Project on European Nuclear Non-Proliferation (PENN)
PENN Newsletter No. 2 / April 1997

c/o BITS ·  Rykestr. 13  · D-10405 Berlin ·   Germany  ·  Phone: +49-30-446858-0   ·    Fax: +49-30-4410221

The 1997 NPT PrepCom kicked off with discussions on many of the themes which dominated the 1995 NPT Conference, including: fulfillment of Article VI, security assurances, safeguards, and promotion of "peaceful" uses of nuclear energy. However, the European nuclear-weapon states (NWS), France and the United Kingdom (UK) did not escape attention as Canada, supported by New Zealand, called for the inclusion of text in a PrepCom Report for the three smaller NWS, "to commit immediately to not increasing their inventories and to engage in nuclear disarmament negotiations among the Five NWS, in parallel with START III".

South Africa raised the question of NATO NW and the possible Europeanisation of French and British NW during the opening debate of the PrepCom. Ambassador K J Jele told the PrepCom that South Africa would like, "to place on the record our concern about the non-proliferation implications of the plans for the expansion of NATO and for the proposals which have been made for a dialogue in Europe on the future role of nuclear deterrence in the context of the European Defence Policy". NATO expansion would increase "the number of non-nuclear-weapon States which participate in nuclear training, planning and decision-making and which have an element of nuclear deterrence in their defence policies".

The South Africans raised this issue again, in closed session, during discussions in "Cluster One", the section of the PrepCom covering non-proliferation, disarmament and security assurances. The South African interventions prompted a vehement response from the UK, during the closed session, which argued that the issue was irrelevant to the NPT and indignantly denied that NATO nuclear sharing arrangements might violate NPT articles I and II.

In Cluster Two, on non-proliferation, safeguards and NW-free zones, Belarus presented its proposal for a NW-free "space" in Central and Eastern Europe. However, Poland dismissed the creation of such a zone "before the NATO enlargement question is solved".

NGOs also had the opportunity to put their concerns to an unofficial meeting during the NPT PrepCom, attended by many of the key delegations. PENN members helped to prepare a joint statement, in French, calling for désarmement concerté rather than dissuasion concertée. The statement covered Europeanisation of NW, NATO nuclear sharing and NW-free zones.

For further information on the NPT PrepCom see Rebecca Johnson's reports in Disarmament Intelligence Review and the text of key speeches on the Internet at BASIC's home page, http://www.igc.apc.org/basic.

Nicola Butler (BASIC)

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Members of PENN (BASIC-BITS-CESD-ÖSFK) are currently undertaking a major effort to research the compatibility of Art. I & II of the NPT and nuclear planning, decision-making and command and control within NATO. The topic has been raised by several states during the 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the NPT as well as during the 1997 PrepCom (see below).

The forthcoming research note comes to the conclusion that NATO nuclear sharing arrangements contradict the purpose - if not the letter - of the NPT, for three reasons:

The details of NATO nuclear sharing arrangements may not have been made available to other signatories of the NPT before they joined the treaty. The majority of nations signed on to the NPT without being aware what nuclear sharing arrangements in NATO were in place.

Under NATO nuclear sharing arrangements, Art. I & II of the NPT may be violated from that point on that the US National Command Authority has given the order to launch a nuclear attack. Control over US weapons is then handed over to Allied nations and NATO respectively. It must be doubted that an exception to Art. I & II of the NPT can be constructed under conditions of war.

NATO „programs of cooperation" and other arrangements for the dissemination of nuclear weapons technology and knowledge are contradicting the main purpose of the NPT, i.e. to limit the access to nuclear weapons technology and knowledge and advance nuclear disarmament.

As NATO enlarges and new countries will participate in NATO nuclear sharing these questions will become even more relevant. Even if no NW are deployed on the territory of the new member states, these countries will become eligible to participate in nuclear sharing arrangements. The results of the research has direct consequences for the role of NW in the process of European integration.

A complete research note will be published in April 1997. Contact: BITS. (OM)

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In the fall of 1996, BITS suggested a new framework to strengthen the nuclear disarmament process. The CART (Comprehensive nuclear Arms Reduction Talks) proposal, consisted of a two step approach to break the nuclear disarmament deadlock. A CART Treaty with the participation of all five official nuclear weapon states (NWS) would have the mid-term goal of significantly reducing the NW arsenals of these states. CART would accomplish this goal in several steps, imposing actual reductions onto the nuclear powers at different times, but within one framework. Instead of extending the old, „narrow" framework by negotiating arms reductions in the strategic and tactical arena separately and in a bilateral framework, CART would bring all declared NWS together to start talking about the whole range of NW, i.e. including tactical weapons. Under CART active as well as inactive stockpiles would be counted against upper limits. CART would initiate a dialogue on nuclear postures as well as on "minimum deterrence" concepts. Negotiations could be mitigated if the mix of weapons allowed under the treaty would be left up to the country possessing them. They could decide which mode of deployment they consider the safest and most economic.

