The upcoming Nuclear Security Summit would have greater impact if it expanded its focus to include negotiations for a long-stalled fissile material ban treaty, according to a former Canadian diplomat and member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials.
Speaking Tuesday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Paul Meyer, who once served as Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, said the “narrow definition of nuclear security imposed by the American architects of the [Nuclear Security Summit] process has limited its focus to issues of physical protection of civilian fissile material” and is an “underwhelming rationale” for convening over 50 heads of state at the last summit, scheduled for March 31-April 1 in Washington, D.C.
The summit would be impressive, Meyer argued, if it included consideration of military holdings of fissile material, rather than just civilian stockpiles. Moreover, “the political energy” of this summit could be put toward negotiations for a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT), which has been stuck for close to two decades in the Conference on Disarmament. Using the conference’s consensus rule for negotiations, Pakistan has blocked FMCT negotiations due to concerns that the treaty would prohibit highly enriched uranium and plutonium production without including restrictions on existing fissile material stocks, leading to asymmetry between its own stockpile and that of rival India.
FMCT negotiations should not be confined to the Conference on Disarmament – which began its 2016 session earlier this year – due to the consensus rule impasse, Meyer said: “If negotiations are ever to get underway, they will have to occur in a forum other than the CD.” This might involve an open-ended working group, an ad hoc diplomatic conference, or, in this case, the upcoming summit, he said.
Negotiations could begin with states issuing declarations of their current fissile material holdings, both civilian and military, he argued. The U.S. and Russia could also work with the International Atomic Energy Agency to declare excess fissile material and place it under international safeguards. Meanwhile, states could pursue studies promoting the shift from highly enriched to low-enriched uranium in naval nuclear propulsion to help in “reducing the demands of an eventual verification system” for a fissile material ban treaty, he said.
“It would be a pity if no effort is made to leverage the high-level political audience that will gather shortly in Washington to discuss the [fissile material ban] challenge,” Meyer said. “In my mind, this would be a subject commensurate with a summit-level meeting and a worthy legacy item for its host.”
