December 2009: International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) publishes final report: Eliminating Nuclear Weapons: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers, Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi, Co-Chairs, International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.
Nuclear Arms Control and Disarmament
Getting to Zero Timeline: 2010
December 22, 2010: U.S. Senate approves New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).
May 28, 2010: Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference 2010 adopts consensus Final Document (PDF), available online via Reaching Critical Will
Getting to Zero timeline: 2011
September 20, 2011: Guinea ratifies the CTBT
July 28-29, 2011: First high-level meeting between the US and North Korea in two years takes place between U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Stephen Bosworth and North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan in New York. US displayed willingness to restart talks if North Korea demonstrates commitment to a constructive attitude during negotiations.
Getting to Zero Timeline: 2012
December 13, 2012: P5+1 talks with Iran in Tehran
December 8, 2012: Marks the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by former US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.
Getting to Zero Timeline: 2013
January 16-17, 2013: IAEA Talks with Iran. Tehran, Iran
January 21 – March 28, 2013: First session of the Conference on Disarmament in 2013
February 12, 2013: Obama State of the Union Address, Vice President Joe Biden stated the speech will address “advancing a comprehensive nuclear agenda to strengthen the nonproliferation regime, reduce global stockpiles and secure nuclear materials.”
February 13, 2013: IAEA Talks with Iran. Tehran, Iran.
Open Ended Working Group
Geneva saw something new this week: actual constructive conversation about nuclear weapons. The United Nations established the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in its current form in 1978, expecting it to be the main forum for disarmament negotiations for a number of different types of weapons, including nuclear weapons. But the rules of the CD–limited membership, any one member can block action–have caused its work on nuclear weapons to stagnate for 20 years.
The French White Paper on Defence and National Security
The fourth French White Paper on Defence has just been unveiled on April 29th (five months delayed). In the end, it is an unremarkable, short document, whose political and military value may be questioned.
A chance to make progress on FM(C)T?
The UN Conference on Disarmament (CD) begins its second session of the year this week, convening from May 13th until June 28th. Attempts in the CD to open negotiations on a treaty banning fissile materials for nuclear weapons use have been sitting in stalemate for, quite literally, decades.