initiative to reduce global threats (Global Threat Reduction Initiative), and the initiative against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (Proliferation Security Initiative), as innovative approaches to increasing global security.

 

7. For conventional arms control and overcoming the crisis in the CFE treaty
 

  • The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) and the Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (ACFE) must be brought out of deadlock and adapted to the new realities – following the end of the Cold War – and thereby become once more an anchor of security and stability in Europe.

  • We appeal to all states involved, to the NATO states as well as Russia, to overcome the blockades, and we demand new regional efforts for a functioning system of conventional arms control from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through more involvement on the part of Russia.

 

8. Protect the civil population by banning especially pernicious weapons, and establish controls of small arms and light weapons 
 

  • For us disarmament policy is more than just security policy. We want to prevent the use of especially pernicious weapons and ban this type of weapon altogether.

  • Together with civil society we succeeded in creating the political pressure to ban anti-personnel mines in 1997. This was followed in 2008 by the Convention on Cluster Munitions. We call for the biggest producers and users of cluster munitions to join in signing up to this agreement.

  • Our campaign applies also to small arms. We are counting on the negotiations agreed by the UN General Assembly in 2008 over an international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to contribute to the limitation of arms exports and we call upon all states to engage in constructive negotiations.

 

9. Get regional initiatives for disarmament and security under way
 

  • Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific and Southeast Asian states, and recently the states of Central Asia have all created nuclear-free zones. We welcome any other such initiatives in the world. We are working to ensure that these experiences are used for Europe and other regions of the world.

  • The cooperative security bodies at the United Nations, OSCE, NATO, the NATO-Russia Council, The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the NATO-Ukraine Charter, the Partnerships for Peace, the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue and other bodies must become much stronger than hitherto as active instruments of confidence-building, disarmament and arms control.

 

10. Overcome the blockade at the Geneva Disarmament Conference
 

  • We call upon all governments involved in the UN Disarmament Conference in Geneva to lift their blockades and make progress in the negotiations over the reduction of nuclear weapons, the prevention of the arms race in space, and a ban on the production of nuclear-weapons-capable material even before the NPT Review Conference to be held in May 2010.

  • The Geneva Disarmament Conference, the only disarmament forum at the UN, must once again become the active forum for global disarmament, in which all states will have to assume their own responsibility.