John Duncan

Decision time at the United Nations

2009-10-25T11:59:38+00:00

On Wednesday this week the UK and six other nations will seek agreement at the UN General Assembly to launch formal negotiations of a new Arms Trade Treaty after 3 years of discussion.

It will be a defining moment, but the last few weeks debate on the Resolution that contains the decision have shown that the ATT remains a contentious issue that can stir up strong emotions. Even after 3 years there are still those who argue that its too soon or the conditions are not right to agree to start negotiating a new treaty.

The human and economic cost of armed conflict is calculated as 2000 people killed each day across the world and $18 billion a year in Africa alone. Conflicts fuelled by weapons that get into the hands of criminals, terrorists and insurgents because we have still not established effective regulation of the international arms trade. Not for nothing did the last UN Secretary General describe conventional weapons proliferation as “The real Weapons of Mass Destruction”

Hilary Clinton’s announcement 10 days ago that the US would “actively pursue a strong and robust treaty” was a step change in the American attitude and a very welcome one.

Some have argued that the US terms for coming on board are too high; others are concerned about creating new precedents in UN rules and procedures. One can only hope that when we gather to vote everyone will remember those who are outside the room, whose loved ones have been killed or abused, whose livelihood and hopes for the future rest on what the "men in suits" in New York decide one Wednesday afternoon.

Faith, Foreign Policy and Disarmament (Guest Blog)

2009-10-22T15:08:57+01:00

This article is written by Francis Campbell, UK Ambassador to the Holy See.

Yesterday in the Foreign Office saw the first consultation meeting with faith groups interested in disarmament. Sixteen delegates attended representing all the major faith groups. We split the discussion into two parts: the first on the Arms Trade Treaty and the second on the Non Proliferation Treaty. We wrapped up the meeting with a contribution from FCO Minister Ivan Lewis.

This was the first time we had undertaken such a consultation with faith groups on the subject of disarmament. Why a consultation with faith groups? We want to replicate the success of working with faith groups on the Cluster Munitions Treaty which was signed last year.

At the preparatory conferences, in particular at Wellington, the Holy See played a very active role in getting a practical workable agreement and in bridging divides to allow us to get a binding Treaty banning cluster munitions. We see a similar role for faith groups in working towards an Arms Trade Treaty. In engaging faith groups in the discussion we see three aspects. There is the moral dimension that faith groups bring to the work of the Arms Trade Treaty.

As history shows, faith groups are often at the forefront of righting wrongs and in providing the impetus for change. Then there are the global grassroots networks which allow faith groups to communicate easily across cultures, languages and nations. In Catholic terms alone, the Holy See speaks directly to 17.5% of the world’s population. Finally, as faith groups engage each other in inter-religious dialogue there is scope to concentrate on ethical dialogue where there is a strong shared moral foundation. Perhaps one of those ethical issues could be the international efforts to bring transparency to the sale and transfer of conventional weapons and to stamp out the illicit sales of such weapons through a binding international Arms Trade Treaty.

Yesterday we were simply testing the water to see if there was interest among faith groups in having such a conversation with the FCO on the Arms Trade Treaty and the Non Proliferation Treaty. There was – and we agreed to continue with the group as we move forward on the ambitious timetable to achieve an Arms Trade Treaty. But there was also interest from the group in having a wider discussion with the FCO on other foreign policy considerations. The Minister agreed to look into that request and revert.

But yesterday was also important for reasons beyond what we had on our agenda. It was also symbolic of a new approach in foreign policy. I have spoken on faith and foreign policy before and why religion was often ignored in foreign policy considerations for much of the post Second World War period. A 2007 report from the Washington based Centre for Strategic and International Studies catalogued the reasons why religion was often ignored in foreign policy and diplomacy and why it deserved to be taken seriously. A former US Secretary of State – Madeline Albright – made a similar case in her book ‘The Mighty and the Almighty’.

Much of the marginalisation of religion from foreign policy considerations was based on an assumption that the world was secularising and religion was of decreasing interest across the world (such an assumption was not confined to diplomacy alone). But there was a significant mistake in such a calculation because the secularisation model really only explained the pattern in Europe and some other parts of the Western world. It did not capture the United States or the rest of the world where societies were as religious as ever or in some cases more so. There was no proven universally applicable law of modernisation leading to secularisation. This point is more fully expanded in a speech I gave on ‘God in a Secular World’, but the basic point is that religion is an influence in world affairs and as such needs to be taken seriously.

Today, much has changed vis a vis faith and foreign policy. We can point to strong working relations with faith groups on climate change, international development, conflict resolution and prevention, inter-religious dialogue, migration, human rights, etc. If we can replicate the success of working with faith groups on the Jubilee Debt Campaign, Make Poverty History and the Cluster Munitions Treaty, by achieving an Arms Trade Treaty – then we can show again that faith matters in foreign policy and that it is a real asset when trying to solve many of the world’s problems. Yesterday was a good start.

BLOG ACTION DAY 2009: THE NUCLEAR EQUATION

2009-10-15T10:41:50+01:00

Climate change, perhaps the biggest issue for the world community. Twenty years ago I experienced this at first hand in Sudan. To see the inexorable spread of the the Sahara southwards engulfing villages and fields that only a few years before had been fertile land was a real personal wake up call.

Today I am very conscious of the environmental aspect of our work in Arms Control & Disarmament. How to ensure that development of civil nuclear power is not diverted into nuclear weapon programmes is at the heart of what we are about. But on the conventional side too the environmental damage caused by landmines and cluster munitions is not only the fact that explosives, including heavy metals leach into the soil, but as agricultural land becomes too dangerous too use, people are often forced to clear new land, increasing deforestation.

It will be a major challenge to meet the demand for energy across the world from renewable energy sources. Nuclear energy will be part of the solution. Gordon Brown set out our vision on this issue in his speech at Lancaster House conference earlier this year.

In my statement today at the UN I referred to David Miliband's comment that “Get it right, and we will increase global security, pave the way for a world without nuclear weapons, and improve access to affordable, safe and dependable energy. Get it wrong, and we face a new and dangerous era of new state nuclear weapon holders and the chilling prospect of nuclear material falling into the hands of terrorists.”

