Category: 2015

In order to persuade its allies in Israel and Gulf Arab states to support the Iran nuclear deal, the United States is relying on inducements of weaponry sales; this regional militarisation is further destabilising the wider Middle East region.

The July 2015 international deal on regulating Iran’s nuclear programme, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), looks to be a triumph for international diplomacy in a region that all too often sees diplomacy lose out to military force. However, in order to persuade its allies in Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states to support the deal, the United States is offering ‘consolation packages’ of ever-higher quantities and qualities of weaponry.  This regional militarisation is further destabilising the wider Middle East region by fuelling an arms race and by increasing the attractiveness of hybrid or proxy warfare.

Arms Sales to Gulf Arab States

The six Arab monarchies that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE) are enthusiastic consumers of weaponry, which they overwhelmingly procure from the US, UK and France. Saudi Arabia is by far the largest military spender and arms importer among them. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the Kingdom’s record military expenditure of over $80 billion in 2014 made it the fourth highest military spender in the world, overtaking the UK and France. It is now the world’s second largest arms importer. The other GCC states are also major spenders: Oman is probably the world’s highest military spender by percentage of GDP, averaging 12% between 2010 and 2014; last year the United Arab Emirates’ military expenditure reached $23 billion and it has been the world’s fourth largest arms importer for a decade. Together, the GCC states account for about 12% of global arms imports. Only India imports more weapons.

The Gulf States enjoy a close commercial and strategic relationship with the United States, which is manifested in the huge sums spent on US weaponry, and the fact that the US military overtly uses land, air and naval bases in at least five of the six Gulf Arab states; its ongoing presence in Saudi Arabia is much lower key. Despite this, there are limitations on the quality and quantity of weaponry that the US can sell to GCC states. This is because of the US’ ongoing commitment to maintain Israel’s ‘qualitative military edge’ (QME) over its regional adversaries.

A term coined by Israel’s founding leader David Ben-Gurion in 1953, QME was formally written into US law by Congress in 2008. Legislation now states that the US President must carry out an ongoing ‘empirical and qualitative assessment’ of Israel’s QME over military threats to Israel, and this must be brought into consideration when assessing applications to provide military hardware or services to other countries in the Middle East. As the GCC states could in the future become adversaries to Israel, whose statehood none currently recognize and which Saudi Arabia and Kuwait opposed in the 1967 and 1973 wars, this has long restricted sales of the highest technology weapons, surveillance and targeting systems to Gulf Arab states.

QME and anti-Iran Alignments

Recent regional events, and the JCPOA in particular, have seen Israel and the Gulf States find themselves increasingly aligned against Iran. The Israeli leadership has been consistently critical of the deal while the Gulf States were hesitant to support it because of their fears that an economically, militarily and diplomatically resurgent Iran would dominate the Middle East region and potentially vie with them to become the US’ chief regional ally.

Relations between Israel and the Gulf have long been shrouded in secrecy, although that does not mean they have not existed. From 1950 until Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, for instance, there was periodic Israeli involvement in the operation of the ‘Trans-Arabia Pipeline’ (Tapline), and throughout the 1990s Israel and various GCC states began to set up trade offices; various Gulf States have, at different times and to varying extents, had a hand in the Arab-Israeli peace process. In the last few years, Israel and the Gulf States have increasingly found their regional interests aligning; this came to the fore during the 2011 Arab uprisings when they argued that American policy was exacerbating regional instability.

The coincidence of interests between Israel and the GCC was referenced by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in September; in a speech to the UN General Assembly he spent much of his time denigrating the Iran deal, but he also mentioned the ‘common dangers’ faced by Israel and Arab states, and his hope that they could build ‘lasting partnerships’ to counter such dangers. There has predictably been no discussion of any official agreement between Israel and any Gulf State, but rumours of potential partnerships have been germinating: one suggested that Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf, was looking to buy Iron Dome anti-missile defence systems from Israel; these reports were hotly denied by Bahraini officials.

GCC Support for the Iran Deal

Despite stiff and vocal opposition from the Republican majority in the Senate, Obama has recently signed waivers that would conditionally allow the lifting of US sanctions subject to Iran fulfilling its JCPOA obligations. An altogether different challenge for Obama was placating America’s allies in the Gulf.

Although Obama was not reliant on the Gulf Arab States to approve the Iran deal, it was sufficiently controversial to dent relations between them and the United States. This was demonstrated in May of this year when Obama invited GCC leaders to Camp David, where he attempted to persuade them personally of the merits of the deal: new Saudi monarch King Salman pulled out of attending at the last minute. Those that remained were hoping for a formal security treaty that would bind the US to support the GCC militarily in the case of an attack, but the Obama administration eventually won their support with promises of ‘support and capacity-building’, which essentially boiled down to bigger, faster arms deals.

King Salman has played a tough game with the Obama administration. After his no-show in May, the Saudis reminded the US that they do not rely exclusively on the American arms market when in June they conducted extensive talks with France, discussing the potential purchase of French civil nuclear technology and further arms deals, the immediate outcome of which was the French sale of $500 million worth of helicopters. Qatar and Egypt (likely financed by GCC patrons) have also made multi-billion dollar arms deals with France this year; as has Kuwait with Italy. There was also much talk of Saudi interest in Russian equipment during August.

Salman eventually reconciled with the Obama administration during a lavish state visit to Washington in September. Before talks between the two heads of state, Obama administration officials confirmed that Israel would be the only regional recipient of the forthcoming F-35 stealth fighter; they can thus claim to be considering Israel’s QME. However, officials also said that Obama would discuss ‘a range of other options meant to bolster Saudi defences’. Salman ultimately professed to come away reassured that the Iran deal would ‘contribute to security and stability in the region’. His price for this statement was a reassurance from Obama that US weapons technology and systems would be fast-tracked to Saudi Arabia, and a free hand to use such weapons in the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

Arms Sales and Geopolitics

Obama’s solution to winning support for the Iran deal from the Gulf Arab States is inherently flawed. While Gulf Arab leaders, having been promised these deals, professed their conviction that the deal would lead to regional stability, the promise of further military hardware was nevertheless purported to be intended to help states repel potential attacks from Iran. Although the narrative of the Israeli and American right is that Iran wants nuclear weapons to destroy Israel, an alternative explanation is that it is the huge qualitative and quantitative superiority in conventional weapons by US-allied Sunni Arab states that has driven Iran’s desire to develop nuclear weapons capabilities.

While the Iran nuclear deal may decrease the likelihood of a preemptive attack on Iran by either its Gulf Arab rivals or Israel, the escalating wars in Yemen and Syria indicate that Saudi Arabia and other conservative Arab monarchies (Morocco and Jordan have joined GCC allies in both interventions) are increasingly willing to employ a more interventionist approach in the region, both directly and via proxies, wherever they see the expansion of Iranian interests. This is facilitated by US weaponry, intelligence and diplomatic support.

The war in Yemen has already had catastrophic humanitarian consequences, with at least 2,615 civilians killed and about 1.5 million people displaced. Reports suggest that larger quantities of US military hardware could be making their way to Syria after a 24 October meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Saudi officials, including King Salman, to discuss greater support for ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels in response to Russian air strikes. The White House has claimed that Russia would not succeed in achieving a military solution to the conflict, but the United States is equally unlikely to enforce a military solution.

The JCPOA is a diplomatic breakthrough that will likely be far more successful in reducing Iran’s capacity to develop nuclear weapons than air or missile strikes. However, while Iran can no longer look to the nuclear option to give it a military advantage, or parity, it may consider other options. The strategic alignment of Israel and the Gulf States means that Obama has greater leverage to use arms deals to maintain the support of his Gulf allies, but a result of these deals is that a huge amount of conventional weaponry is being poured into the Gulf and from there to regional conflicts.

Many of these conflicts involve Iranian proxies, and Iran may compensate for its lack of either nuclear or conventional leverage by increasing military support for these proxies, including those in Syria and Yemen. The United States’ method of securing regional support for the JCPOA thus adds fuel to the fire of regional conflicts and humanitarian crises, and makes diplomatic outcomes, whether in Syria or Yemen, ever more distant.

Finbar Anderson is Communications Intern with Oxford Research Group.  Having lived and studied in Egypt, he has recently completed a Master’s degree in History of International Relations, focusing on the politics of the Middle East, at the London School of Economics. 

By Wim Zwijnenburg and Doug Weir

Is the US backpedalling on its use of depleted uranium (DU) rounds? There are indications that the use of these highly toxic munitions could increasingly be a political liability for the US, with countries affected by DU, like Iraq, other UN Member States, and populations in contaminated areas all expressing concerns over its use and impact. But stigmatisation, although important, is not enough on its own – in order to make sustained progress on accountability and in reducing civilian harm, a broader framework that addresses all toxic remnants of war is needed.

In a recent policy change, the Pentagon stated that it has not, and will not use DU in Iraq and Syria during Operation Inherent Resolve. The decision, which was cautiously welcomed by campaigners, contrasted with a statement made in October 2014, when the US announced the deployment of A-10 gunships to the conflict. The standard combat load for the A-10’s cannon includes a 30mm DU armour-piercing incendiary round, and in autumn 2014 a US Air Forces spokesperson said that the Air Force was ready to use DU again in Iraq and Syria.

Iraq is no stranger to DU: at least 404,000kg of the radioactive and chemically toxic heavy metal was fired in the country in 1991 and 2003. The fine dust created by DU impacts presents a hazard to civilians if inhaled, and both the dust and fragments of the ammunition can contaminate soil, vehicles and buildings. As DU particles are environmentally persistent, DU’s legacy can last long after conflicts end. Exposure to DU has been linked to increases of cancers and congenital birth defects in areas of Iraq that saw heavy fighting.

Yet despite long-running concerns voiced by Iraqi civilians and international advocates, no robust civilian health studies have ever been undertaken in Iraq to determine this link. Progress on clean-up operations has been slow, and has been hindered by the US’ refusal to provide comprehensive targeting data to UN organisations and the Iraqi government.

The evolving use of DU

The A-10 gunship has long been promoted as a “tank killer”, with the US arguing that DU ammunition is crucial for this function. Justifying the apparent U-turn over Inherent Resolve, a US public affairs official explained that: “The ammunition is developed to destroy tanks on a conventional battlefield. Daesh [Islamic State] does not possess large numbers of tanks.”

While its original Cold War close air support role did primarily concern the destruction of Soviet tanks and armoured vehicles, even then there were questions over the legality of DU. As a result, a 1976 legal review undertaken by the United States Air Force of the A-10’s DU ammunition sought to ensure that it was not used in populated areas and to restrict its use to armoured targets.

However, the role of the A-10 has evolved since the 1970s, as has its range of targets. This was clear from data from the 2003 Iraq War, acquired by PAX in 2014. It revealed DU use by A-10s against anti-aircraft guns, buildings, trucks and un-mounted troops. Data on targets from the conflicts in the Balkans painted a similar picture. With the A-10s role evolving from attacks on armour to more general close air support, aircraft were often called in for a broader range of operations, this led to DU being used against other targets, even in densely populated areas. Once loaded with the standard combat mix, a mixture of DU and high explosive rounds, it is impossible to change the type of munitions in flight for attacks against non-armoured targets of opportunity, thus heightening the risk of exposure to civilians close to other targets.

Recently published figures on the 4,817 targets selected by US CENTCOM show that more than 120 tanks and armoured vehicles were destroyed in the first six months of the air campaign. There was therefore ample opportunity for the A-10 and its DU rounds to “kill tanks”, yet the US subsequently chose not to equip its A-10s with DU. Could this change in posture have more to do with a changing political environment, and in particular the growing stigmatisation of DU, than military calculations alone?

Stigmatisation

More than two decades after its first use in Kuwait and Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War, concern over the humanitarian and environmental legacy of DU has gradually increased.

In recent years, legislation banning the weapons has been introduced in Belgium and Costa Rica. The European Parliament has also issued a number of resolutions calling for a moratorium on use and, most recently, a common EU position in favour of a ban. Since 2007, five UN General Assembly resolutions have been passed by large majorities. These have highlighted DU’s potential health risks, called for the release of targeting data to allow clean-up, for a precautionary approach to DU’s post-conflict management and, in 2014, for international assistance for states affected by DU use. This last resolution was supported by 150 states and opposed by just four, including the US. In addition to establishing soft law norms on DU, the process has also created a platform for an increasing number of states to voice their concerns over the weapons.

Perhaps the most influential of these was from Iraq in March 2014, where its government expressed:

[D]eep concern over the harmful effects of the use in wars and armed struggles of armaments and ammunitions containing depleted uranium, which constitute a danger to human beings and the environment.

The Iraqi government called for the UN, its specialised agencies, member states and civil society to take a proactive approach to the issue and to condemn DU use. They also argued for:

[A] binding and verifiable international treaty prohibiting the use, possession, transfer and trafficking of such armaments and ammunitions.

Clearly then, the further use of DU munitions by the US in Iraq would have been viewed as unacceptable by the Iraqi government, and would have been likely to result in further criticism of the increasingly controversial munitions.

Leaving through the back door?

Could the changing political climate be influencing US policy on DU? The US had previously come under pressure from civil society campaign the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW) in 2011 over fears that DU would be used against Gaddafi’s tanks in Libya. Recent evidence of DU’s international stigmatisation has come, ironically, from the Joint Strike Fighter, which is supposed to replace the ageing A-10 in its close air support role – a decision that is proving controversial in the US. During the fighter’s development, project partners including Australia, Norway and Denmark expressed concern over the US proposal that it would use a DU round, insisting that an alternative material be found. DU was eventually ruled out, as were other toxic metals such as beryllium. Elsewhere there are signs of shift away from DU in the US’s other medium-calibre ammunition.

