Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations

i UNIDIR/2006/20 Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations John Borrie and Vanessa Martin Randin Editors UNIDIR United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research Geneva, Switzerland About the cover Frieden (Peace) was a gift from the artist René Brandenberger to the City of Geneva in honour of the Conference on Disarmament in 1983. The sculpture is installed near the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. © Photo courtesy of John Borrie. Note The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. * * * The views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the individual authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the United Nations, UNIDIR, its staff members or sponsors. UNIDIR/2006/20 Copyright © United Nations, 2006 All rights reserved UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATION Sales No. GV.E.06.0.16 ISBN 978-92-9045-187-7 Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations is the third volume of papers from UNIDIR’s project Disarmament as Humanitarian Action: Making Multilateral Negotiations Work. The project’s first volume of work, released in 2005, is entitled Alternative Approaches in Multilateral Decision Making: Disarmament as Humanitarian Action. The second publication, Disarmament as Humanitarian Action: From Perspective to Practice, was published in 2006. iv The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR)—an intergovernmental organization within the United Nations—conducts research on disarmament and security. UNIDIR is based in Geneva, Switzerland, the centre for bilateral and multilateral disarmament and non- proliferation negotiations, and home of the Conference on Disarmament. The Institute explores current issues pertaining to the variety of existing and future armaments, as well as global diplomacy and local tensions and conflicts. Working with researchers, diplomats, government officials, NGOs and other institutions since 1980, UNIDIR acts as a bridge between the research community and policy makers. UNIDIR’s activities are funded by contributions from governments and donor foundations. The Institute’s web site can be found at: www.unidir.org CONTENTS Foreword by Patricia Lewis . ix About the authors . xiii Chapter 1 What do we mean by “thinking outside the box” in multilateral disarmament and arms control negotiations? John Borrie Summary . 1 Introduction . 1 An inconvenient truth . 2 Complexity . 7 Approaching disarmament from the bottom up . 9 Beyond the box . 10 Chapter 2 Diplomats, civil society and academia: some thoughts on the limits of the discourse Vanessa Martin Randin Summary . 13 Introduction . 13 International relations and the study of cooperation . 15 Game theory perspectives and multilateral arms control and disarmament negotiations . 18 Two-level games: an alternative framework for understanding cooperation? . 20 Civil society activism in arms control and disarmament processes . 23 Conclusions . 25 v vi Chapter 3 NGOs and multilateral disarmament diplomacy: limits and possibilities David Atwood Summary . 33 Introduction . 33 The state system and the limits of inclusion . 34 What does “access” mean and what difference does it make? . 37 Promising avenues for NGO engagement in multilateral diplomacy settings . 39 Towards a new “community of practice” for NGOs . 49 Chapter 4 Changing perceptions and practice in multilateral arms control negotiations Rebecca Johnson Summary . 55 Introduction . 55 Three approaches to multilateralism . 56 Framing objectives and outcomes . 62 Negotiating tactics . 72 Conclusions . 79 Chapter 5 Cooperation and defection in the Conference on Disarmament John Borrie Summary . 89 Introduction . 89 Deadlock and its discontents . 90 It’s all or nothing . 94 Recognizing inefficient equilibria . 102 Conclusions . 104 Chapter 6 Engineering progress: a diplomat’s perspective on multilateral disarmament Daniël Prins Summary . 109 vii Introduction . 109 Transformative potential . 112 Flexibility in regional groups . 113 Flexibility in procedures . 116 Flexibility in relations with headquarters . 118 Flexibility in involving non-state partners . 120 Ever-increasing complexity . 124 Conclusions . 124 Chapter 7 A physics of diplomacy? The dynamics of complex social phenomena and their implications for multilateral negotiations Aurélia Merçay and John Borrie Summary . 129 Introduction . 129 The rational approach . 132 Pertinence of a physics of society . 136 Some key concepts . 138 Implications for multilateral negotiations . 148 Conclusion . 157 Chapter 8 Non-linear modelling of small arms proliferation Aurélia Merçay Summary . 165 Introduction . 165 The dynamics of small arms proliferation . 166 A non-linear model of small arms proliferation . 169 Evaluation of the model . 179 Results and implications . 181 Why this model is useful . 185 Next steps? . 186 Chapter 9 Security of journalists: making the case for modelling armed violence as a means to promote human security Nathan Taback and Robin Coupland Summary . 191 viii Introduction . 191 Human security and the effects of armed violence . 192 Why study attacks on journalists in conflict areas? . 194 Discussion . 200 Conclusions . 203 Chapter 10 Investment policies and arms production— experiences from the Norwegian Pension Fund–Global Gro Nystuen Summary . 207 Background . 207 The ethical guidelines . 208 Humanitarian principles and negative screening of certain weapons producers . 212 Possible consequences of exclusion of weapons producers . 219 Concluding remarks . 221 Chapter 11 The role of non-governmental organizations in the monitoring and verification of international arms control and disarmament agreements Michael Crowley and Andreas Persbo Summary . 225 Introduction . 225 Defining verification and monitoring . 227 Differing approaches to NGO monitoring and verification . 231 Enhancing the quality and scope of future NGO monitoring and verification of arms control and disarmament agreements . 239 Final thoughts . 245 Acronyms . 253 FOREWORD In late 2004, the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) began a research project entitled Disarmament as Humanitarian Action: Making Multilateral Negotiations Work (DHA). The project, assisted financially by the Governments of Norway and the Netherlands, examines current difficulties for the international community in tackling disarmament and arms control. Recognizing that a greater humanitarian focus is relevant to the work of multilateral practitioners like diplomats and other policy makers, the project is concerned with developing practical proposals to help them apply this in functional terms. Until recently, thinking in disarmament and arms control was focused on security concepts dominated by external threats to states, especially from other states. These orthodox approaches have been found wanting in the face of new international security challenges. Indeed, the majority of multilateral processes in the disarmament domain failed to make substantial progress over the last decade, themes discussed in the DHA project’s first volume of work, entitled Alternative Approaches in Multilateral Decision Making: Disarmament as Humanitarian Action, published in 2005. It is here that human security and humanitarian approaches to disarmament and arms control could have great effect. Such approaches put greater stress on the individual and their community as reference points for security. This enables problems of armed violence to be framed in new ways and appropriate responses to be identified that may not have been considered before. The spread and humanitarian effects of small arms, such as assault rifles and handguns, is an example in which human security perspectives make a great deal of sense. Not only do small arms kill many of thousands of civilians each year, their presence can have a chilling effect on trust and cooperation, clouding the socio-economic prospects of millions of people, one household or street at a time. The mosaic of small arms proliferation can be better understood once we start thinking about what drives individual perceptions of insecurity and the resulting social interactions. ix x At root, disarmament and arms control problems are issues of human security. People are hurt or killed and their communities undermined and destroyed by armed violence. Yet traditional multilateral approaches to security, especially in arms control, have been geared toward counting and deciding what to do with discrete weapons and their components— whether they are bombers, tanks, nuclear warheads or poisonous chemicals—which usually are controlled by governments. However, as we are witnessing, this type of approach can be confounded by the sheer complexity of the task. New security challenges are increasingly defined by the interdependence of many variables, rather than the innate strategic properties of specific objects or systems. Infectious disease; refugees and internally displaced people; trafficking in people, guns and narcotics; and environmental damage do not fit into the existing multilateral “box” at all well, and our collective responses are poorer for it. Another.

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