FIRST DAY AT FIRST COMMITTEE

2009-10-06T00:05:48+01:00

I am not going to bombard my readership with a blow by blow account of of discussions in New York, but the opening day is always interesting to judge the mood music for what follows and today was no exception.

My day started with an EU meeting to discuss “last minute” changes to our general statement. After 30 hours often difficult discussion in Geneva one would have thought everything had been agreed. But it is one of the minor irritations of multilateral diplomacy that some capitals don’t pay attention until the text is close to or has been finalised and then someone has a "bright idea" and sends new instructions. It is the bane of those who have to reopen the discussion and there were quite a few barbed comments around the table. Fortunately it doesn’t happen too often to UK ambassadors any more. The new ways of working based around the idea of our missions and London colleagues forming a “Virtual Team” in an ongoing dialogue means we usually manage to avoid these last minute surprises.

Today’s plenary debate was mostly taken up by such statements by regional and other groups such as the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) from which it was clear that the EU is not alone in wrestling to produce a common view. Much staking out of old ground on which the unwritten text was “The Security Council may have delivered a new vision, but don’t forget my project from the early 90’s (or even earlier)”

Once we moved into national statements the pace started to hot up. Mexico delivered a passionate, wide ranging and articulate vision of what they saw as the priorities. While we might not agree on all of the points, one cannot but welcome the change of tone their intervention introduced to the debate.

The US address the plenary tomorrow. It will be a keynote in both senses of the word.

Tomorrow also sees the first open discussion on our new resolution to launch negotiations on the Arms Trade Treaty. Still a contentious issue after 3 years discussion it will consume a lot of my teams time and energy over the next 4 weeks.

The other element of particular note was the measured tone of the Iranian “right of response” to some quite firm comments by the EU about the recent revelations about the uranium enrichment site near Qom. After the generally productive outcome from last week’s talks in Geneva, perhaps we are at last moving beyond the “shouting across the table” that has often characterised the wider arms control and disarmament community's discussion of the Iranian nuclear issue.

One can but hope. As they say “Optimism is to the diplomat what courage is to the soldier”

RECOVERING THE RELEVANCE OF MULTILATERAL ARMS CONTROL

2009-10-03T07:24:47+01:00

The last two weeks have seen some good progress in the world community’s efforts to break out from the “Decade of Deadlock” in multilateral Arms Control in Disarmament with the US Inspired UN Security Council Summit and this week in Geneva a more positive resumption of the talks between Iran and the E3 +3.

Over the next 4 weeks in New York the UN General Assembly First Committee will meet for it’s annual overview of the Arms Control & Disarmament agenda. Some 50 plus resolutions will be tabled, voted on and submitted to the main UNGA.

Often described as the “litmus test” of world opinion (do people still use litmus paper!) this year's meeting will certainly be a test of whether the Arms Control community can respond to the new energy that Pres. Obama has injected into the debate since his Prague speech last April.

In my last post I contrasted the debate in the UNSC Summit with that of the General Assembly. We may well see the same thing again with those who do not buy-in to the new agenda of a collective endeavour to get the world back on track towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons "The Road to 2010", or just trot out the tired old mantras; rather like Cato the elder in the Roman Senate exhorting that “Carthage must be destroyed” long after it had been.

For the UK this meeting will be a pivotal one as it will be the moment when the General Assembly decides whether to launch formal negotiation of a new Arms Trade Treaty. After 3 years discussion we and the 6 original co-authors of this initiative (Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, Kenya) are proposing that a negotiating Conference is established to draft and agree the treaty.

So on both the nuclear and conventional side the next 4 weeks will be a test of whether the UNGA can step up and respond effectively to the challenges we face in today’s world.

I will be blogging and also posting on Twitter from New York for those who want to follow the debate.

A MOMENTOUS WEEK IN ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT

2009-09-26T11:13:19+01:00

Gordon Brown described this week’s unanimous endorsement of UNSCR 1877 on Non Proliferation and Disarmament as a “Watershed Moment” . Yesterday events took a more ominous turn with the further revelations about Iran’s nuclear programme.

The week did in many ways provided a snapshot for the wider public of the damage done by the “Decade of Deadlock” in Multilateral Arms Control and Disarmament and the challenges we face over the next 8 months on the road to the Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.

It was certainly inspiring to see world leaders speak directly, often without notes to these important issues in The Security Council. The current fifteen members of the Security Council represent a broad span of world opinion. Their individual views on nuclear weapons are quite divergent and yet they were able to agree on an historic resolution setting out the action that needs to take place for us all to move along the path towards a world where the threat of nuclear attack is removed and where nuclear power can be used safely as part of the solution to the challenges of climate change. The sort of Coalition of Consent that David Miliband has talked about.

What a contrast with the UN General Assembly the day before where some speakers simply trotted out the tired old mantras about where the blame lay for the worlds ills and sought to reject the vision of an interconnected and interdependent world and the need for collective endeavour.

Col Gaddafi’s public views do a disservice to the leading role that other Arab countries are playing in this field, for example it was Algeria that led the way to an agreement to unblock the Conference in Disarmament earlier this year.

But more worrying than the misplaced rhetoric, is that at time when the five established Nuclear Weapons States publicly reaffirmed in the UN Security Council Resolution their commitment to progressively dismantle their nuclear armouries, others (not Libya it has to be said) seem determined to disrupt, if not overtly block, progress towards a world free of nuclear weapons and the safe development of civil nuclear power. Nor can it escape anyone’s notice, that the two countries who are at the centre stage in blocking progress, are themselves armed with nuclear weapons, or suspected of seeking to acquire them.

Extreme views, be they in the domestic or international environment, are rarely defeated by posturing from the moral high ground. The mainstream have to speak up, engage and work together as they did this week in the Security Council.

The coming weeks will show whether we are able to do so, as the international community grapples with how to respond to the latest Iranian revelations and as the UN General Assembly’s First Committee (meeting from 5 Oct-4 Nov) considers the broad spectrum of the Arms Control and Disarmament agenda.

Further links on the UK position and to follow the debate are below.

FCO Webpage on the Road to 2010 Nuclear Disarmament & Non Proliferation

What Does Government 2.0 Mean To You?

2009-09-04T16:59:48+01:00

In my blog I recently argued that communication was one of the core tasks of a professional diplomat. With the next major summit of Gov20 taking place in Washington in a few weeks, I have also posted in the Reuters “Great Debate” blog series some personal thoughts on how and why diplomacy is responding to the challenge and opportunities of web-based communication. Below is the text of that blog.

