Interim Report from NPT Review Conference
by John Loretz

With a little more than one week remaining in the NPT Review Conference, it's hard to see how the Member States will arrive at any kind of final consensus document, let alone one that preserves and builds on the important outcomes of the 2000 Review. Procedural arguments concerning the agenda and the composition and mandates of working committees have paralyzed this Review for most of the first three weeks.

There is little doubt that the US has deliberately set about to ensure that the Review is deadlocked over procedure in order to prevent substantive discussion on issues of compliance with its own Article VI disarmament obligations and those of the other nuclear weapon states. While the US has not done this single-handedly - a few other Member States have apparently used procedural disputes to advance agendas of their own -- the Bush administration has the most to lose if its nuclear policies are scrutinized too closely during this Review, and the most to gain by redirecting the conversation exclusively to the proliferation problems caused by Iran and North Korea.

Three Main Committees (disarmament, regional issues, and "peaceful uses" of nuclear technology) have been formed, and are now arguing over their mandates and subsidiary bodies. With only a week remaining for each Committee to discuss, evaluate, and debate the numerous substantive proposals that have been tabled by member States, the prospects for a constructive set of outcomes from this Review are not good.

While the Treaty delegates have been caught in gridlock, however, the NGO presence at the Review has been visible, vocal, and very energetic. IPPNW has been represented at the conference by both our Co-Presidents and by staff and affiliates from nine countries, and has stood side by side with other NGOs and with the Mayors For Peace in a display of civil society support for nuclear disarmament that has been unprecedented at previous Review conferences and PrepComs.

Here are just a few highlights of what we have accomplished at the Review so far: 

• On May 1, IPPNW members marched under the banner of the German affiliate as part of a "No Nukes, No War" demonstration that drew an estimated 40,000 people to New York's Central park. Co-President Ron McCoy addressed the crowd, who also heard from Mayor Akiba, Daniel Ellsberg, and other prominent anti-nuclear activists. Swedish medical student Jenny Immerstrand spoke from the stage on behalf of the international youth delegations, and Debbie Grisdale of Physicians for Global Survival brought a message of support from Canada.

• On Wednesday, May 11, IPPNW joined the NGO community as a whole in a morning press conference followed by a three-hour, formal presentation to the Member States. The papers and recommendations, which were read to a very well attended plenary session, were the product of months of drafting, revision, and re-revision in which IPPNW participated along with numerous other NGOs. A complete set of the presentations can be found at the Reaching Critical Will website.
 

• On three or four different occasions during the first week of the Review, IPPNW medical students Stefanie Berkmann and Inga Blum (Germany), Shannon Gearhardt (USA), and Jenny Immerstrand (Sweden), took the "Target X" project to Times Square. Wearing white lab coats and displaying a large, laminated street map of mid-town Manhattan, the students handed out fact sheets and talked with pedestrians about the medical consequences of nuclear war and about the importance of the NPT conference taking place just blocks away at the UN. They were articulate and fearless and did all of us proud! (You can see photos from the project and from the May 1 rally on the IPPNW website)

• IPPNW members joined delegations from their own countries and regions who visited embassies and UN permanent missions -- Canada, Germany, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden are the ones I know about -- to press for a successful outcome to the Review and to advocate for full compliance with both the disarmament and the non-proliferation obligations.

• One of the most dramatic moments came on the morning of May 4, when Mayor Akiba and Yoko Ono shared the podium in the General Assembly Hall, delivering impassioned speeches on the need for global nuclear disarmament and a more peaceful approach to the resolution of the world's conflicts. The Review Conference president, Sérgio de Queiroz Duarte of Brazil, was presented with millions of "Abolition Now" petition signatures -- a product of a global petition drive in which IPPNW participated actively.

• IPPNW organized three briefings and panel discussions for Treaty delegates and NGOs. On May 9, the medical students held a panel on disarmament education and leadership development based on their experiences with the Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project. On May 12, PSR conducted a briefing on current challenges facing the NPT with Thomas Graham and Richard Rhodes. PSR was back on May 18 with an experts' briefing on nuclear terrorism, nuclear energy and Article IV with Tariq Rauf of the IAEA and Andrew Kanter



The NGOs will come together again on May 26 for a press conference to evaluate the outcome of the Review and to offer our ideas about where to go from here. I'll report back at the conclusion of the Review Conference as a whole, and sooner if there is any news coming out of the negotiations during the next week.  

As usual, we owe a real debt of gratitude to Reaching Critical Will for facilitating NGO participation at the Review, for publishing the daily newsletter, and for making sure that we have had access to all of the documents and proposals coming out of the Member State delegations.

Regards, John