In 2008, just a year after the first UN General Assembly resolution, the US Army Environmental Policy Institute (AEPI) argued that alternatives were needed, stating that ‘the military should continue pursuing R&D for substitutes and be prepared for increased political pressure for current and past battlefield cleanup’. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of several bodies researching less toxic materials, and in December 2014, published a new advance in manufacturing nanocrystalline tungsten alloys, which results in a material with similar properties to DU. DU’s toxicity is a key driver for this research.

While changes in procurement policies are slow, decisions like that taken over Inherent Resolve are tangible signs that international pressure is changing DU policy. Nevertheless, the emerging threshold of acceptability for DU use remains poorly defined and it is unlikely that the US will seek to clarify it any time soon. Operation-specific factors – such as Iraq’s clear position in favour of a ban – are also likely to remain important in determining whether DU is used or not. Backlash over veteran exposure, community opposition and financial liabilities associated with former testing ranges may also influence policy within the US.

The way forward

Welcome as these developments are, they serve to highlight the current lack of formal obligations for post-conflict DU clearance and victim assistance. Unlike explosive remnants of war, and in spite of the soft norms developing at the UN General Assembly, accountability and assistance for past DU use is underdeveloped and requires attention from both civil society and the international community.

As was the case with anti-personnel landmines, it will not be enough to simply stop DU being deployed. Protecting civilians requires that its legacy is also dealt with. DU remediation is costly and technically challenging, and states recovering from conflict require assistance to implement effective programmes.

More broadly, DU is just one of a number of toxic munitions constituents, and munitions just one of a wide range of pollutants generated by conflict. These toxic remnants of war pose a threat to human and environmental health before, during and after conflict. Efforts to minimise the practices that generate them and work to ensure that their impact is properly assessed and responded to could contribute greatly to not only the protection of civilians but also of the environment upon which they depend. Tackling the causes and legacy of conflict pollution also provides a welcome opportunity to creatively merge the environment, public health, human rights and humanitarian disarmament in response to the toxic footprint of modern warfare.

Wim Zwijnenburg works as a Program Leader Security & Disarmament for PAX, a Dutch peace organisation. He has a research program in Iraq on the impact of depleted uranium munitions, works on Toxic Remnants of War in Syria, emerging military technologies such as (armed) drones, and is supporting the Control Arms campaign in regulating the global arms trade.

Doug Weir is the Coordinator of the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons, a global coalition seeking a ban on the use of DU and for assistance to communities affected by its use. He also manages the Toxic Remnants of War Project, which explores state responsibility for the toxic legacy of military activities. 

 

Featured image: A tank destroyed and contaminated with DU in 2003 near Basrah. Credit: UK Ministry of Defence

This article is part of the Remote Control Warfare series, a collaboration with Remote Control, a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group.

Following a recent Remote Control Project briefing paper, Mass surveillance: security by ‘remote control’ – consequences and effectiveness, this piece explores the hidden costs of government mass surveillance programmes.

Last week the new UN privacy chief said UK surveillance was “worse than [George Orwell’s novel] 1984”. In the two years since the Snowden leaks revealed the existence of bulk internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence services and their partners, including the UK, the British government continues to engage in the mass collection of citizens’ communications data.

Whilst the US Congress barred the National Security Agency (NSA) from collecting US phone data in bulk in June this year after the US court of appeals ruled it to be unlawful, in the UK the mass collection of communications data was found by both the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee and David Anderson QC, who is responsible for reviewing UK terrorism legislation, to be legal and should be maintained. Furthermore, the Investigatory Powers Bill, dubbed the “Snooper’s Charter”, which was blocked by the Liberal Democrats party three years ago, has re-emerged under the Conservative majority government. Now firmly back on the agenda, it would move to strengthen the security services’ powers for the bulk interception of communications data.

To date, the debate around mass communications surveillance has focused primarily on the infringement of privacy it entails. But, beyond privacy implications, government mass surveillance programmes come at further costs.

Proliferation, public trust and internet security

A major concern with the development of mass surveillance tools is that they can be used by authoritarian regimes to suppress freedom of information and expression and track down political opponents.  There is evidence that this is already happening: Privacy International’s publicly available database on the private surveillance sector has found that surveillance companies are selling powerful and invasive surveillance technologies, with the potential for the mass interception of communications, to a number of authoritarian regimes globally, including Bahrain, Ethiopia, Libya and Pakistan. Much of this technology is at pace with the capabilities of the NSA and its UK equivalent, GCHQ, which is having clearly visible consequences. In Ethiopia, for example, mass surveillance technology was found to be used to regularly arrest and detain citizens, in particular as a tool to silence dissenting voices, targeting the ethnic Oromo population. The widespread use of torture and other ill-treatment against political detainees in Ethiopian detention centre makes the use of these technologies even more troubling.

Another cost of mass surveillance is the weakening of public trust in national governments. An erosion of public trust in government in general (see this report from President Obama’s own Review Group on Intelligence and Communications), coupled with a weakening of trust in governments for citizens online security in particular, was found to have occurred since the Snowden leaks. The steep increase in the use of Tor (an open source network that allows users to obscure their online activity) which went from 500,000 daily users worldwide to more than 4 million following the Snowden leaks, as well as an increase in other internet privacy platforms since the leaks seem to confirm this.

Furthermore, the weakening of internet security is another cost of mass surveillance programmes. These programmes rely on creating and maintaining vulnerabilities in communications networks that undermine the communications infrastructures that we all rely on (see this report from The Council of Europe). The creation of “back doors”, for example, along with other weaknesses in security standards and implementation could easily be exploited by non-state groups.

In May this year, a group of tech companies, including Facebook, Google and Yahoo (as well as civil society groups and academics) signed a letter to President Obama urging him to oppose efforts that would force companies to build in ways for law enforcement to access products and services protected by encryption. The letter warned that introducing intentional vulnerabilities into secure products for the government’s use will make those products “less secure against other attackers”, including street and computer criminals, repressive or dangerous regimes and foreign intelligence agencies.

Is mass surveillance stopping terror attacks?

Beyond the risk of proliferation, the weakening of government trust and the threat to internet security, the UK government’s reliance on mass surveillance could also come at a cost to its citizens’ physical security. The use of data-mining and automated data-analysis techniques used to filter down the vast amounts of data acquired in mass surveillance programmes comes with a high risk of false positives. It has been suggested that data-mining for counter-terrorism in particular comes with a higher risk of false positives than when used in other settings (such as credit card fraud detection) due to the quality of data available and the rarity of terror attacks. This high number of false positives associated with counter-terrorism will, in turn, cause an overload of data, swamping analysts and thus taking resources and attention away from more appropriate counter-terrorism methods.[1]

Recent evidence suggests that mass surveillance may not be an effective tool for foiling terror plots. A number of reports from the US, including a declassified 2009 report from the US government and a report from a review group appointed by President Obama, have shed doubt on the supposed effectiveness of mass surveillance programmes. One in particular, from Washington based think-tank New America Foundation, found traditional investigative methods played a far greater role than mass surveillance in initiating investigations into the majority of terror cases reviewed. In one case (a 2009 plot to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten), the US government was found to have exaggerated the role mass surveillance played in thwarting the plot.

Recent terror attacks have further exposed the limits of surveillance. In the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, for example, it was revealed that the failure to foil the bomb plot was due to a failure in sharing and coordination of information between departments, rather than the bombers being unknown to intelligence agencies prior to the attack. Similarly, the 2014 Charlie Hebdo and French grocery store attackers in Paris were not only known to French and US authorities but one had a prior terrorism conviction and another was monitored for years by French authorities. In both cases the attackers were known to authorities and had been under surveillance.

Security by ‘remote control’

The use of mass surveillance programmes by government must not be seen in isolation but should be viewed as part of the trend towards maintaining security by ‘remote control’, the global shift towards countering threats at a distance without the need to deploy large military force. As technological advances have increased governments’ digital intelligence gathering capabilities, mass surveillance techniques demonstrate the interdependence between intelligence and surveillance and the growing relationship between intelligence, technology and modern combat.

Like the use of drones, special forces and private military companies, the secretive nature of mass surveillance programmes means they operate in an accountability vacuum, with little transparency or oversight, rendering the public unable not only to hold government to account, but to assess these techniques’ perceived effectiveness. In the UK, recent Anderson, ISC and RUSI reports all stressed the need for greater transparency and oversight with regards to government mass surveillance programmes.

Like other remote control methods, mass surveillance of citizens’ communications data is appealing as it is perceived as cost-free and plays to Western states’ technological strengths. The perceived ease of remote control has, however, blinded policy makers from considering its broader and long term implications. There is a need for greater transparency and accountability with regards to government mass surveillance in the UK, along with a robust regulatory framework for private security companies which are trading surveillance technologies globally. As well as this, far more consideration must be given to the unforeseen and long-term costs of mass surveillance in order to evaluate its utility for long-term sustainable peace and security.

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The Remote Control project recently published a briefing paper “Mass surveillance: security by ‘remote control’ – consequences and effectiveness”, read it here.

[1] For more information please see report by the Committee on Technical and Privacy Dimensions of Information for Terrorism Prevention and Other National Goals, National Research Council, “Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists: A framework for program assessment”, William Binney in “NSA Struggles to Make Sense of Flood of Surveillance Data”, Wall Street Journal, December 2015 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304202204579252022823658850, and Bruce Schneier, “Why Mass Surveillance Can’t, Won’t, And Never Has Stopped A Terrorist”, digg, March 2015 http://digg.com/2015/why-mass-surveillance-cant-wont-and-never-has-stopped-a-terrorist

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Esther Kersley is the Research and Communications Officer for the Remote Control project. Prior to joining ORG, Esther worked in Berlin for the anti-corruption NGO Transparency International as an editorial and online communications officer. She has a particular interest in counter-terrorism and conflict resolution in the Middle East, having previously worked with the Quilliam Foundation and IPCRI (Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information), a Jerusalem based think tank.

by Rebecca Sharkey and Laura Boillot

International momentum towards a treaty to ban nuclear weapons reached a milestone in the December 2014 Vienna conference. Even assuming that the UK does not initially sign up to such a treaty, it is subject to the pressures of a changing legal and political environment and could find its present position increasingly untenable – not least on the issue of Trident renewal.

The Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, held in December 2014, was the latest conference of the ‘humanitarian initiative’, following previous meetings in Norway and Mexico . Having fully explored the impact of a nuclear weapon detonation as well as the consequences of testing and production, the conference concluded with a pledge from the Austrian government to “fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”. Since then, more than 50 countries have associated themselves with the Austrian Pledge and yet more are expected to join over the coming months, signalling readiness to begin negotiations for a treaty that outlaws nuclear weapons.

A ban treaty could be a straightforward legal instrument with prohibitions on the use, development and production, transfer, stockpiling, deployment of nuclear weapons and on assistance with these prohibited acts. It could require the elimination of nuclear weapons for states that possess them, with the specific processes for elimination being left for these states to agree when they are ready to do so. Treaty negotiations are a logical and compelling next step for states no longer willing to accept the status quo, and no longer prepared to wait for nuclear-armed states to lead on nuclear disarmament. In addition, civil society organisations across the world, under the banner of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) are putting increasing pressure on states to begin treaty negotiations immediately – even if nuclear-armed states may initially not wish to join.

Legal obligations

The UK and other nuclear-armed states have long expressed their desire for a nuclear weapon-free world. Alongside other nuclear-armed states, the UK has a legal obligation under article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to pursue ‘effective measures’ towards nuclear disarmament and ‘a treaty on general and complete disarmament’.

Despite this, there has been very slow progress so far towards nuclear disarmament, and nuclear-armed states continue to say that nuclear weapons are essential to their security doctrines. The UK advocates a ‘step-by-step’ approach towards nuclear disarmament, which has been marked by a lack of substantial progress. Most crucially, the UK government has seen this approach as compatible with getting new nuclear weapons. In 2007 UK Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed that “the Non-Proliferation Treaty… makes it absolutely clear that Britain has the right to possess nuclear weapons”. This bad faith reading of the treaty and continued investment in maintaining its arsenal of nuclear weapons raises concerns over the UK’s commitment towards fulfilling these legal obligations under the NPT. A significant recent development and challenge to this position is a Marshall Islands legal case, currently being taken against the UK and other states for failing to act on multilateral nuclear disarmament obligations.

In the run up to the NPT Review Conference, the UK government has argued vigorously that the proponents of a ban treaty are misguided, and that such a treaty would undermine the NPT. However, the absence of any evidence to substantiate this claim suggests that such an argument will ring hollow against the persistent pursuit of Trident renewal. If the UK government is sincerely committed to pursuing nuclear disarmament then there is no need for it to oppose the development of a treaty with that aim. A ban treaty would actually constitute a long-overdue implementation of the NPT: the momentum towards a ban treaty could be seen as a positive opportunity for the UK to take concrete steps towards nuclear disarmament by creating the right conditions and helping to fulfil its own NPT obligations, even if the UK chose not to sign up immediately.