I came to this as someone who worked on mainframes in the 1970s, whose first PC was a AMSTRAD PCW with 512 KB memory. With that background and living in Switzerland, just down the road from where the world wide web was invented (CERN) it is perhaps not surprising that I view this technology largely as a range of new tools.

It is true that the improvements over the subsequent 30 years are extraordinary. My daughter’s iPod shuffle has more storage capacity than our home PC of only a decade ago. But, having once jammed an IBM mainframe in a perpetual loop, I am also conscious of the “Rubbish in–Rubbish out” principle. The tools are only as good as the use one makes of them.

The speed of communication and the geographical reach is equally extraordinary; developing the reality of an interconnected and interdependent world and new virtual communities. The arrival of these new means of communication is perhaps even more important and encouraging given the parallel development in the more traditional media, particularly television, of news as entertainment.

If net-based communication is changing the way we all access information and opinion, the impact on diplomacy and government affairs may well be equally profound; perhaps most significantly in terms of transparency and democratic accountability.

Both multilateral and bilateral ambassadors spend much of our time communicating the view of governments, both those of our own and those to whom we are accredited. So it can be said that we are often “marketing” ideas — what does the world we want look like and how to get there. It is noticeable that the diplomatic community reacts just as badly to spin as does the general public.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick commented in his address to the International Institute for Strategic Studies last year in Geneva, that: “ The interconnections of globalisation require our generation to recognise anew the nexus among economics, governance, and security”. So the 21st century diplomatic agenda is also a more complex one.

Traditionally diplomatic interlocutors can be divided into decision makers and opinion formers. Governments are not bureaucratic monoliths. Rarely are more than six people key to a decision. Our task as diplomats is to find those key players and convince them.

Opinion formers act as the multipliers. Having a well argued case is seldom enough by itself. Human beings still retain their tribal instincts, in sport as in politics and foreign affairs. We seem hardwired to view things all too often in terms of “us and them”, and diplomacy is no exception. Diplomats need the opinion formers as the people who give the “third-party endorsement” that reinforces our message; a classic marketing technique to respond to a trust deficit.

The internet allows the creation of a new world-wide “us” of shared interests and values. Social media networks and the blogoshpere provide new tools to speak directly to that wider community of actors that Zoellick refers to; going beyond the confines of traditional state-to-state interface, to test and be challenged on our ideas in a dialogue and sometimes in a partnership with civil society.

The figures speak for themselves. At an average international meeting one is talking to between perhaps 27-200 diplomatic colleagues. A post on the perhaps unfortunately named Twitter may get up to 800 or more, with a blog post several thousand.

And the numbers alone are not really the point. The net, Facebook and Twitter have more than their fair share of the minutiae of celebrity lives and get rich quick promoters, but the “political” virtual communities are self selecting and can filter out this background noise.They comprise a wide range of people from think tanks to journalists, students, to members of the public who care about the issues and are often willing to become involved with other decision makers. They offer direct access to the community that may provide third-party endorsement and at its best the creation of a constituency for change.

There are some who claim that these communities are essentially English speaking, if not Anglo-Saxon. The evidence suggests otherwise. It is clear that a number of those who regularly follow me on Twitter do not have English as a mother tongue. Some of the most successful FCO blogging ambassadors, such as Mark Kent in Vietnam and Alan Charlton in Brazil write in the language of the countries they are accredited to. The Foreign Office uses close to 40 languages in its net-based communication.

For government officials, engagement with this new virtual community is a challenge. It is unfamiliar and fraught with the risk of making mistakes. But there are also opportunities to multiply the effect of what we are already trying to do.

However one of the important lessons from the last two decades it is that we should be careful to avoid allowing our enthusiasm for new ideas and a new world order to cause us to underestimate the opposition to change. The international arena has given us some sharp reminders on that score. In the end we still have to persuade the decision makers. The Internet simply offers new and powerful ways to do so. Officials and governments should, and many are, seizing the opportunity

Help us to make our blogs better

2009-09-01T19:38:30+01:00

A request from the FCO blogs team: tell us what you think about our blogs so that we can improve them.

We want to know what you like and dislike about our blogs, what you’d like to see our bloggers writing about, and how you feel about the style of our articles.

To get your feedback we’ve created a short survey. It should only take a few minutes to complete and it will really help us to understand your thoughts and feelings.

Please help us to make this blog better and take the survey.

FCO blogs team

THE END OF DIPLOMACY AS WE KNOW IT?

2009-08-28T14:22:35+01:00

This week Europe’s World magazine published a blog by the former British diplomat Carne Ross claiming “It is time to scrap ambassadors” Another former colleague Charles Crawford has responded on his own blog; so it is perhaps time for a serving Ambassador to give a view from the inside.

Certainly today’s ambassadors face major challenges to the way we do business and the need to demonstrate value for money in a climate of severe pressure on the public purse. But I tend to agree with many of Charles’ points and that Carne’s piece reflects some rather old fashioned views. I am old enough to remember the CPRS report that embassies could be replaced by the fax.

Paradoxically today’s Foreign Service is in some ways returning to its roots, to the task of communicating. If the core task of a diplomat was simply to faithfully represent the views of governments then Carne Ross might have a point. But it is more than this. Diplomacy involves an understanding of how to communicate those views to others.; the building of personal relationships and trust. Diplomats need to be able to explain both sides of an argument, their own governments policy and the response of other governments to that. It involves a degree of empathy (but not necessarily sympathy) to find out where the cross over in shared interest lies in order to form what David Miliband has described as“Coalitions of Consent”.

Governments and the public service must respond to the communication revolution created by the internet and modern IT. Here Carne Ross is right and this is in fact happening in both the US and UK with the Gov20 phenomena . David Miliband himself a regular blogger will attend the next Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington next month. If this revolution reinforces the need for diplomat’s to have good communication skills, it also allows us to achieve the restructuring of the Foreign Service overseas operation that has been in train for well over a decade.

