Verifying a multilateral ban on nuclear weapons: Lessons from the CWC

Nonproliferation Review

Volumn 5, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 81-90

  Tucker, Jonathan B ^a  

^a MONTEREY INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85010606635     PISSN: 10736700     EISSN: 17461766     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10736709808436709     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Final Document, Part I: Organization and Work of the Conference, New York, 1995, Document No. NPT/CONF. 1995/32 (Part I), “Decision 2: Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament,” paragraph 4(c).
2. James Carroll, “War Inside the Pentagon,” The New Yorker, August 18, 1997, p. 60.
3. James Steinberg, Keynote Address at the Carnegie Endowment Nonproliferation Conference, Washington, D.C., June 9, 1997.
4. Burrus M. Carnahan, “World Court Delivers Opinion On Legality of Nuclear Weapons Use,” Arms Control Today 26 (July 1996), p. 24.
5. Craig Cerniello, “Retired Generals Re-Ignite Debate Over Abolition of Nuclear Weapons,” Arms Control Today 26 (November/December 1996), p. 14.
6. Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Homepage (http://www.dfat.gov.au/dfat/cc/cchome.html).
7. Lawyer’s Committee on Nuclear Policy, “Model Nuclear Weapons Convention: Statement of Purpose, Outline, Draft Preamble and Summary,” April 1997.
8. Abolition 2000, Homepage (http://www.abolition2000.org.statement.html).
9. Steve Fetter, Verifying Nuclear Disarmament (Washington, D.C.: The Henry L. Stimson Center, Occasional Paper No. 29, October 1996), p. 40.
10. Steve Fetter, Verifying Nuclear Disarmament.
11. U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Committee on International Security and Arms Control, The Future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1997), p. 86.
12. Fetter, Verifying Nuclear Disarmament, p. 42.
13. David Hoffman, “Yeltsin Approves Doctrine of Nuclear First Use if Attacked,” The Washington Post, May 10, 1997, p. 21.
14. Bill Gertz, “Russia to Slash Ground Forces, Rely on Nukes,” The Washington Times, October 17, 1997, p. 1.
15. Jonathan S. Landay, “US Quietly Adds a Bunker-Buster to Nuclear Arsenal,” Die Christian Science Monitor, April 8, 1997.
16. Robert Waller, “Libyan CW Raises the Issue of Pre-emption,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, November 1996, pp. 522-526.
17. Victor A. Utgoff, Nuclear Weapons and the Deterrence of Biological and Chemical Warfare (Washington, D.C.: The Henry L. Stimson Center, Occasional Paper No. 36, October 1997)
18. R. Jeffrey Smith, “Clinton Directive Changes Strategy on Nuclear Arms,” The Washington Post, December 7, 1997, p. 1.
19. For a discussion of de-alerting proposals, see Bruce G. Blair, Harold A. Ficveson, and Frank N. von Hippel, “Taking Nuclear Weapons Off Hair-Trigger Alert,” Scientific American 277(5), November 1997, pp. 74-81.
20. For example, the Soviet Union and then Russia allegedly developed a new family of binary nerve agents known as novichok. See “Mirzayanov, Fedorov Detail Russian CW Production” [Interview], Novoye Vremya, No. 44, October 1992, pp. 4-9.
21. JPRS-TAC-92-033 (14 November 1992), pp. 44-49.
22. Schedule 1 includes known CW agents (such as mustard gas and sarin) and immediate CW precursors that have few if any peaceful applications. Schedule 2 lists toxic chemicals and CW precursors that are also employed in small quantities for peaceful purposes (such as thiodigycol, which is both a precursor for mustard gas and a key component of ballpoint pen ink). Schedule 3 lists dual-use chemicals (such as phosgene and hydrogen cyanide) that were used as chemical weapons in World War I but are now produced and consumed in large quantities by commercial industry. Chlorine gas, the first chemical weapon of the modem era, has so many peaceful applications that it was considered impractical to include it in the verification regime.
23. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Technologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction, OTA-BP-ISC-115 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 1993), p. 155.