Political pressure

The international humanitarian initiative has sparked interest and debate inside Westminster, even if the government initially claimed the initiative would ‘divert discussion and focus away from… practical steps’ towards nuclear weapons reduction. At a debate on Trident renewal in the House of Commons on 20 January 2015, eleven MPs raised the spectre of the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, with some specifically calling for a ban treaty.

With the final decision over the renewal of Trident due to be taken in 2016, the incoming 2015 government will be faced with taking a decision over the renewal of the UK’s nuclear weapons – at the same time that other states are most likely to be engaged in treaty negotiations that will rule those weapons illegal. This development will significantly increase the political costs of holding onto nuclear weapons and sinking even more money in their maintenance and modernisation. As Dame Joan Ruddock MP has stated, “a global ban on nuclear weapons would present the greatest challenge to UK renewal of Trident”.

Military cooperation

Continued possession of nuclear weapons when other militaries are rejecting them could also put strain on the UK’s relationships with some of its military allies. Whilst a ban treaty would not prevent a state that joins the treaty from being in a military alliance with a nuclear-armed state like the UK, it should require states not to assist in acts that are prohibited under the treaty. As such, it would require states parties to renounce any joint policy that envisions the development, stockpiling, or use of nuclear weapons.

There is however, no barrier to NATO member states’ adherence to a treaty banning nuclear weapons. The North Atlantic Treaty, which is a legally-binding instrument, makes no reference to nuclear weapons. And although NATO’s Strategic Concept does refer to nuclear weapons capabilities as part of its strategy, this is not a legally-binding document and would not prevent any NATO state from joining the ban treaty. Besides, the document gets revised and could be updated so as not to rely on nuclear weapons. The International Law and Policy Institute (ILPI) points out, “concerns about the political implications of such a treaty for NATO ignore historical variations in member state military policy and underestimate the value of a ban on nuclear weapons for promoting NATO’s ultimate aim: the security of its member states.”

There has not been a coherent and uniform NATO position towards the humanitarian initiative. All NATO states are members of the NPT and as such are committed to pursue ‘effective measures’ towards disarmament. So far, virtually all NATO states have taken part in one or more of the conferences on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. After all, the humanitarian initiative was spearheaded by a NATO state – Norway. A ban treaty should in fact be seen as a positive step towards NATO’s long-term security goals.

Finance and investment

A nuclear weapons ban treaty could also help to increase the stigma and practical difficulties attached to nuclear weapons by prohibiting investment in their development. According to a 2014 report by PAX, 35 financial institutions in the UK invested over US$27bn in 28 nuclear weapons producing companies over the past 3 years. A number of UK companies are involved in the ongoing production and maintenance of the UK’s nuclear arsenal.

Prohibitions on assistance, such as financing the production of nuclear weapons, would mean that companies that produce nuclear weapons would find difficulty in securing financing to produce these weapons. As financial institutions move towards corporate socially responsible investments, many are anyhow adopting policies prohibiting investments in certain weapons, and this too will impact the producing companies and the states buying their products.

Even without an international ban treaty there have been successful efforts to promote disinvestment. A well-known example of a nuclear weapons boycott is the campaign initiated in the 1980s by Infact (now Corporate Accountability International) against General Electric (GE). GE had played a major role in nuclear weapons production since the Manhattan Project. The boycott resulted in significant financial losses for the company and damage to its brand. Ultimately, it was compelled to end its involvement in nuclear weapons work. More recently, Allied Irish Bank, named as an investor in the 2013 Don’t Bank on the Bomb report, had fully divested by the time the 2014 report was published.

A treaty signed by a majority of countries in the world that prohibits investment in the development, production, or testing of nuclear weapons would significantly increase pressure for many UK financial institutions to pull out their investments from companies that develop them. Past experience with the treaty that bans cluster munitions shows that the stigmatizing effect of outlawing weapons significantly reduces available financing for their production.

Conclusion

The conferences held as part of the humanitarian initiative have left no doubt over the severe and long-lasting effects that would result from a nuclear weapon detonation, as well as the devastation of lives and environment caused by testing and production. The resulting momentum created among the non nuclear-armed states to achieve a ban treaty is coupled with a conviction held by civil society and many states that a treaty can – and should – be achieved even if the nuclear-armed states do not join immediately. The UK should see the start of a treaty process as a positive development that is helping to foster the right conditions for its own nuclear disarmament, and that of other states too. But official responses notwithstanding, the climate surrounding the perceived status and security of nuclear weapons is changing – whether the UK government likes it or not.

Rebecca Sharkey is UK Co-ordinator at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Rebecca has worked on campaigns, communications, research and outreach at NGOs such as Freedom From Torture, the National Secular Society and the National Assembly Against Racism.

Laura Boillot is a Project Manager for Article 36. Laura previously worked as Campaign Manager and subsequently as Director of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC). Prior to that she was a Program Officer for the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA).

Featured Image: Trident Nuclear Submarine HMS Victorious near Faslane, Scotland. Source: Flickr | UK Ministry of Defence

One year after violent conflict began, information is now emerging on the specific environmental impact of war in Ukraine’s highly industrialised Donbas region. Although obtaining accurate data is difficult, indications are that the conflict has resulted in a number of civilian health risks, and potentially long-term damage to its environment. In order to mitigate these long-term risks, international and domestic agencies will have to find ways to coordinate their efforts on documenting, assessing and addressing the damage.

The environmental legacy of conflict and military activities is rarely prioritised in post-conflict response, in spite of the short and long-term impact of damage on civilian health and livelihoods. At times relationships between incidents and harm may be complex, often requiring detailed and lengthy analysis. Warfare in highly industrialised areas has the potential to generate new pollution incidents and exacerbate existing problems; the conflict in Ukraine has done both, as well as damaging the area’s natural environment.

The chronology of the Donbas conflict is widely accessible and there is no need to repeat it here. More important is the current uncertainty. With the signing of the second round of Minsk agreements in February 2015, hope re-emerged that a peaceful solution might be possible. For the moment the truce is holding but remains fragile. Should it collapse, it is likely that new and grave risks to the region’s people and environment will emerge.

Scope of environmentally damaging incidents

Prior to the outbreak of the war, more than 5,300 industrial enterprises were operating in the pre-war Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (provinces). Damage to the region’s industry is widespread, and ranges from direct damage to industrial installations, to enterprises simply stopping production because of the lack of raw materials, energy, workforce or distribution channels.

It is this disruption of the region’s industry that is likely to be primarily responsible for the environmental side-effects of the conflict. In some cases, the disruption has led to accidental releases of pollutants from shelled or bombed facilities. In others, facilities have been forced to shift to more polluting technologies that have impacted regional air quality. Among dozens of facilities damaged by fighting are the Zasyadko coal mine, a chemicals depot at Yasynivskyi, coke and chemical works in Makiyvka, the Lysychyansk oil refinery, an explosives factory at Petrovske and a fuel-oil storage facility at Slavyansk thermal power plant.

Coal mining has been the backbone of the economy of the Donbas region since the nineteenth century. With the intermittent collapse of the electricity supply across the entire conflict area, ventilation systems and water pumps in coal mines failed, resulting in the release of accumulated gases after ventilation restarted. The often irreparable flooding of mines not only damages installations but also waterlogs adjacent areas and pollutes groundwater. At the time of writing, permanent or temporary flooding has been reported at more than ten mines, yet due to the lack of uninterrupted monitoring and fieldwork to assess the damage, the exact extent of the risks to environmental and public health is unclear.

The Zasyadko mine in Donetsk used to produce 4 million tonnes of coal annually and was one of the region’s economic flagships. A release and explosion of methane in March 2015 killed 33 of the 200 miners underground at the time. Even though this was not the first such accident at the mine (it is considered among the most lethal in the area’s risky mining industry), the chair of the mine’s board attributed the incident to heavy shelling at nearby Donetsk airport, where fighting continued until late January 2015.

There have been numerous media reports about war damage caused to Donbas’ water supply, including in and around Luhansk and Donetsk – cities that had a combined pre-war population of 1.5 million. Repair work to the water infrastructure is still carried out, often under direct fire, but periods of irregular supply are common. Less well documented is the impact of the conflict on drinking water quality but one can reasonably assume widespread deterioration as a result of the disruption.

At the moment, relatively little is known about the direct chemical impact of the war on the environment and people. Limited sampling by the Ukraine-based NGO Environment-People-Law confirmed the expected range of some ‘war chemicals’ from the use of conventional weapons in impact zones. Similarly, large quantities of damaged military equipment and potentially hazardous building rubble will require disposal. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence also raised concerns that depleted uranium weapons may have been used in the fighting around Donetsk airport, and proposed to determine whether this was the case when conditions allowed.

The region’s nature has also suffered. Already prone to fires because of the dry summer climate, steppes and forests have burnt more often than would have been expected. According to an as yet unpublished analysis of NASA satellite data, the Eastern European branch of the Global Fire Monitoring Centre showed that in 2014, the incidence per unit area of forest and grass fires in the Donetsk oblast was up to two to three times higher than in the surrounding regions of Ukraine and Russia.

The conflict has also damaged the region’s numerous nature protection areas, from armed groups occupying their administrative buildings to the impact of fighting and the movement of heavy vehicles within nature reserves. The restoration of large tracts of agricultural and other land for normal cultivation and use will require considerable effort too, and will be complicated by the presence of new minefields and unexploded ordnance.

Challenges in determining the extent of damage

The prevailing media narrative over environmental damage from the conflict has sought to link it directly to the fighting, but the information currently available is too fragmented to fully confirm the extent of the relationship. Such simplifications can also mask the indirect effects of warfare on environmental quality.

As is common for armed conflicts in heavily developed areas, a large proportion of the pollution impact may not come directly from the fighting but from damage to industrial infrastructure and to the disruption of everyday economic activities. A good example from the Donbas region can be seen in data from its only functioning (until November 2014) automated air quality monitoring station. Located in the town of Schastya in the Luhansk oblast, the data demonstrate that peak concentrations are not obviously associated with periods of combat; instead, they correlate with a reduction in the supply of high-grade coal for the Luhanska power plant in August 2014.

Coal supplies were first restricted when a bridge in Kondrashevskaya-Novaya was destroyed. Then an electrical substation was shelled, which disconnected the area from the rest of Ukraine’s electricity grid. As a result, the Luhanska power plant, which was responsible for supplying more than 90% of the oblasts’ electricity, was forced to simultaneously increase production while turning to lower-grade coal from its reserve stock. This caused a clear deterioration in air quality.

Coverage of the conflict has also claimed that the fighting has caused 20 times more wildfires than in 2013. While 2014 had seen more fires in comparison to the previous year, 2013 was relatively wet so this comparison is hardly informative. Assessing the exact area affected by fires in the territories remains difficult and imprecise, requiring the use of more refined data and techniques. The task is further complicated by the fact that forest fire statistics, which would normally be used to verify the findings from satellite data, are not being collected at the moment as the conflict has rendered large areas unsafe for ground surveys.

What next?

In spite of the fragile Minsk agreement, the half-frozen conflict continues. At present it is impossible to predict whether further damage will be wrought on the people and the environment of Donbas. Insecurity continues to impact basic environmental governance on both sides of the line of contact, while cooperation across the frontline, even on urgent humanitarian issues, remains a remote prospect. Therefore expectations for cooperation over environmental issues at the current stage in the conflict are low.

Based on the available evidence, it is clear that there is great potential for long-term civilian health risks from the pollution generated by the conflict. Efforts to collect systematic data on both pollution and health outcomes should start immediately, as must preparations for remediation. The financial and technical requirements for the comprehensive assessment and remediation of contaminated sites are considerable.

These are problems common to many conflicts affected by toxic remnants of war and, as the ICRC noted in 2011, consideration should be given to whether a new system that ensures environmental assistance is required in order to protect both civilians and the environment from conflict pollution:

“given the complexity, for example, of repairing damaged plants and installations or cleaning up polluted soil and rubble, it would also be desirable to develop norms on international assistance and cooperation… Such norms would open new and promising avenues for handling the environmental consequences of war.

The broader context for the eventual remediation of the environmental damage should include the radical modernisation of the region’s notoriously unsustainable industry, much of which has for years presented direct and grave risks for its environment and people (see Zoi’s 2011 report Coalland). In this way, quite unexpectedly, the highly unwelcome conflict may in the end offer a rare and welcome opportunity to eventually ‘green’ the black and brown coalfields of Donbas.

This blog was prepared by Nickolai Denisov and Otto Simonett of Zoi environment network together with Doug Weir of the Toxic Remnants of War Project and Dmytro Averin of the East-Ukrainian Environment Institute. The authors thank Serhiy Zibtsev, Victor Mironyuk and Vadym Bohomolov, National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine / Regional Eastern European Fire Monitoring Center, for help with the analysis of forest and grassland fires data.

Zoi environment network is a non-profit organisation in Geneva, Switzerland, with the mission to reveal, explain and communicate connections between the environment and society and a long record of working on environmental issues in and with the countries of Eastern Europe.

Featured image: A barricade burns in Kiev, Ukraine in January 2014. Source: Flickr | Sasha Maksymenko

by Elizabeth Minor, Researcher at Article 36

This article is part of the Remote Control Warfare series, a collaboration with Remote Control, a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group.

Later this month, governments will meet in Geneva to discuss lethal autonomous weapons systems. Previous talks – and growing pressure from civil society –  have not yet galvanised governments into action. Meanwhile the development of these so-called “killer robots” is already being considered in military roadmaps. Their prohibition is therefore an increasingly urgent task.