In the early 90s as the Soviet Union collapsed I was part of a group of (then young) diplomats opening new embassies across Eastern Europe. It was impossible to in the time and with the funds available to set up the traditional British embassy with all the trimmings, so we had to create a “virtual presence” often operating out of hotels, or in shared premises. Our teams were small and everyone from minsters to businessmen wanted to learn about and visit these countries and their new leaderships. Frequently we needed to bring in additional staff for short periods to share a workload that even larger embassies would have found a challenge.

Today the UK Arms Control mission in Geneva follows that same model. Only 10% of staff are permanently based here. The remainder only join us when and for as long as, their expertise is needed. Modern communications tools; from video conferencing to email and the internet, make this a viable and cost effective approach. Across the FCO network embassy’s are looking at these sorts of options. Our bilateral embassies in the Nordic/Baltic countries already work as a network by pooling their expertise on a regional basis. Bilateral Ambassadors in addition to their traditional role and to providing a service to British citizens and companies, work increasingly on behalf of a variety of UK government departments and through both traditional and new players such as the NGO community.

It would be naïve to assume that such a sea change is anything other than difficult or without its detractors. But the professional life of an ambassador is already a far cry from that portrayed by spy fiction writers, chocolate manufacturers or indeed Carne himself.

In the next few days I will offer some further personal reflections on “Diplomacy as marketing” and the new communication agenda in my blog on the Reuters Great Debate site.

Why Does UK Industry Support an Arms Trade Treaty?

2009-07-16T16:42:46+01:00

This article is written by Brinley Salzman of the UK Defence Manufacturers Association. The views expressed here are the DMA’s and do not necessarily represent the views of the British Government.

An initiative that genuinely seeks to establish a global benchmark in export control compliance is to be welcomed and supported. Industry has an important role to play at this vitally important time in the development of the ATT. Defence Industry is already heavily regulated, but that regulation is not universal in scope or effect. This uneven landscape provides one of the key arguments deployed in support of an ATT.

What arms should an ATT control? It must not be limited in scope compared to the range of military systems that might be relevant to the purpose of any ATT and that many countries have already control. An ATT must not exacerbate the problem of an uneven regulatory landscape. A balance must be struck between comprehensiveness and regulatory burden.

How should arms be controlled? Responsible industry recognises that defence exports are at the heart of the foreign and security policy interests of any State. A Treaty would require states to consider their existing obligations under international law; but many nations appear to have differing views on how those obligations should be interpreted and brought to bear on export licensing decisions.

It is recognised that Governments have the moral and practical responsibility to implement controls responsibly, fairly and transparently. But how could this be brought together into a coherent package in a community of vastly different interests?

Industry has an important role to play. The moral arguments for an ATT, that underpin human security, social and economic development, are not incompatible with good business practice. Corporate responsibility is a fundamental part of good business strategy. Ethical and responsible business gives competitive commercial advantage.

The concept of a ‘level playing field’ is important during global economic crisis. Pressure on Industry and Governments is growing. Driven, at least in part, by smaller slices of the cake being available to high-value manufacturers, this pressure presents the increased risk of some suppliers entering or revisiting markets that, until recently, would have been considered off limits. This would be a highly undesirable outcome.

The global supply chain supports many thousands of skilled jobs in many parts of the world. Defence Industry is, therefore, a catalyst for high-value manufacturing growth in developed and developing economies. Openness in the world trade system is essential for successful growth, but that trade must be carried out both responsibly and securely. A Treaty that clearly establishes the highest common standards and transparency of implementation can go a long way toward achieving this.

Final exports of defence materiel must be licensed, but the bureaucracy attached to the international movement of components in the supply chain must be reduced. There are countries where we would welcome the opportunity to place work for reasons both of cost and of the availability of skilled people; our ability to do so is limited at present. An ATT must give Governments confidence to trust the extension of the supply chain and reduce bureaucracy.

The potential, long-term benefits of a Treaty to regulate the trade in conventional arms extends beyond Defence Industry: spin-off benefits of good governance, transparency and stability feed into inward investment, supply-chain security and economic growth that allow for poverty reduction and respect for human rights.

There are many arguments in favour of an ATT, but a broader horizon is required, based on the way we characterise an ATT. It should not be viewed through the optic of a traditional disarmament or arms control instrument. It is a new way for the international community to address the inter-relationships between conflict, poverty, development, human rights and trade. All sectors, health, education, agriculture should be engaged in this debate and appreciate the opportunities for growth and security.

MOSCOW: A FOLLOW ON TO START

2009-07-08T11:41:35+01:00

There has been a wide welcome amongst governments and also by the think tank community for the announcement of a’ Joint understanding’ by Presidents Obama and Medvedev earlier this week to reduce their nuclear arsenals to below 1,700 warheads each and their commitment to co-operate more closely on non-proliferation.

With the existing START Treaty due to expire in December this year, the priority has been to get something in place before then. A tall order given the slow pace of Arms Control and Disarmament diplomacy for much of the past decade. And the fact that the US and Russian negotiating teams have been hard at work in Geneva over the past weeks involving some of their best diplomats. This week’s announcement should therefore be seen as a step in a longer process. The US’s still has to complete its own Nuclear Posture Review. These are issues go to the heart of the nation state’s responsibilities – to protect and safeguard its citizens. This is not an area for “gesture politics”. More a time to start putting the substance into the bold vision that both presidents articulated in London and Prague earlier this year.

But we can see that Russia and the US are well on track, reflecting the increasing willingness of the nuclear weapons states to co-operate on nuclear issues and in particular on disarmament. This will be particularly important as we approach the NPT Review Conference next spring.

For our part, the UK has been working hard to strengthen the consensus across all pillars of the NPT. As Gordon Brown commented in his Lancaster House speech and again in the Building Britain’s future paper , we have to confront interconnected challenges of our global society, where the nuclear question is a central issue that plays into many, if not all of them

CLUSTER MUNITIONS BAN: BUILDING BRITAIN’S FUTURE

2009-06-29T17:00:27+01:00

Today the Prime Minister published a major consultation exercise on the Draft Legislative Programme (DLP) including a Cluster Munitions Prohibitions Bill to give effect to the UK’s obligations under the Oslo Treaty signed by David Miliband at the end of last year.

The Plan called “Building Britain’s Future” calls for the United Kingdom to show leadership on a wider scale in driving forward a step-change on the nuclear non-proliferation and multilateral disarmament agenda in 2010.

The new bill on cluster munitions will create the criminal offences to enforce the Oslo Treaty's ban on the use, development, production,stockpiling, retention or transfer of cluster munitions, and thereby pave the way for the UK's ratification of this most significant new arms control agreement in recent years.

The Oslo Treaty (or more correctly the Convention on Cluster Munitions), and this Bill, will advance our goal of tackling the humanitarian and security threats posed by conventional weapons to regional and global stability, security and sustainable development.

To take part in this online consultation Building Britain's Future follow the links above.

Arms Trade Treaty: Guest Blog from Kate Allen, Director Amnesty (UK)

2009-06-15T14:07:17+01:00

This article is written by Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK. The views expressed here are Amnesty's and do not necessarily represent the views of the British Government.

Today’s special event at the Foreign Office, where Amnesty school, colleges and university group members will meet government representatives to discuss plans and aspirations for an Arms Trade Treaty, is particularly inspiring and extremely important for us here at Amnesty International.

It signifies the benefits of assiduous and unfaltering campaigning by young people across the UK who have supported the call for an international Arms Trade Treaty by Amnesty International and our partners in the Control Arms Campaign – Oxfam and IANSA.

Without tireless efforts from school and student groups the Control Arms Campaign would not have been able to have achieved what it has so far.

An effective Arms Trade Treaty is long overdue. Latest figures reveal that armed violence kills approximately 740,000 people each year – that’s more than one person every minute of every day.

About one in three of all serious human rights violations reported by Amnesty involves the use of arms and guns are used in 85 per cent of all killings around the world.

Such shocking statistics have probably compelled many young people to take action and to press for an Arms Trade Treaty. I am delighted to see so many and such a variety of creative products and petitions from our school and student groups urging the UK Government to push at international level for this important Treaty. Such efforts have led to the significant progress we’ve seen internationally so far.

Through the efforts of the UK Government and other supportive governments in 2006, there was international agreement to support the idea of an Arms Trade Treaty, and last year 137 governments voted to start formal discussions on the Treaty.

Pressure from school, college and university Amnesty groups has clearly been valuable for the UK Government in making such progress on an international level. But despite such achievements, we cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that there is a long road ahead before an effective Arms Trade Treaty is in place.

The Arms Trade Treaty has to be robust enough to save lives. It has to ensure that upholding human rights is at its core, and it must be based on the golden rule that arms must never be supplied where they are likely to be used to commit human rights violations.

Without such watertight rules, the Treaty will be next to useless.

A lot still hangs in the balance for the development of an effective Treaty, and so the Control Arms Campaign still needs the tireless efforts and creativity of our young campaigners to secure strong international legislation.

Today’s meeting is a real milestone for the scores of students and school-pupils who will meet UK Government representatives. We hope that it will inspire and reinvigorate both our young campaigners and the UK Government to continue to achieve a successful, robust and effective international Arms Trade Treaty.

RETURN TO THE ARMS TRADE TREATY (ATT)

2009-06-14T08:43:31+01:00

Tomorrow I will be back in London to join 150 students from schools and universities across Britain for a workshop on the Arms Trade Treaty organised jointly with the NGO alliance Control Arms who have been lobbying for an ATT for more than a decade. Bill Rammell until recently an FCO minister, now at the MOD will join us for part of the day.

The event is part of Control Arms week of action on the ATT (15- 19 June) and promises to be a refreshing change from the diplomatic trench warfare of multilateral arms control and disarmament. Fortunately young people are generally not concerned with rules of procedure, agenda’s and mandates. They want the world to be a better place. Their impatience and clear vision is a healthy reminder to the professionals that it really is high time we moved beyond the decade of deadlock to a decade of decisions.

Most of my blog posts over the past two months have focussed on the nuclear weapons proliferation, in part because the DPRK tests and concerns about Iran have dominated the media headlines, but also because we have at long last begun to make progress in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty and on a new treaty to ban the production of Fissile Material for nuclear weapons.

Kofi Annan once remarked, that in terms of people killed and injured every day, conventional weapons are the worst Weapons of Mass Destruction. So as someone whose job bridges both nuclear and conventional weapons proliferation, I am acutely aware that one of the key elements of making progress towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons is to stop the uncontrolled proliferation of conventional weapons.

Next month discussions will reconvene at the United Nations in New York on a future Arms Trade Treaty to establish a legally binding framework for the effective regulation of the international arms trade. Grace Mutandwa has blogged on the impact of the current absence of such regulation in her own country. Other Foreign Office colleagues will provide their own perspectives in the coming days. Readers can also follow the event on Twitter .

A WORLD FREE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS: A DECISIVE MONTH

2009-05-31T10:01:30+01:00

May 2009 saw the first steps to break the “Decade of Stalemate” in the International Organisations responsible for Nuclear Disarmament and Non Proliferation. On Friday the Conference on Disarmament, after a 12 year stalemate, agreed to begin negotiating a new treaty to ban the production of radioactive material for nuclear weapons. The CD is the only international forum where all the countries with nuclear weapons sit together to decide on Arms Control and Disarmament.

My Blog of 16 May reported the breakthrough in the New York meetings of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) again after more than a decade.

But this month also saw North Korea (also a CD member) test a nuclear weapon and missile delivery systems; definitely a step backwards on the road to a World Free of Nuclear Weapons.

Are the two directly related? Probably not; although the Korean test certainly underlined the damage done by more than 10 years of interminable wrangling over procedure in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and in the NPT.

Building a new global coalition as described by David Miliband and getting decision makers (and opinion formers) to appreciate the extent of global interdependence that Gordon Brown has talked about has been a long haul in Arms Control and Disarmament.

Success in Geneva this week under Algeria’s chairmanship was the result of a such an (informal) coalition. Countries as varied as Poland and South Africa, Mexico and Nigeria, Ireland and Indonesia; all willing to speak up, determined to make progress and refusing to be put off by the many obstacles. The UK has been part of that coalition sometimes to people’s surprise. But David Miliband has been talking about “The Global Hub” for some time now.

No progress would be possible without the political vision of both the current and past generation of world leaders over the past 3 years. We will continue to need that political momentum over the next 12 months as we prepare for the 2010 NPT Review Conference.

Have we broken the mould? Well clearly not. There is real concern about nuclear proliferation. More widely several generations of decision-makers and opinion-formers have based their professional careers on concepts such as the East West or North South divide and the interplay of 20th Century power politics defined by enemies and allies. Recent events only serve to reinforce such views. If military alliances will remain part of our uncertain world for some time to come, this way of viewing the world has to evolve. Today’s Britain as an avowedly multicultural society should recognise that more than most.

Links to media comment on the CD decision are on delicious. Dominic Asquiths blog on reaction to David Miliband’s speech.

DPRK NUCLEAR TEST

2009-05-25T21:15:18+01:00

The DPRK nuclear and missile tests have been widely condemned but also throw into sharp relief why we need to get the international Arms Control and Disarmament community back to work after a Decade of Deadlock. Followers of the FCO and Reuters Blogs and Twitter will know the long and tortuous road we have been following to try and achieve this.

Procedural wrangling in the Conference on Disarmament and in the meetings of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and reluctance to deal with the DPRK’s claim to have withdrawn from its treaty obligations means that the Security Council is the only international institution able to act on behalf of the world community.

Both David Miliband in his speech last week and The Prime Minister in his Lancaster House speech in March underlined the need for broader coalitions, for a recognition of the importance of common purpose and common action in our shared global society. Nuclear fallout as Chernobyl showed 23 years ago does not respect national boundaries. As Bloomberg reported this morning the economic effects of the DPRK test were felt almost immediately in the regions economies.

Meetings in New York and Geneva over the past two weeks give some grounds for hope that such broader coalitions are indeed emerging, but this weekend’s events serve as a reminder that a new “Decade of Decisions” in this area of foreign policy is long overdue.

NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION: NEW YORK MEETING CONCLUDES

2009-05-16T01:36:39+01:00

Making the Best the enemy of the Good is a trap that multilateral diplomacy often fails to avoid. But we also have to prevent that easy slide to the lowest common denominator. This is the balance we have been struggling with in New York this week.

Those of you who have been following the discussions on TWITTER and Flickr will have seen that it was something of a roller coaster ride.

At the end of last week we had already broken open the 15 year deadlock where the Preparatory meetings had failed to agree the Agenda for the five yearly Review Conference. Suddenly with next year's Agenda agreed the way was open to get into a discussion of policy.

In the end we were not able to agree the chairman’s draft policy recommendations. This was a very ambitious thing to attempt to do in just 5 days. No-one has ever managed it before and we very nearly pulled it off. With such high stakes it is hardly surprising some of the discussions became quite heated. People often confuse diplomacy with tact, which is just one way of persuading people. When time is short and the issue important, theatre is just as much an element. The skill lies in knowing which approach to deploy, with whom and when This brings me back to my oft repeat theme in these blogs – diplomacy is about trying to understand other people. Finding out what will encourage them to agree with you and what will prevent them. Having a well reasoned argument rarely works on its own

So has it been a worthwhile 2 weeks? Definitely yes. We are out of the foothills of endless procedural wrangling and into the open grassland of the real debate. We have 12 months in which to deepen discussion of what really matters - how to elaborate a shared vision of the steps needed to achieve a World Free of Nuclear Weapons.

NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY: APPROACHING THE ENDGAME

2009-05-14T03:51:05+01:00

After the success of last week’s discussion the last 3 days have been spent on what this meeting will recommend to the major NPT Review Conference next year. We are in uncharted water here. No previous preparatory meeting has ever managed to agree policy recommendations. Over the past two years delegations rather seemed to lose their way once we moved beyond prepared statements and arguments over procedure.

On Friday the chairman tabled a bold proposal which tried to draw together the views contained in a huge number of past statements and proposals. The list of documents alone runs to 17 pages! Over the weekend and during the week delegations have been meeting in small groups behind closed doors trying to decide on the changes they want . We had one formal session where a number of nations gave general comments. Our Statement will be on our Geneva website shortly.

I always find this stage of any negotiation the most trying. It is difficult to get a sense of the feeling in the room since there are few formal meetings. Other delegations are closeted away in a wide variety of different groupings and alliances and not easy to contact. The stop/start nature of the day is wearing. Rumours abound. The constant question in our mind is “How much do others really want success” and “Will the chairman be able to accurately judge where the compromise lies?”

Tonight we received a revised text based on the chairman’s private contacts with a wide number of delegations including our own. He seems to have listened well and it is a serious rewrite. But now we have to study the whole thing afresh to see whether our points are included and what the new text actually means.

Regular updates are on twitter and pictures of the average day on Flickr

ARMS TRADE TREATY: WORK CONTINUES

2009-05-12T01:12:08+01:00

Guest Blogger - Jesse Clarke, Assistant Legal Adviser, Foreign & Commonwealth Office

This week I gave a presentation on the Arms Trade Treaty to a group of UK academics who specialise in international law.

The presentation took place as part of the FCO Legal Advisers' Annual Academic Seminar and provided an opportunity to report on recent progress made towards an Arms Trade Treaty. Of particular interest to the audience was the idea that an Arms Trade Treaty would seek to establish strong and universal standards against which states could assess arms transfers.

Many of these standards are anchored in international law and reflect states' existing obligations, commitments or responsibilities under international law (e.g. regarding UN sanctions, human rights, humanitarian law and sustainable development).

From the lawyers’ perspective, an ATT is a modest but significant project. Modest because it does not seek to redefine existing international law, and yet significant because it would require states to consider arms transfers through the prism of international law as it exists today. The presentation ended with a useful discussion. It is fair to say that the academics are supportive of an ATT and see it as a very positive development.

They asked some probing questions about state responsibility for arms transfers, the likely scope of an ATT, and our engagement with the US and the Commonwealth, but I am confident that the exchange of ideas between government lawyers and academics will assist the effort to negotiate a strong ATT that is fit for purpose.

As John has commented on Twitter, picking up a War Child post On the Congo: “1,400 people died needlessly today. And yesterday. And they will tomorrow”. So the humanitarian case for an ATT is being measured in human lives. The UN Secretary General has said several times that while we must deal with the threat posed by Nuclear Weapons proliferation, Conventional Weapons and their uncontrolled proliferation are currently the most destructive Weapons of Mass Destruction.

NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY NEW YORK DAY 3

2009-05-07T03:57:53+01:00

A day of surprises. Has the “Decade of Deadlock” finally ended? After 15 years when the final Preparatory Committee, currently meeting in New York, has completely failed to agree the Agenda for the major Review Conference, this morning we actually did it.

Quite remarkable. Of course to anyone outside the community of Disarmament diplomats this may seem quite a bizarre thing to get exited about. But the agenda sets out in some detail what the 5 yearly Review Conference next year is going to focus on. The fact that the last Review Conference in 2005 failed is largely due to the inability of nations to agree what they wanted to discuss.

This year both the Nuclear Weapon States (UK, US, Russia, France and China) and the Non Nuclear Weapons states (everyone else in the NPT Regime) simply said enough is enough and refused to allow those who wanted to use procedural tricks to prevent discussion from blocking the way forward. US leadership is part of this, but one nation cannot carry the day alone. It takes those on the centre ground to rally around to defeat those on the extreme wings.

Now of course the serious work begins.

NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY, NEW YORK DAY 3

2009-05-07T03:56:08+01:00

NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY, NEW YORK: DAY 2

2009-05-06T03:50:04+01:00

Day 2 and President Obama sends a personal message to the meeting. Civil Society have a special session to address the meeting. Unfortunately I am tied up in bilateral meetings all afternoon, but reading the transcripts their input is noticeably more focussed than in recent meetings and members of my team report on the number of younger people speaking on behalf of various NGOs. This is a very positive move. As Gordon Brown commented in his Lancaster House speech nuclear war is not something that just concerns our generation.

General Statements will continue tomorrow. Are we reaching the point where as George Robinson once remarked (about a NATO meeting) “ I think everything has been said on this subject, but not everyone has said it yet!”

We will be up late to try and ensure that when we get to the afternoon discussion on Nuclear Disarmament we are not simply talking at the other delegations and repeating the same tired old formulas.

Surprisingly we seem to be making some progress on the procedural issues that while excruciatingly boring have managed to tie the NPT into knots on several occasions in the past – nearly two weeks to agree the agenda at our meeting in Vienna 2 years ago. The diplomatic equivalent of water torture and completely incomprehensible to the ordinary mortal.

NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY MEETINGS IN NEW YORK: DAY 1

2009-05-05T03:54:26+01:00

A reasonable start to the NPT PrepCom in New York. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon set the tone in his opening address in which he said that “The global economic crisis, climate change and the outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus are all reminders that we live in an interdependent world. We cannot afford to place disarmament and non-proliferation on a backburner”.

Most nations opening statement’s followed a similar measured and constructive tone although there was a little too much jargon and reiteration of tired old formula’s. As one senior diplomat commented to me “The last ten years have been the decade of Mantras” Africa’s voice and their tendency for straight talking was a refreshing break from some of this.

Egypt, true to form was vocal and forthright. Unfortunately in the afternoon Iran embarked on a lengthy attack on the US, UK, and France making a number of wild allegations they know perfectly well to be incorrect, as does everyone else in the room. The media was predicting worse, but still a shame to see a great nation indulging in this sort of polemics, which we then have to rebut.

I have been posting on Twitter throughout the day for those who are so inclined (also on the ATT page sidebar) and will blog as we move through the week.

ENGAGING CIVIL SOCIETY

2009-04-25T17:33:20+01:00

I was back in London this week for meetings with UK Industry on the Arms Trade Treaty and with NGO’s and academics to discuss the next Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty meeting in New York in ten days time.Two quite different perspectives.

The UK as one of the world’s major arms manufactures has a real economic interest in making sure that the ATT project comes out the right way. Industry has several times voiced their support for agreed international standards that the ATT would provide. The patchwork of sometimes conflicting regulations that currently exist across the world simply makes it harder for them to do business without effectively preventing the irresponsible trade. Taking industry’s advice on how best to tackle this problem is a crucial part of our work.

My meeting with a broad range of NGO’s, think tanks and opinion formers to discuss the nuclear issue is also a way to inform our decision making. The depth of technical expertise and experience of the issue is always impressive. While they often express dissatisfaction that the government is not going far or fast enough, it is a constructive dialogue and no bad thing for officials to be challenged to defend what we are doing.

OVERCOMING NUCLEAR DANGER

2009-04-17T14:51:20+01:00

Have just spent a fascinating 24 hours in Rome in the company of President Gorbachev, Secretary Shultz, Senators Nunn and Perry plus other political giants from my early career, discussing how to get to a World Free Of Nuclear Weapons.

Regular readers will know that these former political leaders have been leading a major campaign to re-energise the Nuclear Disarmament debate. Des Browne, the former UK Defence Secretary who gave last year’s major speech on this issue in Geneva (See earlier blogs) represented the British perspective.

The meeting hosted by Italy as the G8 Presidency, was organised by NTI a major US think tank. It was an extraordinary and inspiring experience. The underlying theme from these politicians who oversaw the end of the Cold War was that their work remained unfinished and that the world had seemed to lose its way in recent years. Recent statements by Gordon Brown and Barack Obama , the UK Paper on Lifting the Nuclear Shadow and the Joint US/Russian statement in London showed the tide had perhaps now turned.

My Russian colleague, Anatoly Antonov and I were among the serving diplomats present. We explained how important this campaign had been for those of us “at the negotiating coal face”. We now needed to turn their ideas into reality in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meetings. The next one being in New York in 3 weeks time. We warned that the challenges ahead were as serious as the issues themselves. We have to overcome not only a decade of despondency, but the negative impact of events Iran and North Korea. Trust and optimism are qualities in short supply in the disarmament community.

So a week that began for me in Geneva with the deadlocked talks on Cluster Munitions in the CCW finished on a high note. These men and women helped us emerge from a dark period of world history when the risk of nuclear conflict was ever present. We can learn much from their example.

ARMS TRADE TREATY: SOMALIA

2009-04-16T06:31:47+01:00

After a week when France and America have taken decisive military action against the Somali Pirates I am again struck by the urgent need to deal with the strategic agenda of weapons proliferation. Otherwise we will have to continually repeat the operational one. Hilary Clinton has rightly said when the house is burning the first thing to do is to put out the fire. Very true, but until we establish much better international regulation of the arms trade, weapons will continue to flow into conflict areas into the hands of terrorists, insurgents and criminals and we will keep having to put out the fires.