24. “Weapons-grade” HEU has been enriched to 90 percent or more of Uranium-235 to ensure a high degree of weapon reliability and efficiency. HEU enriched to between 20 and 90 percent can also be used in a weapon, but a larger amount of the material is required to produce an explosive chain-reaction. Similarly, “weapons-grade” plutonium typically contains six percent or less of the non-fissile isotopes Plutonium-240 and Plutonium-242, but less pure plutonium (even reactor-grade plutonium containing at least 20 percent non-fissile isotopes) can be used to make a bomb, albeit with reduced explosive yield. In several incidents between 1992 and 1996, kilogram quantities of weapons-usable (but not weapons-grade) HEU were stolen from nuclear facilities in Russia and later seized by government authorities. Graham T. Allison, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Richard A. Falkenrath, and Steven E. Miller, Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy: Containing the Threat of Loose Russian Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Material (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996).
25. Lawrence R. Scheinman, Monterey Institute of International Studies, telephone conversation with author, October 15, 1997.
26. Martin Kalinowski, et al., “Cutoff of Nuclear-Weapons-Usable Materials,” in International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP). Beyond the NPT: A Nuclear- Weapon-Free World (Darmstadt, Germany: University of Darmstadt, April 1995), p. 87.
27. “Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the United States of America and the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy Concerning the Modification of the Operating Seversk (Tomsk Region) and Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk Region) Plutonium Production Reactors,” September 23, 1997.
28. A possible way around this problem would be for the nuclear weapons states to reassign all of their military stockpiles of fissile materials irrevocably for peaceful uses, in which case the IAEA could legally assume responsibility for safeguarding them.
29. U.S. Academy of Sciences, Committee on International Security and Arms Control, Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, January 1994).
30. Adam Bernstein, “Getting Burnt by Weapons Plutonium: Security Implications of U.S. Disposition Options,” The Nonproliferation Review 4 (Winter 1997), pp. 72-81.
31. Charles N. Van Doren, “Getting to Bum Weapons Plutonium: Principal Issues and Obstacles,” The Nonproliferation Review 4 (Fall 1996), pp. 98-105.
32. The quantitative declaration thresholds specified in the CWC are as follows: no threshold for the known CW agents listed on Schedule 1; a threshold of 1 kilogram, 100 kilograms, or 1 metric ton for the various subcategories of chemicals on Schedule 2; and a threshold of 30 metric tons for the chemicals on Schedule 3. The CWC declaration requirements also cover “other” production facilities that manufacture more than 200 metric tons per year of unscheduled “discrete organic chemicals,” on the grounds that such plants could be used to manufacture scheduled chemicals at some time in the future.
33. John Gee, “A Strengthened BWC: Lessons to be Learned from the Chemical Weapons Convention,” UNIDIR Newsletter, No. 33/96, p. 77.
34. Adolf von Baeckmann, Gary Dillon, and Demetrius Pcrricos, “Nuclear Verification in South Africa,” International Atomic Energy Agency website (http://www.iaea.or.at/worldatom/inforesource/bulletin/bull371/baeckmann.html).
35. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nonproliferation and National Security, “Declassification of the United States Plutonium Inventory and Release of the Report ‘Plutonium: The First 50 Years,” Fact Sheet, February 6, 1996.
36. Howard Diamond, “IAEA Approves ‘93+2’ Protocol; Awaits Adoption by Member States,” Arms Control Today 27 (May 1997), pp. 27, 30.
37. Lawyer’s Committee on Nuclear Policy, “Model Nuclear Weapons Convention,” p. 14.
38. Fetter, Verifying Nuclear Disarmament, p. 30.
39. Joseph Rotblat, “Societal Verification,” in J. Rotblat, J. Steinberger, and B. Udgaonkar, eds., A Nuclear-Weapon-Free World Desirable? Feasible? (Oxford: Westview Press, 1993), pp. 103-118.
40. Chemical Manufacturers Association, News Release, October 19, 1992.
41. This news release quotes then CMA president Robert A. Roland, who states that the CWC “is vitally important to the chemical industry. It will help us immeasurably in our efforts to guard against the diversion and misuse of our legitimate, commercial products.” See also, Testimony of Will D. Carpenter on behalf of the Chemical Manufacturers Association, in U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, 103rd Congress, 2nd session. Hearing: Chemical Weapons Convention (Treaty Doc. 103-21), June 9, 1994, p. 88-92.