From 13-17 April, governments will meet at the United Nations in Geneva to discuss autonomous weapons – also referred to as killer robots. The week-long meeting will be the second round of multilateral expert discussions on “lethal autonomous weapons systems” to take place within the framework of the United Nations’ Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Urgent and coordinated international action is needed to prevent the development and use of fully autonomous weapons systems. Such systems would fundamentally challenge the relationship between human beings and the application of violent force, whether in armed conflict or in domestic law enforcement. Once activated and their mission defined, these systems would be able to select targets and carry out attacks on people or objects, without meaningful human control. As states with high-tech militaries such as China, Israel, Russia, South Korea, the UK, and the US continue to invest in aspects of increased autonomy in weapons systems technologies, consideration of this issue is increasingly urgent. Campaigners are calling on states to tackle this issue by developing a treaty that pre-emptively bans these weapons systems before they are put into operation, by which time it may be too late.

The issue

Weapons systems that do not permit the exercise of meaningful human control over individual attacks should be prohibited, due to the insurmountable ethical, humanitarian and legal concerns they raise. The governance of the use of force and the protection of individuals in conflict require control over the use of weapons and accountability and responsibility for their consequences. This principle, rather than any particular piece of technology or format of weapons delivery, is at the heart of the issue of autonomous weapons systems. Some have argued that fully autonomous weapons systems might reduce the risk of conflict or be able to better protect civilians. However, the focus must remain on these systems’ overall implications for the conduct of violence, rather than on a small range of hypothetical possibilities.

Tasks can be given to hardware and software systems. Responsibility for violence cannot. The process of rendering the world ‘machine-sensible’ reduces people to objects. This is an affront to human dignity. Computerised target-object matching such as shape detection, thermal imaging and radiation detection may enable the identification of objects such as military vehicles, though in complex and civilian-populated environments, not necessarily with accuracy. However, assessment of information about these objects and the surrounding environment, including the presence of protected persons such as civilians or wounded combatants, is also essential to uphold the principles that govern the launching of individual attacks under International Humanitarian Law. These are not quantitative rules, but considerations that require deliberative moral reasoning and contextual decision-making. As such, they could not be translated into software code. Based on the principle of humanity, they implicitly require human judgement and control over the process of decision-making in individual attacks.

Other concerns about the development of fully autonomous weapons systems include the dangers of proliferation among state and non-state actors, hacking, and the use of these systems in law enforcement or other situations outside of warfare.

A preemptive ban as a solution

Whilst the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is calling on states to move with urgency towards negotiations on a treaty to outlaw fully autonomous weapons systems, previous talks in Geneva have not yet galvanised governments into action.

Some states have suggested that existing law is sufficient to tackle this issue. Existing international law, which was developed prior to any consideration of autonomous weapons systems, implicitly assumes that the application of force is governed by humans. This body of international law is now inadequate as a reliable barrier to the development and use of fully autonomous weapons systems. A pre-emptive ban through an international instrument would not only halt any progress on these systems amongst states parties, but would help to stigmatise development by others.

Some states have argued that this issue can be dealt with by conducting individual reviews of their weapons technologies to ensure they continue to uphold current international law. States are already obligated to do this however, and whilst it is important, it will not be sufficient in preventing the development of these systems internationally. A clear legal standard and norm needs to be set, and this is best done through new international treaty law.

A ban based around prohibiting systems that operate without meaningful human control over individual attacks should be the starting point in international discussions among states, and so the elaboration and agreement of the elements of this principle are required as a next step.

International response so far

To date, autonomous weapons have been raised at the Human Rights Council in 2013 and considered by governments in dedicated discussions held at expert meetings of the CCW in 2014. The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, called in 2013 for national moratoria to be imposed by all states on the “testing, production, assembly, transfer, acquisition, deployment and use” of these systems, until an internationally agreed framework on their future has been established. The CCW could be a possible venue for developing this, having previously produced a pre-emptive ban on blinding laser weapons. One should note, though, that previous attempts within the CCW to deliver the responses needed to certain weapons systems have occasionally failed, often hampered by operating under the consensus rule and a tendency to defer to military considerations rather than focus on humanitarian or ethical imperatives.

Promisingly, the need to ensure meaningful human control has already been a prominent feature of the debate at the CCW, with several states recognising the importance of this approach. In upcoming discussions, governments should elaborate their policies for maintaining meaningful human control over existing weapons systems in individual attacks. Such an exchange would advance consideration of how human control can be ensured over future systems. This would in turn help clarify what practices and potential systems must be prohibited and the standards that states must demonstrate that they are meeting in their conduct. Elements to consider could include the need for adequate information to be available to commanders using any weapons system, positive action from a human being in launching individual attacks, and ensuring accountability.

Few states have elaborated any policy on human control over weapons systems. Current US policy on autonomous weapons systems stresses that there should be “appropriate levels of human judgement over the use of force”, but does not define what these should be. The policy leaves the door open for the development of fully autonomous weapons systems, whilst recognising the harm they could cause to civilians. The UK government has stated that it has no intention to develop fully autonomous weapons and that “human control” over any weapons system must be ensured. However, it has not given sufficient elaboration of what exactly this means and how it will be ensured.

States may see different types of operating, supervising or overseeing systems to constitute acceptable control. Agreement between states on the concept of meaningful human control is therefore an important element of international progress on the issue of fully autonomous weapons systems.

Work by states on an international framework should be supported by input from civil society and draw on the views of a range of experts. Ultimately, negotiation processes will determine the definitions of key concepts. If discussions do not advance towards a binding framework within the CCW, a freestanding treaty process may be required, as was the case previously in the processes to outlaw both anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions.

The upcoming meeting of experts at the CCW in April is unlikely to result in particular concrete actions due to the nature and format of the meeting. It could pave the way for a decision in November that states continue to discuss this issue in 2016 and put it on the agenda for the CCW’s 2016 Review Conference. At that point it could be flagged as a subject on which States Parties should develop a new binding protocol. No clear group to lead this process has yet emerged. So far Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, the Holy See, and Pakistan have endorsed a pre-emptive ban on autonomous weapons systems. France secured consensus for the CCW mandate in 2013 that established its work on lethal autonomous weapons systems, and Germany will be chairing the upcoming meeting, with the aim of seeking consensus on further consideration of the subject. However, the development of fully autonomous weapons systems is already being considered in military roadmaps. This makes their prohibition an urgent task.

Elizabeth Minor (@elizabethminor3) is a Researcher at Article 36, and was previously Senior Research Officer at Every Casualty, and a Researcher for Iraq Body Count (IBC). 

Featured image: The UK’s Taranis stealth UAV. The Taranis exemplifies the move toward increased autonomy as it aims to strike distant targets “even on other continents”, although humans are currently expected to remain in the loop. Source: Flickr | QinetiQ

This article was originally published on openSecurity’s monthly Sustainable Security column on 18 May 2015. Every month, a rotating network of experts from Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security programme explore pertinent issues of global and regional insecurity.

The truce declared in 2012 may have been imperfect and controversial but positive lessons must be learned amid the country’s current crisis of violence.

Violence is escalating again in El Salvador. March 2015 was the most violent month in over a decade, and the government is preparing army and police battalions to fight the gangs. These trends mark the definitive end of a process which started in 2012 with a truce between the two main gangs—MS-13 and Barrio 18—and evolved into a more complex and multidimensional approach to reducing violence, with a degree of international support.

The process was complicated, imperfect and subject to public controversy but it stands as one of the most significant examples worldwide of an effort to reduce violence through negotiation with criminal groups. With an annual homicide rate of 60 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, El Salvador is one of the most violent countries in the world. It is also a notable example of the trend towards non-conventional, hybrid and criminal violence.

A peace agreement reached in 1992 put an end to civil war and initiated a peacebuilding process, which saw rebels of the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) make a successful transition to civilian and political life. The FMLN finally won the presidency by a tiny margin in 2009, and by an even smaller sliver in 2014, overturning 20 years of rule by the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA).

Meanwhile, a complex set of factors triggered a transformation of violence, which became criminal and perpetrated by illegal armed groups, most notably the gangs (maras). A profound crisis of public security has since shaken the country, as well as neighbours Honduras and Guatemala. Successive governments have responded with ‘iron-fist’ approaches focused on crime suppression and militarisation of security. These policies, although of limited effectiveness, have helped to cement the electoral support of a population angered and traumatised by decades of violence.

Surprise news

In March 2012 the country was taken by surprise by news of a truce between Barrio 18 and MS-13, facilitated by two mediators (a former insurgent and government advisor, and a Catholic bishop) and tacitly supported by the government of the FMLN president, Mauricio Funes. Imprisoned gang leaders were transferred from a maximum-security prison to other jails in exchange for a reduction in violence. The gangs agreed to end forced recruitment of children and young people, respect schools and buses as zones of peace and reduce attacks on the security forces.

In the succeeding months, the gangs surrendered limited amounts of weapons and the government acted to address shortcomings in the overcrowded prison system, such as softening visitor searches and removing the army from the task. For the first time since the war, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was invited to contribute and in October 2012 it established a special mission to monitor human rights in prison. The drop in homicides was immediate—from 14 per day to five.

The gangs’ leaderships and the mediators were discussing a list of issues to be included in an enlarged process with a wider pacification agenda. Their Proposal for a Framework Agreement for the Recovery of Social Peace in El Salvador included reform of the prison system, a public-private body with gang participation to oversee rehabilitation and reinsertion, derogation of the anti-gang law and removal of the army from public-security duties. Notably absent was any demand for amnesty or reduction of prison sentences. The proposals included suspension of all acts of violence, voluntary surrender to security forces, decommissioning of weapons and explosives, and an end to forced disappearances.

As more details emerged, however, public opinion about the truce became increasingly polarised. The main opposition came from conservative sectors, parts of the legal establishment and law enforcement, and the media. Contributing to scepticism were unabated extortion and other violent crimes, such as ‘disappearances’—allied to concern about the potential empowerment and legitimisation of criminal structures and a widely-held perception that violence was being rewarded.

But a second school of thought saw the truce as a way to reduce violence and reintegrate gang members. This vision was shared by segments of civil society and the Organization of American States, which became an observer and guarantor of the process. A formal agreement with the government resulted in the creation of a Technical Committee for the Co-ordination of the Process of Violence Reduction in El Salvador.

Nevertheless, the government remained equivocal. Funes and other members refused to admit any participation and delivered contradictory statements, which fed distrust and confusion. But the sustained impact on violence and better understanding of the process gradually legitimised it and allowed the government to acknowledge involvement.

The government’s ambivalence can be contextualised. This was the first FMLN administration and conservatives controlled the National Assembly. The United States prohibits negotiations between a government and a criminal organisation and in November 2012 it so labelled the MS-13. The US is El Salvador’s main trading partner and co-operation in trade and security has resulted in US support and military and police aid from programmes such as the Central America Regional Security Initiative. In what has been described as the performance of “a trapeze artist”, the FMLN has thus tried to develop progressive policies while not antagonising the US, foreign capital and the Salvadoran establishment (in control of the media).

Transfer of gang leaders

The truce was supported by the minister of justice and public security, David Munguía, a retired general and former minister of defence. Although his appointment in 2011 (and the removal of FMLN members from those positions) was largely interpreted as a move towards remilitarisation, he surprised his critics by encouraging the first steps of the truce—authorising the transfer of gang leaders to other jails. According to the analyst of Salvadoran politics Paolo Lubers, he and other generals took the initiative after improved intelligence co-ordination convinced them that most violence was gang-driven.

Opposition came, however, from the Office of the Prosecutor and, later, sections of the police. They alleged that the truce was an opportunity for the gangs to reorganise, and that the drop in homicides was driving other crimes such as ‘disappearances’ and extortion. Some of this was a legacy of the peace accords, which disbanded the old security forces, established the National Civil Police (PNC) and reined in the armed forces.

The PNC comprised civilians, demobilised guerrilla fighters and vetted members of the prior security forces—whose most authoritarian members, however, were able to secure the most prominent positions in the new service, particularly during the two decades of ARENA governments. The police force is thus politicised and plagued by poor performance, corruption and authoritarian practices. Meanwhile, the Office of the Attorney-General (as with Supreme Court judges) is marked by political appointments by the Legislative Assembly, which have benefited ARENA hitherto.

More complex

In 2013, the process entered a more complex second phase, centred on the creation of violence-free municipalities. These ‘peace zones’ were based on agreement among local authorities, gangs and facilitators, with groups committing to cease violence and crime in exchange for a reduction in police operations and raids and reinsertion programmes. The first four municipalities, presented in January 2013, were soon extended to 11, with a combined population of more than 1m (out of 6m in all in El Salvador) and support from the OAS and the European Commission.

Mayors from both main parties, the FMLN and ARENA, participated in the initiative. Again, an ambivalent government promised, but then failed to deliver, grants and loans for prevention and rehabilitation. In Ilopango, the first peace zone, reduced violence presented an opportunity for the creation of a bakery and a chicken farm to generate employment, and the local government set up education centres and sports fields in marginalised neighbourhoods. But the mayor complained that the municipality had not received any of the $9 million promised by the government. Other cities were also left to their own devices.

In May 2013, the process suffered a major blow: the Constitutional Court nullified the appointment of Munguía as minister of justice and public security and forced Funes to restructure the security cabinet. The new minister, Ricardo Perdomo, proved a sharp critic of the truce. Amidst a polarised debate leading up to the February 2014 presidential election, his hard-line discourse and the restrictions placed on the mediation mechanisms weakened the process. The downward trend in murder rates began to reverse, amid a turf war between two factions of Barrio 18.

Support discontinued

At the beginning of 2015, the new president, the former rebel Salvador Sánchez Ceren, said he would discontinue support for the truce. Leaders of the gangs were returned to the maximum security prison of Zacatecoluca.

In March 2015 481 homicides were reported by the PNC (16 per day), a 52% increase on a year earlier. There were six massacres and on average 4.5 persons ‘disappeared’ each day.

A recent report however suggests that the truce has had a lasting effect on the geographical distribution of violence. Murder figures remain lower than average in regions where the truce was strong and coalitions of local actors (such as mayors, churches and NGOs) took advantage of the opportunity to promote new policies. The trend is even more striking in the ‘peace zones’: in seven the drop in murders has been sustained in spite of the setbacks.

But in other areas violence is soaring and tough positions are gaining a foothold. Sánchez Ceren has announced the creation of three battalions, with more than 1,200 troops, to fight crime in areas most affected by violence. And the rightist business association ANEP has hired the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani as an adviser.

Particular problems

This truce can be counted among so-called second-generation security promotion activities, which depart from conventional top-down approaches and are forged on “formal and informal cooperation with existing (including customary) sub-national institutions”. But making peace with criminal (as against political) actors poses particular problems.

As James Cockayne put it, these cases are fraught with moral and political hazards, and there are critical questions. What is the desired end-state of negotiation? Is it a reduction of violence, a reduction of all criminal activities or dissolution of the illegal actor? The response to these questions will largely determine the contours of any negotiation in El Salvador and elsewhere.

Despite its flaws and shortcomings, the experience can however provide invaluable lessons. Apart from a drastic reduction in homicides, it contributed to a recognition of the social contours of the gang phenomenon and opened discussions at national and international levels about prevention, reintegration and rehabilitation.

The truce also demonstrated that a vast proportion of the violence afflicting the country was due to inter-gang confrontation. It revealed gang leaderships with a capacity for command-and-control and a sophisticated understanding of their role in society. Their ability to articulate demands surprised many, and to some extent changed conventional thinking.

But exploitation of public security in electoral politics tends to favour hard-line approaches. As criticism and polarisation grew to politically untenable levels, the government adopted contradictory statements and policies and later distanced itself from the process. An overall lack of planning and co-ordination hampered effectiveness—not least because the civil-society actors with more experience in working with gangs and communities were not involved.

Fear that the gangs might use the truce to rearm and reorganise, and anger towards perceived preferential treatment, is common in countries in transition from war to peace and with schemes of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants. The accumulated experience of the global peacebuilding community can provide useful insights, including the adoption of community-based approaches to reintegration. Similarly, adaptation and use of mechanisms of transitional justice can help find a balance between security, justice and reconciliation.

The truce in El Salvador has been a lost opportunity to take advantage of reduced violence to strengthen the institutional presence in communities affected by gangs and implement comprehensive approaches to prevention, reintegration and reconciliation. Any future attempt will need stronger political commitment, a long-term strategy and engagement with civil society and public opinion. Given the scope of the problem and an estimated gang membership in the tens of thousands, socio-economic programmes and opportunities are also imperative for sustainability. But, for the time being, the horses of war are riding again.

Mabel González Bustelo (@MabelBustelo) is a journalist, researcher and international consultant specialising in international peace and security. She is author of Narcotráfico y crimen organizado: ¿Hay alternativas? (Narco-trafficking and Organized Crime: Are There Alternatives?), Icaria, Barcelona, 2014.

Featured image: Salvadoran police officers. Source: Flickr | Paulien Osse

This article is part of the Remote Control Warfare series, a collaboration with Remote Control, a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group.

The use of security forces to protect merchant vessels from piracy has led to a rise in ‘floating armouries’: vessels that are used for weapons storage, often moored in international waters. This growing trend raises a number of concerns over security, oversight and transparency. 

From 2005 onwards, cargo ships traversing the seas off the coast of Somalia into the Gulf of Aden have become targets of maritime piracy.  One of the responses has been to station armed guards on the ships, or on support vessels travelling with the ships to protect them. On commercial ships these guards have generally been provided by Private Maritime Security Companies (PMSCs) with weapons owned by the PMSCs themselves or leased from governments or other PMSCs in the region.

PMSCs need to have storage for the weapons when not in use. One option is to store them in land-based armouries, the other is to store them in ‘floating armouries’. A new report by the Omega Research Foundation commissioned by the Remote Control project examines the issue of floating armouries and offers recommendations for how they could be regulated.

What are floating armouries and why are they used?

Floating armouries are ships that store weapons, ammunition and other equipment such as night vision goggles and body armour for use by PMSCs engaged in vessel protection. They also provide other logistics support including accommodation, food and medical supplies storage. They are typically commercially owned vessels, and are often anchored in international waters. These vessels are not purpose built, but ships that have been converted and retrofitted.

Due to the tightening of state regulation over the use of land based armouries, restrictions on weapons in some territorial waters, as well as the fees levied at PMSCs to move weapons through ports, PMSCs have increasingly turned towards floating armouries.

What are the issues?

Whilst PMSCs have dramatically reduced piracy off the coast of Somalia, the Omega Research Foundation’s report sheds light on an underexplored issue: the lack of regulation, oversight and security of floating armouries. It is not known how many floating armouries there are in operation – due to the lack of information on these vessels it is hard to verify their numbers. In 2012 a UN report detailed 18 floating armouries; other reports put the number at between 12 and 20 (See an industry newsletter and a Guardian article quoting the EU Naval Force). In September 2014 the UK Government published a list of floating armouries that UK PMSCs were licensed to use, stipulating 31 armouries. As this number only represents floating armouries licensed for use by UK companies, there may well be other armouries in operation.

In 2012 the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea highlighted concerns over the safety and security of floating armouries, citing the lack of national and international regulations. The Group stated:

This new and highly profitable business for PMSCs is uncontrolled and almost entirely unregulated, posing additional legal and security challenges for all parties involved.

Two years on there is still no international regulation and only limited national regulation. As the floating armouries are often moored in international waters, they operate in a ‘legal grey area’ with, in some cases, the only regulation coming from the states that register the vessels (the flag states). There are at least 3 states (Djibouti, Mongolia, and St Kitts and Grenadine) that give explicit approval for vessels to operate as floating armouries. Other states do have some regulation regarding the carrying of weapons on board ships but it mainly relates to PMSCs rather than floating armouries specifically.

Some of the vessels operating as floating armouries are flagged to countries that are on the Paris MoU or Tokyo MoU ‘black lists’. These black lists are derived from the Port State Control authority’s inspection of ships for compliance with international conventions and international law. Port State Control publishes an annual list evaluating the performance of flag states and assigning each a white, grey or black classification. The Omega Research Foundation has raised concerns that some floating armouries are flagged to states where there are serious concerns over the regulation of ships that fly under their flags.

There are also concerns over the construction and physical security standards of the floating armouries. None of the vessels currently used as floating armouries have been purpose built for that function. Existing vessels have been adapted, which means they may not have acceptable storage facilities for arms and ammunition. As a minimum, floating armouries should have an armoury contained within the structure of the ship and should have a secure entrance. Arms and ammunition should be stored separately, and should be kept in a weatherproof, ventilated and shelved environment.

What are the solutions?

Whilst states can introduce legislation to regulate floating armouries operating within their jurisdiction, the most effective regulation needs to be at an international level. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) as well as international trade bodies, such as the Security Association for the Maritime Industry (SAMI), should review current regulation and implement the necessary changes.

As a first step there should be an international in-depth study into the number of floating armouries currently in operation and the establishment of a central registry that contains information on the vessels used as floating armouries and the companies that operate them. The IMO or another international body should also review any existing national regulations and examples of best practice. Subsequent work should focus on establishing an international regulatory framework for floating armouries and an effective monitoring and compliance mechanism.

The Omega Research Foundation (@Omega_RF) is an independent UK-based research organisation dedicated to providing rigorous, objective, evidence-based research on the manufacture, trade in, and use of, military, security and police (MSP) technologies. Their report, ‘Floating Armouries: Implications and Risks’ is available here.

The Remote Control project is a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group that looks at the current developments in military technology and the re-thinking of military approaches to future threats.

Featured image: Offshore tug, the same kind of vessel used for floating armouries. Source: Flickr | Luc Van Braekel

This article is part of the Remote Control Warfare series, a collaboration with Remote Control, a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group.

States’ ability to move forward on the issue of lethal autonomous weapons will depend on not only finding consensus on key concepts but also having the will to find concrete outcomes.

April’s meeting of experts at the UN on lethal autonomous weapons systems (often shortened to LAWS or AWS) set out to consider questions relating to this emerging military technology, a continuation of UN talks begun in May 2014. These meetings took place under the aegis of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), and brought together state representatives, NGOs and academics. The CCW meetings have demonstrated a divergence of views on the ethical and legal concepts that should be employed, and a complex debate that at times felt detached from reality; moreover, without a negotiating mandate there is a fear that the meetings could simply mire the issue in abstract debate, leaving states free to continue developing the technology in the meantime.

The UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons

For a long time the CCW was a neglected treaty; regarded by states and NGOs as an overambitious and failed attempt to combine elements of international humanitarian law with arms control. By the end of the 1980’s, the CCW appeared to be floundering with only 29 state parties. Yet in recent years, participation has increased and there are now 121 state parties to the convention. A total of 87 countries sent representatives to the first meeting on autonomous weapons, marking a record high level of participation for the CCW. Eighty-eight countries were present at April’s meeting.

The purpose of the CCW is explicitly “to ban or restrict the use of specific types of weapons that are considered to cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants or to affect civilians indiscriminately.” The CCW is an evolving body of international humanitarian law, with a framework that is dynamically structured to be responsive to the concerns raised by the international community. The recognition that the law is not static is therefore a particular strength, indeed a cornerstone of the CCW.

The CCW’s talks in May 2014 and April 2015 were undertaken with a mandate “to discuss the questions related to emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapons systems, in the context of the objectives and purposes of the convention.” A ban on autonomous weapons would join five other CCW protocols on non-detectable fragments, landmines, incendiary weapons, laser weapons and explosive remnants of war. The uptake of the issue of lethal autonomous weapons by the CCW has been unprecedented in its speed, and could indicate a move towards prohibition. However, because there is no negotiating mandate, it could also be a strategic move to engage in these discussions on the part of states keen to engage in the debate of abstract principles, while at the same time continuing to develop the technology. The annual meeting of the CCW in November 2015 will decide formally whether to continue the talks, based largely on the content of the April meeting.

Autonomy

The most contentious issue discussed so far is the issue autonomous weapons pose with regard to human control. This issue was discussed through reference to the contested concepts of ‘autonomy’ and ‘meaningful human control’. The United States, the UK, France and Germany are all in favor of the notion of autonomy as a guiding principle. The US was one of the first states to advocate for this concept when its Department of Defense issued the first policy announcement by any country on autonomous weapons systems in November 2012, just three days after Human Rights Watch had brought the issue into the global spotlight.  Interestingly, the directive refers not to ‘fully autonomous’, but to ‘autonomous weapon systems’ that include human supervision. This supports the view advocated by the US at April’s CCW meeting: as long as humans are ‘in the loop’, weapons systems are not fully autonomous and therefore compliant with international humanitarian law. The UK, France and Germany attach human involvement to autonomous weapons systems as well. In a general exchange of views the UK representative assured, “there will be human oversight in this new territory where lethal autonomous weapons systems can go […] Autonomous systems do not exist, and will never exist” (author’s own transcription).

However, some objected that this was a ‘knockdown’ argument intended to rhetorically shut down the controversy about the lack of human control. The International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) is an international association of experts that was sat up with the specific goal of getting governments to talk to each other about the continuous automation of warfare, and was present at both the 2014 and 2015 meetings. ICRAC’s interpretation of the DoD policy was that it was designed to “green-light” weapon systems able to select and engage human targets. Together with 272 experts in computer science, engineering, artificial intelligence, robotics, and related disciplines from 37 countries, ICRAC issued ‘The Scientists’ Call’,  stating: “[G]iven the limitations and unknown future risks of autonomous robot weapons technology, we call for a prohibition on their development and deployment. Decisions about the application of violent force must not be delegated to machines”. Their message was clear, that within such systems, human control would not be ‘meaningful’.

Meaningful human control

India and Pakistan expressed confusion over this idea of meaningful human control, observing that the presence of meaningful human control would mean the weapons systems would not then be ‘autonomous’. In their opinion the question should be whether or not independent weapon systems can comply with international humanitarian law: whether they can distinguish between civilians and combatants, make proportionality assessments, and comply with other time-tested legal principles. A counter-argument was raised by Richard Moyes from Article 36 that if discussion is too focused on undefined hypothetical systems’ ability to comply with international humanitarian law, then legal arguments could become separated from reality. In particular, he argued that the law is a human framework applied to humans. A state representative from Greece agreed, saying that autonomous weapons should be addressed ethically rather than legally or technically, as the question is whether or not humans should delegate life and death decisions to a machine. The debate around autonomous weapons’ ability to comply with international humanitarian law is a misguided one if it fails to grapple with the bigger, underlying issues that would be raised. Banning such systems, in fact, is about maintaining something unique in the decision-making process: a human with intent behind the act of killing. Cuba, Ecuador, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Palestine agreed with this argument and called for a prohibition.

Potential for convergence

Consensus was reached on the undesirability of fully autonomous weapons systems. Ambassador Michael Biontino of Germany, who chaired the April meeting, wrote in his report that the following area of common understanding had emerged: “machines or systems tasked with making fully autonomous decisions on life and death without any human intervention, were they to be developed, would be in breach of international humanitarian law, unethical and to possibly even pose a risk to humanity itself.” However, because parties largely disagree about what constitutes human intervention, this statement is of limited value. The contradictory definitions used at the CCW meetings have created a lack of clarity for policymakers; it remains largely undecided what the world would look like if autonomous weapons came into existence.

The April talks not only give some idea of the shape of the debate going forward, but also of the potential limitations of the CCW talks themselves, as a forum for discussion, but without a negotiating mandate. One significant milestone would be the establishment of a broad, representative and universal Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) next year that would move the discussion from an informal to a formal setting. It has been suggested that the current lack of common language makes this discussion challenging, and that it is critical to avoid rushing into formal discussions. However, it does not seem premature for prohibition to be on the agenda in a body that has been designed to create prohibitions. A GGE seems a necessary next step to keep states focused on a practical outcome.

Lene Grimstad served as an observer at the 2014 and 2015 Geneva Meetings of Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, and holds a MA in Society, Science and Technology in Europe from the University of Oslo and ESST (European Inter-University Association on Society, Science & Technology) .

Featured Image: Meeting of Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems in April 2015. Source: Flickr | UN Geneva

In an important year for the Women, Peace and Security agenda, women’s civil society organising is increasingly being impacted by global and national counter-terrorism regimes.

2015 is a key year for women peace activists around the world. United Nations Security Council members will convene a high-level review in October 2015 to assess progress at the global, regional and national levels in implementing Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, renew commitments, and address obstacles and constraints.

Fifteen years since UNSCR 1325 was passed, there are still a lot of challenges to overcome. However, women peacemakers and activists are as resilient as ever. They continue to push the Women, Peace and Security agenda’s important message forward, in environments that can be risky, unsupportive, or outright hostile.

However, this resilience is closely tied to the existence of a vibrant civil society space. It is therefore important to assess new challenges to the building of peace and women’s rights posed by counter-terrorism measures.  This assessment must overcome the hesitancy that many peacemakers feel about discussing their experiences openly, fearing damage to their reputation as well as other repercussions.

To this end, in early 2015 the Women Peacemakers Program (WPP), together with Human Security Collective (HSC) contacted a selection of partners in ten countries to gain insight into the multiple ways the counter-terrorism agenda is affecting their work for peace and women’s rights.  This article is based on the perspectives of the respondents from a range of countries worldwide, who were guaranteed anonymity.

Global framework

Post 9/11 counter-terrorism measures have impacted on civil society’s operational and political space in several ways. Legislation, although enacted at the national level, is enacted within, and responsive to, a global framework of measures. Terrorist listing regimes and partner vetting systems may hinder peace work in a variety of complex ways.

One of the most significant areas for peace organizations is the framework that governs the prevention of terrorism financing through the non-profit sector. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a highly influential global consortium established in 1989 by the G7, has developed specific recommendations for non-profit organizations (Recommendation 8 – Best Practices: Combating the Abuse of Non-Profit Organisations) in its Anti Money Laundering/Countering Financing of Terrorism standard. This standard assumes that non-profits are vulnerable to abuse for terrorism financing. To date, over 180 countries have endorsed the standard and as such are subject to a peer evaluation by the FATF every 6 to 7 years. Receiving a low FATF rating immediately influences a country’s international financial standing.

In recent years, a number of countries have started to use the FATF standard, and specifically Recommendation 8, as a pretext to clamp down on civil society space. Although countries often deny that it is the case, evidence is growing that upcoming FATF evaluations can have a preemptive chilling effect on civil society space. This is a direct result of governments’ desire to show the FATF that they are capable of preventing terrorist financing abuse through their non-profit sectors. In addition, some states are starting to pass more restrictive non-profit laws after an FATF evaluation – as if the evaluation itself serves to legitimize the drafting of such laws.

Shrinking space

The WPP research indicates that as a result of these mechanisms, a growing number of women activists around the world are experiencing growing pressures on their capacity to undertake peace and human rights activism, including restrictive NGO legislation, suffocating financial regulations, intimidating surveillance practices and exhaustive reporting requirements.

Many women peace activists engage in civil society work that is critical and political. They often operate in high-risk settings, where they face repercussions because of the very nature of their activist work, which challenges established notions and bastions of patriarchal power. Several respondents reported that their governments are trying to control, limit, or stop critical civil society work through the development and passing of new NGO legislation. This new legislation is impacting on their space to operate, for example by putting restrictions on receiving funding support. As one activist from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region shared:

The Rights and Liberties Committee at the Constitution Drafting Assembly has released their suggestion for the Constitution… namely that local civil society should be banned from receiving any foreign government funds.

A women’s organisation based in South Asia observed a difference between the difficulties experienced by various organisations:

There is enough funding for service delivery organizations and those who follow right wing politicians. However, there is no funding for the rights-based organizations, or for those that work towards alternatives.

Some respondents described nationwide campaigns of invasive NGO inspections undertaken by national governments, using harassment tactics such as personal intimidation and threatening activists with the closing down of their organizations. One respondent reported:

When I received a grant from one (domestic) Foundation, I was getting calls from the intelligence bureau and had to supply them with three-years of audited statements, a list of Governing Board Members and staff members. […] They visited my home three times, to ask me questions.

Some women’s groups also faced demanding reporting requirements because of government regulations:

In some locations, all civil society organizations have to submit a copy of their annual report to the police, armed forces, and intelligence offices of the state.

Better safe than sorry?

Aside from the general worsening atmosphere for political or rights-based peace work in many contexts, the FATF standard has also had a great impact on the financial service industry, particularly on banks. Banks can be sanctioned when not abiding by the FATF standard, which may include the withdrawal of their banking license, freezing of assets, or hefty fines.

There is a growing body of evidence that shows that banks’ risk averse behavior has resulted in the withdrawal of bank services to civil society active in conflict areas. As a result of this “better safe than sorry” attitude of the banks, a growing number of civil society organizations are experiencing great difficulties in making or receiving money transfers. Over the years, many donors have become cautious  with grants. Some donors are avoiding partners in high risk, terrorist prone areas, and a number of others are tightening their own due diligence.

Women’s peace organizations more easily fall prey to these restrictions. This is partly because women’s organizations usually operate on small budgets, which means they often do not have the leverage to negotiate a solution with their banks, which big donor organizations and charities are often still able to do. Several respondents mentioned facing challenges with their banks, ranging from delays in receiving their funds to banks requesting additional project information before releasing the funds. Some activists reported that certain banks would no longer release foreign funds to their organizations or had refused to provide their organization with a bank account. One activist reported that another organization in her network had had its account closed by the bank. A respondent from the MENA region shared:

Sometimes we are facing difficulties during the money transfer process, it takes a long time for us to receive the funds, and some correspondent banks reject the amount. Recently a new system has been introduced: there is a limit on the amount we can withdraw on a weekly basis from the bank. This means we cannot pay all our organizational expenses on time, such as staff salary, rent, activity expenses… Everyone is calling us for their money, and we have to promise them that we will pay them next week… Sometimes we are taking loans from other people just to cover our expenses.

In addition, several reported that direct access to funding is getting more difficult. This is partly due to donors increasingly prefering to channel funds via large organizations capable of producing grant proposals according to their demanding guidelines, as well as able to absorb rigorous reporting and auditing requirements. An organization based in Europe reported significantly increased pressures on human resources regarding donor reporting. Staff found themselves working overtime to meet the requirements of this related additional bureacracy, and on some occasions had to seek external advice.

Cumulative effect

Increasingly, these complex and time-consuming requirements are clashing with the reality on the ground: that many women’s organizations are operating on very modest budgets with a combination of limited paid staff capacity and/or volunteer efforts, in a demanding environment that is at best challenging and at worst highly insecure and hostile.

As such, counter-terrorism measures – whether subtly or bluntly – are having an impact on a number of levels that, in combination, restrict civil society space. As one respondent, whose organization had been severely impacted, summarized:

We face an increase in expenditure (because we want to avoid targeting, we now travel in groups, which is more costly); increased surveillance of our movement and programs (officials are asking for reports and bank advices, including that of our personal bank accounts); postponing or cancelling of some of our programs or keeping low profile for some time; mental unrest of our members; impact on the reputation of our organization as our work was projected as “anti-national”, which has affected the outreach of our member organizations. Also, a few partner organizations have left the network fearing repercussions by the government.

The cumulative effect of the range of pressures is that the enabling space for women’s civil society work is shrinking and therefore progressive and pioneering work for inclusive development, peace and women’s rights becomes frustrated. The implications for broader security concerns are worrying. When alternative civil society voices and constructive seeds of change are not provided with the soil to take root, threats to the daily security of people and communities are given free reign. As such, opportunities for actors looking to exploit these vulnerabilities increase.

It is important for civil society to come together to exchange experiences as well as document and monitor the impact counter-terrorism measures are having on their peace and human rights work, in order to engage in collective advocacy. It is equally important for the Women, Peace and Security community to engage with the different counter-terrorism measures and stakeholders. Conversely, it is crucial to raise awareness about the importance of safeguarding critical civil society space worldwide so that women’s voices and actions for peace and human rights can continue to change the world for the better.

Isabelle Geuskens serves as Executive Director of the Women’s Peacemakers Program (WPP), a Dutch NGO that works for the nonviolent resolution of conflict, and the inclusion of women’s voice and leadership in nonviolent conflict resolution processes. In early 2015 the WPP, together with Human Security Collective (HSC), contacted a selection of partners in the field, to gain insight into the multiple ways the counter-terrorism agenda is affecting their work for peace and women’s rights. The findings are summarised in WPP’s Policy Brief: Counterterrorism Measures and their Effects on the Implementation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.

Featured Image: Women’s group in Badakhshan, Afghanistan. Source: Flickr | Canada in Afghanistan

One of the main problems for supporters of nuclear disarmament, in terms of their advocacy efforts, is that the experience and process of disarming will be unique for each nuclear possessor state and constitute a journey into the unknown. Thus while South Africa and former Soviet states Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus dismantled or gave up their nuclear arsenals, there is a limited amount we can learn from their experiences in terms of how existing nuclear possessors may disarm.

What’s more, nuclear disarmament can seem negative and intangible, perhaps because there is no common idea of what it would look or feel like. In order to address this it is useful to explore different approaches to abolition, for example, the debate between unilateralists and multilateralists, so we can be clearer about the causes and consequences of disarmament. This article therefore focuses on what the UK can do to help create a nuclear weapons free world (NWFW) as a vital public good.

The fall and rise of unilateralism 

Labour’s new leader Jeremy Corbyn has long been committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament and has recently revived the debate over whether the UK should be a nuclear weapon state (NWS). Unilateralism would entail the UK eliminating its nuclear arsenal without seeking concessions from other states. From the late 1980s up to the Scottish National Party’s breakthrough in 2015, all of Britain’s main political parties rejected this stance. The parliamentary consensus has instead favoured multilateral disarmament, commonly understood to mean a step-by-step negotiating process involving the other nuclear powers with Trident as a bargaining chip. Other steps the UK has taken in order to support this approach include ratification – unlike the US – of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and support for a verified Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty, albeit one which only limits future production of such materials.

This approach might appear, at first glance, to be practical, with the US and Russia taking the lead, based on the fact that they have 93% of the world’s nuclear weapons, and to align with public opinion. For example, whilst some surveys show that a majority of voters (54%) would prefer Britain to abandon its nuclear weapons and not replace them, other surveys show that a larger majority (81%) favour an international plan ‘for totally eliminating nuclear weapons according to a timeline’. Thus, as a 2007 study by the Simons Foundation found, the UK ‘boasts a high level of support for elimination of nuclear arms and nuclear testing all over the world’.

Given the significant public support for abolition and the fact that the UK, like all other NWS, has dual obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) – firstly to eliminate its own nuclear arsenal and secondly to help create the conditions for a NWFW – it is apparent that the UK could be doing much more and without waiting for reconciliation between China, Russia and the US.

As the NPT makes clear, the elimination of nuclear weapons and the achievement of general and complete disarmament will be facilitated by ‘the easing of international tension and the strengthening of trust between States’. This should lead the UK – both as an NWS and a permanent member of the UN Security Council – to consider how it may act responsibly, both enabling nuclear possessors to move towards disarmament and reducing the incentives for others to seek non-conventional deterrents.

British interpretations of multilateralism

During Gordon Brown’s tenure as Prime Minister the Foreign and Commonwealth Office produced an information paper entitled ‘Lifting the Nuclear Shadow: Creating the Conditions for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons’, wherein the government outlined how it would fulfil its commitments under the NPT. The document stated that the UK would ‘continue to work towards the total elimination of our own nuclear arsenal and all others through multilateral, mutual and verifiable agreements’. Furthermore, when ‘useful’, the government would willingly include in any negotiations ‘the small proportion of the world’s nuclear weapons that belong to the UK.’

Using such vague and misleading language to wriggle out of national responsibilities is an unedifying but unfortunately common trait of official documents, with the government having previously stated that the NPT ‘does not establish any timetable for nuclear disarmament’. Firstly, as former US Ambassador for the NPT Lewis Dunn notes, the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement ‘has long argued for negotiation of a time-bound framework for eliminating nuclear weapons’, yet this has been strenuously resisted by the UK and other nuclear powers.

Secondly, does the UK’s stance mean it concurs with NATO’s 2012 Deterrence Defence Posture Review, which declared that ‘as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance’? The question here is how soon Trident would be put on the table in a multilateral negotiating process for disarmament given that it is assigned to NATO. For example, does the UK government think that including Trident would only be ‘useful’ after Russia and the US agree bilaterally to reduce their nuclear arsenals from over 7,000 weapons each to low numbers approaching the 200-300 weapons that China, France and the UK each maintain? The need here is for more clarity from the government so the public can get a better sense of the timescale that is being proposed.

Lifting the Nuclear Shadow goes on to acknowledge that NWS have a ‘special responsibility’ to lead on eliminating nuclear weapons, but that this first requires certain ‘political and security conditions’ to be met, via ‘a co-operative project with the active engagement of the entire international community.’ If it is accepted that a more cooperative and peaceful world will benefit multilateral disarmament efforts how can we judge whether the UK has lived up to its ‘special responsibility’ in this area?

Creating the conditions for a NWFW 

A brief review of the UK’s actions in recent years shows that in several ways the UK has directly undermined efforts for disarmament to make headway. This point is most obviously illustrated by the fact that the UK is planning to spend tens of billions of pounds on replacing Trident – an immensely powerful type of nuclear weapon integrated within an aggressive military alliance that does not rule out the first use of nuclear weapons. Significantly, the UK does this whilst seeking to portray itself as the most progressive NWS and an active supporter of a NWFW in its public diplomacy.

In reality the UK has, so far, not taken any unilateral or multilateral disarmament steps. What the UK has done, since the end of the Cold War, is to make quantitative reductions to its nuclear forces whilst acquiring, as Nick Ritchie points out, a nuclear weapons system – Trident – that provides an increased capability over its predecessor – Polaris. The reductions trend continued with the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review, which announced that ‘the number of warheads on board each submarine would be reduced from a maximum of 48 to a maximum of 40, the number of operational missiles on the Vanguard Class submarines would be reduced to no more than eight, and the number of operational warheads reduced from fewer than 160 to no more than 120.’

These reductions, while unilateral, cannot be described as disarmament, because they have not taken place in a verifiable, irreversible and transparent manner as envisaged by the 2000 NPT Review Conference’s 13 steps. While the UK has so far not undertaken disarmament, it has begun to investigate how this might occur in future through initiatives with Norway and the US. These projects have brought together experts aiming to address the technical and procedural challenges of verifying nuclear warhead dismantlement.

Understanding how nuclear possessors think

Adopting truly progressive policies capable of fostering international cooperation would require the UK to develop an understanding of other state’s threat perceptions. For example, disarmament advocates and scholars often assert that the UK’s nuclear status legitimates nuclear possession for all, encouraging proliferation, and that this undermines the NPT.

While it is true that Russia sees the UK’s nuclear arsenal as part of NATO’s overall military capabilities, the UK’s nuclear arsenal alone cannot be considered, from a strategic point of view, a key factor in the decision-making of any state currently possessing or with the potential to acquire nuclear weapons. Rather, it is clear from the strategic studies literature that US conventional superiority – at the head of the NATO alliance – and domestic political dynamics are far more important considerations for states, including China and Russia, because nuclear weapons are ‘force equalisers’. China and Russia thus primarily see their nuclear weapons as deterrents against the West’s overwhelming conventional military superiority and policies of containment and expansion. This should lead British decision-makers to consider carefully the legal and political consequences of overseas power projection.

Take, for example, the UK’s involvement in NATO’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia (code named Operation Allied Force), which was, according to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee ‘contrary to…the basic law of the international community – the UN Charter’. According to Russian defence analyst Nikolai Sokov, the significance for Moscow of NATO’s bombing campaign was that it showed how the US could use force without the authorisation of the UN Security Council. Such considerations, for Sokov, led Russia to ‘enhance reliance on nuclear weapons in a departure from all documents adopted in the 1990s’ in order to deter the West from conducting ‘limited conventional wars’, principally in Russia’s near abroad.

More widely, as Raju Thomas notes, NATO’s ‘unrestrained use of force’ gave ‘an additional post-hoc justification for an Indian nuclear deterrent’, in the ‘context of the new Western-dominant world order’, bringing nuclear powers China, India and Russia together in protest against the bombing. These three states shared concerns about aggressive intervention being justified on humanitarian grounds, as each had to deal with a potentially secessionist region with parallels to Kosovo. For China this was Tibet and Xinjiang, for India, Kashmir, and for Russia, Chechnya. Subsequent US- or NATO-led regime-change operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have also stoked concerns, not least in Iran, about where the West would seek to intervene next.

Profiting from proliferation 

Perhaps as a means of placating Indian anger and drawing it into the Western orbit, in 2008 Washington made a highly controversial deal with New Delhi, providing assistance to India’s civilian nuclear energy program, and greater help with other energy and satellite technology, despite India refusing to join the NPT. The UK followed the US in July 2010, sealing an agreement with India for the export of civil nuclear technology that continues to this day. As Nicolas Watt reported, this move raised ‘fears of leakage’ to India’s ‘military nuclear programme’, meaning the UK would be engaged in blatant proliferation which would likely lead to responses from New Delhi’s rivals in Beijing and Islamabad.

The British government has also in recent years lobbied for India to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which was interpreted as a way of boosting India’s standing as ‘an atomic power’ and thus provide a larger export market for Western technology. Yet, as Fredrik Dahl explains, China and other states have questioned whether India should be given exceptional access ‘into a key forum deciding rules for civilian nuclear trade’ despite being outside the NPT, under which it would have to commit to disarmament.

The UK could also support non-proliferation by carefully considering how arms transfers affect political dynamics in regions suffering from conflict. For example, arming human rights abusing regimes in the Middle East contributes to tensions and reduces the chances of establishing a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone, which the government claims to support.

Overall, if progress on non-proliferation and disarmament is to be made, short-term economic and political goals must not be allowed to trump critical national and international security concerns. Advocates of multilateral disarmament therefore need to produce and enact policies that make sense across government. Moreover, without a clear understanding of the various economic, psychological and strategic factors driving proliferation and what might enable disarmament, it will be a meaningless exercise for politicians to argue that Britain favours the international elimination of nuclear weapons.

Tim Street is the Senior Programme Officer on the Sustainable Security programme at Oxford Research Group (ORG) and a PhD student at Warwick University.

Jenny Nielsen and Nathalie Osztaskina

With geopolitics and deterrence doctrines back in the ascendant, the prospects for multilateral nuclear disarmament look worse than for a generation; many options are on the table but whether states will engage constructively and pursue any of these proposals remains an open question.

Following the failure of the states parties to the NPT to adopt a consensus Final Document at the 2015 RevCon due to significant divisions on key issues, the voting and statements at the UN General Assembly First Committee (which deals with disarmament and threats to peace) highlighted the ‘even stronger polarisation and hardening of positions’ between the non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) and NWS given the latter’s refusal to make meaningful progress on their disarmament obligations.

As recently heard at the 2015 EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Conference, ‘the First Committee has confirmed the polarisation and also the deep mistrust that is there between nuclear-weapon states and a considerable part of the non-nuclear weapon states’. To aggravate this, no state or group of states seemed to be capable of playing ‘a bridge-building role’. As a result, the world was left without a consensus on how to begin disentangling the tight knot of nuclear politics so that NWS could move towards their NPT commitment to disarmament.

The re-emergence of nuclear deterrence

Following Moscow’s aggressive actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, the salience of nuclear weapons and the role of nuclear deterrence in security and defence doctrines is re-emerging in European political discussions, particularly regarding NATO’s posture.

At the 2015 EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Conference, Russian analyst Alexei Arbatov stressed the regrettable paradox that despite the lower number of nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War, ‘the probability of their use is now higher’. Chillingly, Arbatov added ‘it is not only higher than 25 years ago, it is probably higher than at any time since the early 1980s’.

Based on ‘the resurgence of state-based threats’, Professor Wyn Bowen argues that the UK’s recently published 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) has ‘brought deterrence back to the centre stage for the United Kingdom more than any other time since the end of the Cold War’.

At the same time, in the UK, the recently elected leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn — a long-standing opponent of nuclear weapons and vice president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) — has stated that he would not condone the use of nuclear weapons if he were elected prime minister. Corbyn’s Trident statements have clearly ruffled feathers amongst some in the military and political establishment, with a parliamentary ‘Main Gate’ decision on renewing the UK’s nuclear weapons system confirmed for 2016.

Despite Corbyn’s recent statements, elite debates have largely remained limited to discussions of whether the UK should build four new nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines in order to ensure continuous at sea deterrence (CASD).

Another key debate within NATO concerns how the alliance might re-articulate, refresh and clearly communicate its nuclear posture to reflect the current geo-strategic environment. NATO’s former Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Weapons of Mass Destruction Policy and Director for Nuclear Policy, Guy Roberts, recently argued that ‘to be fully credible, NATO’s nuclear posture and policy needs to be firmly articulated and communicated to Russia and other would-be adversaries’.

Furthermore, it was recently argued at the 2015 EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Conference that ‘we no longer have a debate about the potential withdrawal of’ the 160-200 theatre nuclear weapons (TNW) still in Europe. The debate instead now focuses on the role of nuclear deterrence in the broader defence posture of the NATO alliance. Guy Roberts argues that ‘if Russia continues to use nuclear threats and intimidation tactics, then the West will need to plan deterrence, response, and escalation control options that are credible and particularly tailored to the mindset of the Russian leadership. Otherwise, Russia may see its own rhetoric as validated and NATO as weak’.

Possible ways forward

So, what are possible ways forward vis-à-vis multilateral nuclear disarmament goals as mandated by the NPT in the current security environment? Given the re-ascendance of perceptions of imminent state-based security threats, how can we move from increasing frustrations among NNWS and procrastination or obstruction by states towards constructive engagement? Technical, legal and normative proposals exist to further progress towards nuclear disarmament commitments by NPT member states.

Legal Approaches

Many NNWS that are supporting the evolving Humanitarian Initiative are pursuing a legal measure that would ultimately delegitimise nuclear weapons use and possession. Proposals exist for a group of NNWS to pursue such a legal ban on nuclear weapons even without the participation of the five NWS and the other four non-NPT nuclear possessors (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea). Proponents argue that by concluding a legal ban, an international norm delegitimising nuclear weapons will be established, regardless of engagement by states with nuclear arsenals. The multilateral fora addressing nuclear disarmament have been subject to intense contention given the postures on this issue.

As voted for by 135 states at the 2015 session of the First Committee, the 2016 sessions of the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) could serve as a multilateral forum for discussions on nuclear disarmament. This is a measure specifically taken to avoid the polarisation that has characterised the Humanitarian Initiative and the refusal of the NWS to engage with it. Since 2009, the five NWS have been pursuing their own discussions on disarmament, known as the P5 Process, with limited results even before the NATO/Russia schisms over Ukraine. It is still unclear whether the five NWS and some NNWS under extended deterrence arrangements (i.e. the other 25 NATO members plus other allies) would participate in the OEWG.

In 2014, the Marshall Islands initiated a different legal approach towards demanding accountability vis-à-vis nuclear disarmament progress through the Global Zero lawsuits. Whether this approach through the lawsuits filed in the International Court of Justice will bring effective results – other than grabbing headlines and elevating the issue of nuclear disarmament on the international agenda – remains to be seen.

While a nuclear ban may be a key long-term normative and legal aim for some NNWS, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) (and its sophisticated International Monitoring System) is a realistic short-term objective. The CTBT is a developed and available legal and technical step towards nuclear disarmament. With the 20^th anniversary of the CTBT due in 2016, its entry into force should be a policy priority for states looking to bolster the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

In democracies at least, civil society and disarmament advocacy groups could funnel their energy and passion to promoting the establishment of the CTBT, educating the electorate on this issue and lobbying parliamentarians. With broad declaratory support voiced by NPT states parties (and Israel) for the CTBT, further ratifications of this treaty by states with some nuclear capabilities (called ‘Annex II’, including signatories China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the US) would significantly strengthen the non-proliferation regime and states’ commitment to disarmament. Recent declaratory support by US officials (including Kerry, Gottemoeller and Moniz) and efforts to re-energise the CTBT debate in the United States are therefore a positive development.

Technical Approaches

Another approach to furthering progress vis-a-vis nuclear disarmament is the US-launched International Partnership for Nuclear Disarmament Verification (IPNDV). This initiative aims at addressing the technical challenges of disarmament verification, bridging NNWS’ and NWS’ understanding of the key measures and practical issues involved in verifying disarmament agreements. At a recent Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation event following the IPNDV’s November meeting in Oslo, US Assistant Secretary of State Frank Rose, provided an overview of the IPNDV. The Partnership made progress in establishing three Working Groups and authorised them to move forward with their important technical assignments. Rose believes that, by concentrating on technical tasks, the Partnership ‘can make real and important progress’ in achieving multilateral cooperation and towards realising disarmament goals.

Several other pragmatic, technical proposals exist in support of reducing nuclear salience in security doctrines, including de-alerting arsenals and reducing stocks of delivery systems. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, former Defense officials William J. Perry and Andy Weber argued against the implementation of a US nuclear-armed cruise missile system which could heighten the risk of miscalculation by an adversary.

From entrenched postures to dialogue

Given the current deep divides on how to move forward on nuclear disarmament goals amidst heightened strategic discontents, pragmatic and confidence-building measures, including dialogue and trust-building activities, which enjoy broad support by international actors should be pursued. Frustrations, ineffective criticism and outright obstructions need to be channelled into constructive efforts, at the core of which should be frank and respectful dialogue. This applies to both sides of the debate. Only through unpacking the core assumptions underlying the extreme postures and perspectives on the perceived value of nuclear weapons, can these social constructs begin to be appreciated.

Effective progress towards a secure world without nuclear weapons as the ultimate security guarantee and ultimate insurance policy remains a long and arduous journey that will require open minds, constructive dialogue and a mix of various technical and legal measures at the right time. The dislodging of deeply entrenched postures and institutional cultures won’t happen in the short-term, even if a normative and legal ban is attained by a group of NNWS.

Following the outcome of the 2015 NPT RevCon, the five NWS are faced with the challenge of soothing perceptions of their lack of commitment to their Article VI obligation to pursue “a treaty on general and complete [nuclear] disarmament”. Whether the current international tensions between Russia and the West will test the NWS’s solidarity within the NPT P5 Process, as well as bilateral arms control measures, remains to be seen.

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Jenny Nielsen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP). Previously she was a Visiting Scholar at the NATO Defence College (NDC), Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland (UQ), Research Analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), and Programme Manager for the Defence & Security Programme at Wilton Park.

Nathalie Osztaskina is an Intern at the VCDNP. Her research focuses on disarmament efforts and the humanitarian movement, nuclear security, and promotion of CTBT’s entry into force. She worked previously at the Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, doing research on the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.

by Marianne Hanson and Jenny Nielsen

Deep tensions and frustrations are rising to the fore as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York gets underway. All parties must act bravely to bridge these deep divides if they are to make progress towards a nuclear-free world.

This year marks several important events in the international nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime, including the 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (NPT RevCon) being held in New York currently, the hoped-for finalization of the Iran deal with the P5 +1 states, and the 70th commemoration of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. It also marks five years since international humanitarian law was first mentioned explicitly in the NPT process, prompting some states to pursue a ‘humanitarian initiative’, a framing of the discourse on nuclear weapons away from a purely strategic context and towards an emphasis on the catastrophic human, health, resource and environmental consequences which would result from any use of nuclear weapons.

The RevCon, held every five years, is an important diplomatic process for international security. It takes stock of what has been done in the preceding period to curb nuclear proliferation and to implement measures for disarmament, but also looks forward and sets goals for driving these processes further. Since the ending of the Cold War, the divide between those NPT member-states which do not have nuclear weapons and the ones which do possess them (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France) has grown, with many in the former camp deeply disillusioned about the prospects for getting the latter group to disarm. The Conference aims to reach consensus in its final outcome document on what actions should be taken, but it is far from assured that such consensus will be possible this month.

The US administration continues to stress that ‘as long as nuclear weapons exist, the US will maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear arsenal’, and this sentiment is echoed by other nuclear weapon states. It is important to note, however, that while we have been lucky in avoiding a nuclear conflict since 1945, given the evidence and research on the risks associated with nuclear arsenals, as long as nuclear weapons exist, there is no guarantee that our luck will hold. As politicians, strategists, diplomats, and civil society groups convene at the UN, they may wish to reflect on what type of brave new nuclear world they want to create.

Divisive issues

The 2015 RevCon  takes place  20 years after  the NPT—widely regarded as the cornerstone of the nuclear non-proliferation regime—was indefinitely extended  through a compromise package deal (of three decisions and a Resolution on the Middle East). The Middle East resolution specifically called for efforts towards the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear and all other WMD and their delivery systems. With the elusive Helsinki conference mandated by the 2010 NPT Action Plan yet to be held, due to diverging postures by the regional parties, this issue remains a challenge for states at the New York meeting.

Not surprisingly, there exists a divergence of views on the pathway and measures needed to work towards the elimination of nuclear weapons, including on which proposals are feasible in today’s strategic and political environment. The nuclear weapon states continue to insist that only an incremental, step-by-step approach, with slow reductions, is realistic, given the security tensions present in many parts of the world today. It seems to many non-nuclear weapon states and civil society groups however that this approach has not produced results, and they fear that disarmament will always be postponed and held hostage to such claims. These advocates of disarmament stress the dangers of continuing to rely on nuclear weapons; for a growing number of them, creating a legal ban against nuclear weapons is seen as desirable and feasible, even if the nuclear states do not sign  up to such an agreement at the outset.

Any serious efforts to address these divides will require engagement and informed dialogue between the various constituencies involved in the nuclear weapons policy debate. These constituencies include:

• Strategic nuclear communities of nuclear weapon states who devise, implement and sustain nuclear deterrence policy, and who inevitably argue for continuation of the status quo;
• Non-nuclear weapon states and civil society groups driving and advocating nuclear disarmament (including those driving the humanitarian initiative);
• Non-nuclear weapon states – including those in NATO, East Asia and Australia – relying on extended nuclear deterrence.

It appears very difficult to bridge the diverging views held by these constituencies. A nuclear ban and the stigmatization of nuclear weapons will surely not be acceptable to those individuals and states who still promote nuclear deterrence as a core component of defence doctrines. Some in these strategic communities may perceive the NPT RevCons as merely high-level diplomatic theatrics that take place every five years and which have no direct relevance to infrastructure and ‘real’ policy on nuclear deterrence. Efforts to consolidate a stigmatization of nuclear weapons through a legal framework, such as a proposed nuclear weapons ban treaty—without the engagement of the nuclear weapon possessors and their respective strategic communities will not garner internalized changes. At the 2015 NPT RevCon, the nuclear weapons states will argue that proposals for a nuclear ban at this time will divert focus away from the agreed 2010 Action Plan and the P5 ‘step-by-step’ process.

But many non-nuclear states and civil society groups argue that the lack of implementation of the 2010 Action Plan is undermining the credibility of the regime and the entire NPT review process. They suggest that a nuclear weapon ban treaty ought to be considered. Their argument is that while this will certainly not create a risk-free world in international security, neither will continuation of the status quo provide us with long-term security and stability. Indeed they argue that the status quo carries with it far higher levels of risk to human security and will inevitably lead to discord in international cooperation on non-proliferation priorities.

Opportunities

States parties to the NPT, the nuclear armed states outside the NPT and civil society groups should act bravely to bridge the deep divides on preferred and promoted pathways towards implementing nuclear disarmament, in order to move towards a frank dialogue and progress. This will require balanced assessment by all constituencies of perspectives and priorities. A continuation of the status quo vis-à-vis implementation of Article VI commitments to disarm will not be acceptable to many non-nuclear weapon states whose frustration has been simmering for decades over perceived unfulfilled ‘empty promises’ made in 1995, 2000, and 2010.

At present, the discourse on nuclear weapons policy remains engaged only in ‘enclave deliberation’, perpetuating the views within and excluding external or opposing views and arguments. Palpable frustration and miscommunication abounds within and between these various constituencies, making it imperative to engage and stimulate meaningful dialogue between them. There is a real need to promote informed, respectful, and frank engagement and dialogue between these camps.

Perhaps a way to inch closer to establishing such a dialogue would be to convene key stakeholders in a non-binding, Track II forum, with informed individuals from these separate constituencies, and with a progressive yet balanced agenda which addresses the underlying social constructs, assumptions and rationales of the role of nuclear weapons in security strategies and defence doctrines. An informed forum across the spectrum of diverging perspectives could help to bridge these deep divides.

If the important discussions on framing a humanitarian narrative regarding nuclear weapons which are taking place in New York (as well as in Geneva, and recently in Oslo, Nayarit and Vienna) are to have an actual impact on nuclear deterrence policy, efforts need to be focused on promoting these ideas to the stakeholders within the defence and strategic communities of the nuclear weapon states (as well as to those four nuclear weapon states who remain outside the NPT framework).

The evidence highlighted so far by the humanitarian initiative describes catastrophic scenarios of devastation and nuclear winter. Such dystopias are not inevitable; we have the means to avert them. A nuclear-free world is surely a worthy goal to aim for, but moving these efforts forward will require an understanding of and engagement with alternatives to nuclear deterrence as well as the courage from all constituencies to engage with one another.

Marianne Hanson is Associate Professor of International Relations at the School of Political Science and International Studies, University Of Queensland. She has published widely in the field of international security, with a focus on weapons control, and is currently engaged in a book project examining the emergence of the humanitarian initiative in nuclear weapons debates. 

Jenny Nielsen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Political Science and International Studies. Previously, she was a Research Analyst with the Non-proliferation and Disarmament Programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a Programme Manager for the Defence & Security Programme at Wilton Park, and a Research Assistant for the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies (MCIS) at the University of Southampton. She holds a PhD from the University of Southampton which focused on U.S. nuclear non-proliferation policy vis-à-vis Iran in the 1970s.

Featured image: US nuclear test detonation in 1952. Source: WikiMedia

This article is part of the Remote Control Warfare series, a collaboration with Remote Control, a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group.

Over-burdened in its requests for continuous surveillance of an expanding battlefield, the US military is increasingly turning to private contractors to fill key roles in its drone operations.

In March this year, US Air Force Secretary Deborah James appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee, looking for a $10 billion funding hike. “I can tell you the number one thing that the combatant commanders say they want from our Air Force is more ISR, ISR, ISR,” she told the committee. “That is the number one priority.”

ISR is Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and encompasses a complex array of functions. It includes spyplanes and drones with special sensors and cameras, the satellites which control them, and the analysts who turn this information into “products”.  It also includes the “distributed common ground system”, an unwieldy term for the network of devices which allows personnel to access this information and the “products” derived from it.

The volumes of data being passed back from surveillance flights is now so vast that the military can no longer deal with it in-house. So, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (‘The Bureau’) found in a six-month investigation, the Pentagon has turned to the private sector to plug the gaps, employing contractors as imagery analysts or “screeners”.

Screening

The screener’s task is not a simple one. Like much of military life, it involves long spells of tedium – twelve hour shifts in front of a screen – interspersed with occasional spikes of activity. But it demands high and continuous levels of concentration. As one screener told us: “A misidentification of an enemy combatant with a weapon and a female carrying a broom can have dire consequences.”

Screeners can have an important safety function in reducing collateral damage – the proverbial “busload of nuns” which appears out of nowhere into the field of fire. But their interpretations of video imagery – “calls”, in military parlance – can also influence drone pilots to take shots. As one screener commented, once you’ve influenced the mentality of the pilot by indicating the presence of something hostile, it’s hard to retract it.

In one notorious incident, the crew of a MQ-1 Predator drone flying over Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province in February 2010 ignored ambiguities in their screeners’ assessments as to whether the trucks they were tracking contained combatants. As a result, at least 15 civilians were killed.

“When you mess up,” The Bureau was told, “people die.”

Contractors

The companies being paid to undertake this work range from industry leviathans like BAE to specialist tech firms like Zel Technologies and Advanced Concepts Enterprises.

Finding out who was performing this work was itself an arduous task. The Department of Defense records thousands of procurement transactions most days every year. From 2009 to the end of 2014 there have been over 8 million transactions between the Pentagon and the private sector. The Bureau analysed these transactions through its own specially constructed database, which allowed it to identify activities relating to ISR and then build up profiles of the contracts and companies carrying out those activities.

Table: US Military Imagery Analysis Contracts since 2010 (click to enlarge)

The Bureau identified over $260 million of screening transactions. But this is a niche market compared to the wider outsourced ISR effort. The private sector has been operating smaller surveillance drones over Afghanistan and other countries, managing communications between drones and their bases in the US and elsewhere, maintaining data collection systems and servicing sensors, to name just some functions. Procurement costs for these services run into billions of dollars.

Questions of accountability come to the fore in this type of outsourced warfare. Following considerable pressure, the military now publishes figures of contractors on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this transparency does not extend to ISR missions conducted in those countries – or elsewhere – from behind computer screens in Florida and Nevada.

From Screening to Targeting?

Although contractors are so far not supposed to have their fingers on the drones’ triggers, fears have been expressed that this distinction might be harder to maintain in practice. One military outsourcing specialist, Laura Dickinson, told us that if the ratio of contractors to government personnel swells, “oversight could easily break down, and the current prohibition on contractors making targeting decisions could become meaningless.”

Shortly after The Bureau published its investigation in The Guardian, the Pentagon announced that it would ramp up the number of ISR missions with ten new contractor-operated MQ-9 Reaper Combat Air Patrols. This puts contractors into the driving seat of large, combat-capable drones for the first time, although the Pentagon says these will be “ISR only”. The private sector’s involvement in drone warfare, it seems, is just taking off.

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Crofton Black is a researcher, journalist and writer with extensive experience of complex investigations in the field of human rights abuses and counter-terrorism. He is a leading expert on the CIA’s rendition, detention and interrogation programme and a specialist in military and intelligence corporate contracting. He has a PhD in the history of philosophy from the University of London.

Crofton completed a report for the Remote Control Project last year on the use of contractors in US special forces operations.