UNDC Update: Day 1

Unfortunately, the United Nations Disarmament Commission (UNDC) was unable to adopt an agenda and the Chair ended the meeting an hour and a half early, after spending most of the day in informal mode (closed to NGOs). The session will resume at 10:00 AM tomorrow morning. (See my previous post for details on the situation.)

At the end of today's meeting, the Non-Aligned Movement articulated its frustration with member states who were unwilling to accept its compromise proposal, which is reportedly:

The Commission would start work this year, in 2009, on elements for a draft declaration on the fourth Disarmament Decade and on recommendations for achieving the objectives of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. The agenda would also indicate that if the Commission successfully completed the elements on the Disarmament Decade declaration this year, then work on practical confidence-building measures in the field of conventional weapons would begin in 2010 and work on the nuclear issues would continue. If the Commission did not conclude the elements on the Disarmament Decade declaration this year, then it would continue in 2010 and the agenda would clearly state that work on conventional weapons issues would start no later than 2011.

This compromise was worked out between the Non-Aligned Movement and France, which had submitted a slightly different proposal. However, after this agreement was made, it appears that the US delegation objected to this formulation. It is unclear to me what exactly the US delegation objects to, though it apparently indicated the formulation would not be approved by Washington, for some reason.

The Chair expressed hope that the Commission would have some “new ideas” by the time it resumed its meeting tomorrow morning, but many delegates are not optimistic that the Commission will be able to make up the time it has already lost, especially those who had hoped to complete work on the elements for the Disarmament Decade declaration this year.

The UNDC is expected to set a tone of compromise, trust, and cooperation for the upcoming nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee, which starts immediately after the UNDC finishes in May 2009. Unfortunately, it is so far setting quite a bad example.