Not only that but the risk to our law enforcement and intervention forces is becoming greater as those they have to deal with are increasingly better armed. Greater risk means greater cost. So yes we do need to deal with the fire, and decisive action is welcome, but we also need to start building the firebreaks. Many of the new faces in the US team have a solid background in conflict prevention and consequently recognise the strength of this argument.

THE ARMS TRADE: LAW AND ECONOMICS

2009-03-30T01:12:03+01:00

Stuck in Washington after the ASIL conference (see last post) before calls next week, and with the G20 dominating the news set me thinking about one of the questions the sceptics often ask – Why do we need a new treaty surely we just need nations to act more responsibly?

Well its true a new treaty is not going to solve the problems by itself – you can’t simply legislate for responsible behaviour. We can’t even manage that domestically.

Most countries have laws against speeding and despite all the law enforcement of national police and courts, people still break the law. Why would we imagine that a new law would work at the international level where we don’t have anything comparable in terms of law enforcement.

Ah! say the sceptics then you admit the ATT won’t work.

No, It will work because the ATT is a more complex idea than that. It started out as an effort to tackle Human Rights and Humanitarian issues. And those are still at its heart and important reasons for taking action.

But there are perfectly good economic reasons for nations to behave responsibly. In one sense the ATT is the mechanism to allow us to focus those economic drivers.

Development: huge amounts of aid money have been spent dealing with the effects of our failure to properly regulate the arms trade. We simply can’t continue in the current financial climate to see our efforts to make progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals undermined like this. We are going to have to regulate the arms trade much better than we have.

Industrial co-operation: many of the major arms suppliers restructured into global companies over a decade ago. The current patchwork of controls is clearly not working. Worse because the there are no common international standards it has prevented industrial cooperation and inward investment. Putting the arms trade onto a sound regulatory footing would increase confidence and gradually allow greater cooperation where the sanction for “irresponsible” behaviour would be that companies would be unwilling to co-operate, or trade with those who do not meet the international standard.

In his speech to Britain’s ambassadors last week David Miliband said that“ Economic risk needs to be addressed by a political bargain” this is very much the heart of what an ATT process entails; understanding the link between politics and economics, achieving a synergy between the moral and the self interested approach. As we have seen with the Kimberly Process, or Blood Diamonds, it is quite possible to use economic interest to produce a result that meets a moral imperative.

MARCH IS CONFERENCE MONTH

2009-03-26T00:04:27+00:00

The G20 summit notwithstanding this month has been fulltime “Power-Point and Lights” on my side. The range of subjects and perspectives on what we do has been fascinating.

Today I am London for the Foreign Office Leadership Conference, a chance to catch up with colleagues across the world and see how we can better work together. The event started with an awards ceremony, a celebration of the creativity and enthusiasm of our teams (rather than simply the ambassadors) in finding new ways to meet the challenges of modern diplomacy.

David Miliband talked to us about the strategic turning point that the financial crisis will mean for foreign policy. Bernard Kouchner talked to us about the “Entente Formidable” but made some quite pointed comments about how Britain sees the world compared to our continental neighbours. This morning we held a meeting of FCO bloggers and the wider blogging community. Time was really too short, but I see that our fellow bloggers are already out onto the net with comment . You can aslo watch the clips from the meeting at this link.

I fly to Washington tomorrow to take part in a panel on the Arms Trade Treaty at the American Society of International Law annual meeting. A complete shift of focus and that has been the theme for the month, which began with a speech to the Peoples Development Summit where I was talking to Business Schools and trainers about the crossover between modern Human Resources and diplomatic negotiations. All too often we tend think that our own work requires a special expertise and skills and yet when we start talking to people in other disciplines we realize how much we can learn from each other.

Even the weekends have not been free as The Monterrey Institute from California every March brings together a number of the ambassadors who represent their countries in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meetings, for a discussion in private with NGO’s and Think Tanks. A very frank behind the scenes exchange. Sometimes uncomfortable but never dull these gloves off meetings often lead to new ideas of how we might find a way through to an agreement.

Some might well ask what is the point of such “talk shops”. Well of course no great decisions get taken, but Diplomacy is still fundamentally about people. By bringing them together to talk through their differences, to exchange ideas, and have their assumptions challenged we begin to prepare the way for some of the very difficult public debates and decisions that need to be taken in the months ahead.

OUR VISION FOR THE NPT: PRIME MINISTER’S STATEMENT

2009-03-17T20:20:34+00:00

At a major international meeting today in London on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, Gordon Brown set out the UK's vision for the future on the wider nuclear issue. In the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty this is usually referred to as the three NPT pillars - Disarmament, Non Proliferation and the Peaceful uses of Nuclear Energy

As Gordon Brown pointed out the nuclear question is absolutely central to the challenges we face in the 21st century. “It is about the values of this global society we are trying to build and the foundations upon which we build our common security and a sustainable future for our planet. In short it is about what kind of world we are and what kind of world we want to be”.

He also announced that the UK would reduce the number of missiles carried on our submarines from 16 to 12. The full text of the speech can be found on the No10 website. Comment by the Times and BBC

ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT: TIME TO CLONE THE AMBASSADOR

2009-03-07T15:48:53+00:00

This morning The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov addressed the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva where he said that "The right moment has come today, for the first time after the end of the Cold War, for making real progress in resuming the global disarmament process on a broad agenda,"

Unfortunately I am still stuck in New York having wrapped up the weeks discussion on the Arms Trade Treaty last night. This rather shows that while achieving agreement on new treaties in the UN has all too often been blocked, the last 3 years have nonetheless seen a real upsurge in diplomatic activity. The addition last year of the Oslo Treaty negotiations, took me around the world twice, but I still have not mastered being in two places at once.

Foreign Minister Lavrov’s voice urging greater effort is a welcome addition to that of other senior politicians who want to see progress and soon.

It is one of the strange things about multilateral arms control and disarmament that we never have ministerial meetings. NATO, the EU and other institutions regularly hold meetings where politicians “cut the final deal”. In our area of work governments are always represented by their officials despite the fact that the issues we deal with, eg Nuclear Weapons and the Arms Trade have potentially huge economic, military and social consequences.

I often wonder whether politicians would actually get bogged down in the details so beloved of multilateral diplomats.