The CART proposal - though in a slightly different form (Continuous Arms Reduction Talks, CART) - was taken up by Ashton B. Carter and John M. Deutch, two former high ranking US-government officials. Carter and Deutch in a March 4, 1997 editorial for the Wall Street Journal proposed a similar concept, involving all five declared nuclear powers and including tactical NW. This approach goes beyond the START III-framework agreement which was announced at the Clinton-Yelzin summit in Helsinki on March 21, 1997. BITS has published the CART concept as a research note. (See publications) A shorter version appeared in the March 1997 edition of the INESAP-Information Bulletin. (OM)

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The German conservatives are preparing the debate about the nuclear dimension in a Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU. In March 1997, the German and French governments, with the support of Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Spain, proposed in the IGC process to integrate the WEU in the EU. Part of this proposal was to integrate Art. V (i.e. collective defense) of the WEU-treaty into the EU. Such a step would raise the question whether nuclear guarantees would be extended by France and Britain to other EU-members.

This problem is acknowledged by leading conservatives. In an op-ed piece for Defense News (14-20 April, 1997), Karl-Heinz Kamp, head of the foreign and security policy section of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which is close to the ruling Christian Democratic Party, stated that „the process of European integration sooner or later will lead to the question of how to deal with the NW of Britain and France." He speculated that the Franco-German dialogue on the role of NW in the context of a European Defense Identity, which both countries had agreed to in December 1996, „together with the regular Franco-British nuclear talks, could become the seeds of a future European deterrence capability."(OM)

The city of Munich was host to hundreds of anti-nuclear and peace activists for the weekend of April 11 to 13 as they gathered for the congress "Abolish Nuclear Weapons - Start with us!". The organisers of the congress, a coalition of peace groups, wanted to focus on initiatives in Germany, in the context of the international network for the elimination of NW - "Abolition 2000". This was the first major conference in Germany on the subject since the eighties, held on the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Goettingen Declaration by nuclear scientists in 1957.

A public event, held on the Friday, with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Joseph Rotblat, original signatory of the Goettingen Declaration Carl-Friedrich von Weizsaecker and Physicist Hans-Peter Duerr, filled the main hall at the University of Munich with an enthusiastic audience of around 700. Rotblat spoke mainly on the Model NW Convention, recently completed in New York by a group of NGOs, that is being presented to governments to demonstrate the feasibility of eliminating NW. The Convention covers areas of difficulty, such as control, verification and the definition of a NW and suggests a phased time-table for the reduction of NW, accompanied by confidence building measures, down to zero.

Another highlight of the weekend was the presentation of a report by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) on "Crude Nuclear Weapons". The report, written by Frank Barnaby (former Director of SIPRI) and Raj Mutalik (IPPNW Director) was presented in English last year. IPPNW Germany has translated the report in a shorter form, added its own introduction and calculated the effects of a primitive terrorist NW on the city of Munich. The presentation of the acute health effects attracted much press attention and consequently enabled attention to be drawn to the underlying problem: the proliferation of nuclear material and technology.

The host organisations published a declaration on the final day of the congress, based on the original Goettingen Declaration, and designed to reflect some of the conclusions of the weekend. The declaration demands that Germany strictly renounces all nuclear options and participation in the nuclear strategy of NATO or the WEU. Germany should push for a NW-free zone in Central and Eastern Europe and should send back all NW presently deployed on German territory. All nuclear installations that can produce weapons-grade nuclear material should be immediately closed down and the research reactor in Garching should not be built.

Xanthe Hall / IPPNW Germany (see Partners)

On June 16-17, 1997 the European summit in Amsterdam will mark the end of the Dutch EU-presidency. The European Council will decide about the results of the IGC-process. Among the topics to be discussed is the future direction of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

One day before the summit, a public event on "Nuclear Weapons and Security in Europe" wants to focus public attention on the role of NW in European Security. The meeting, which will take place on the afternoon of Sunday, June 15 will feature high-level speakers on two subjects:

Politics and nuclear bombs: time for a change?

The NPT and European nuclear weapons

The goal of the event will be to focus attention on the continued presence of NW in Europe and their importance for the non-proliferation regime.

For further information, please contact:

Anti-Militaristies Onderzoekskollectief (AMOK)

c/o Karel Koster, Esdoornstraat 14

NL-3531 AJ Utrecht / Netherlands

Phone: +31-30-2442122; Fax: +31-30-2441783

E-mail: amok@amok.antenna.nl

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The date of the European NGO-conference on a Nuclear Weapons Free Europe has changed. It will take place on June 13th -15th 1997 at the Peace Center Burg Schlaining, Austria. Host Organisations include International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), International Network of Engineers and Scientists (INES), International Peace Bureau (IPB), International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), Peace Center Burg Schlaining, Project for European Nuclear Non- Proliferation (PENN), Women's International League for Peace and Freedom(WILPF).

The conference agenda includes the following:

Opening Lectures

Plenary background lectures:

Working Groups, session 1: