The elusive UNDC agenda

The United Nations Disarmament Commission (UNDC) agenda still seems to be eluding delegates here in New York as they embark on a second day of negotiations and compromise. The plenary meeting opened at 10:35 AM and was suspended for informal consultations at 10:36 AM. During informals, the Chair introduced a new proposal for the agenda, which specifies that a working group on conventional weapons would start in 2010 regardless of whether the Commission has finished its work on elements for a draft declaration on the fourth Disarmament Decade. The new language also suggests that a resolution could be tabled in the UN General Assembly in October 2009 directing the Commission to direct its work as laid out in the agenda. The Non-Aligned Movement has left Conference Room 4 to work out this language internally and the meeting is expected to resume in 30 minutes or so.

The US delegation has indicated the agenda must be “balanced” and thus must include a working group on conventional weapons at least by 2010. Other delegations wonder if the US delegation even has any instruction from capitol on the matter. The US government has not appointed anyone to deal with multilateral disarmament matters and there the US delegation to the UNDC might not have any instructions to agree to anything. In light of this situation, I have begun to wonder whether the US delegation should simply not participate. In the General Assembly last year, the US delegation chose not to participate in the vote regarding the work of the UNDC rather than register a “no” vote against it. Couldn’t the United States do the same now, rather than block all work in this forum?

Unfortunately, as mentioned in a previous post, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee begins immediately after the UNDC closes at the beginning of May. The 2009 NPT PrepCom is supposed to come up with an agenda for the 2010 NPT Review Conference—the stalemate at the Disarmament Commission does not give anyone a sense of hope for success at the PrepCom.