Disarmament Diplomacy and Humanitarian Action - Term Paper Example

Question 1 When we talk about landmines, we are simply referring to the problems related to policies that could lead to regional conflicts which could hinder the reconstruction of post-conflicts in relation to the use of chemical weapons, poison gas, and nuclear weapons (Rutherford, p. 75, 80). Landmine issues need to be shifted as military to humanitarian problem because the use of these weapons are highly toxic and can cause a widespread of pollution (Rutherford, p. 82). As part of solving the landmine issues, non-governmental organization (NGO) is considered as a type of organization that has a significant role in the establishment of international political agenda. For example: The Ottawa Treaty which was established by NGOs successfully changed the attitude of the state with regards to solving landmines issues like banning the use of weapons that could trigger humanitarian harm (Rutherford, p. 76). Through the use of the media and capturing the public’s attention regarding landmine issues, Kenneth Rutherford considered NGOs as central to the negotiations because NGOs creates the opportunity to negotiate landmine issues such as those that are related to military and security into a humanitarian subject (Rutherford, p. 77). In other words, shifting problems from military-related to humanitarian issues increases the chances wherein the state will exert an effort to negotiate or solve a list of landmine issues. For example: The UNICEF publicly announced that many children died because of the landmines used during a war. The fact that NGO makes the public aware of the negative health consequences of landmines convinces the government and international policy makers to develop an international protocol that can be used in making people who violates the law to be punished. The NGOs play a significant role in the process of establishing agenda-settings. With regards to agenda-settings; framing, schema, and priming are considered as three of the most important components that makes agenda-setting successful. Basically, these elements are used in promoting problem definition, interpret the problem casually, evaluate moral issues, and provide recommendation to solve the landmine issue (Rutherford, p. 78). The first level of agenda setting is focused on persuading the government and public to think that landmine issue is important and needs immediate solution to the problem whereas the second level of the norm agenda setting, NGOs bring landmine issues forward to international attention (Rutherford, p. 78, 92). The concept of agenda setting is normally done by bringing the landmine issue up as a subject for international political agenda. In line with this, the ability of the NGOs to convince the government and public regarding the degree and importance of problems as humanitarian issue, the faster the NGOs are able to bring up the subject matter to international political agenda (Rutherford, p. 79). Back in 1970s, the NGO’s interest to solve landmine issues started when the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) learnt that some deadly weapons can cause serious humanitarian problems which therefore should be legally banned by the customary and treaty based international humanitarian law (Rutherford, pp. 80 – 81). Since the NGOs were not able to successfully convince the government and the general public about the seriousness of the ICRC discussion regarding the deadly weapons, only a minimal international restrictions under the Landmines Protocol of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) were implemented with regards to landmine issues (Rutherford, p. 81). It was only in 1996 when this said protocol was strengthened with the implementation of the Amended Protocol II which stated the need to strictly ban the use of illegal landmine weapons (ibid). In comparison, Don Hubert also acknowledges the important role of the NGOs as negotiation actors. However, Hubert identified the four important set of actors as: the individual experts, the ICRC, the states, and the multilateral organizations (Hubert, p. xi). Basically, each of the four major actors as described by Hubert plays a unique role in terms of hastening the landmine negotiation processes. As explained by Hubert, the individual experts like surgeons, deminers, and the specialists of prosthetics are all equally credible in terms of providing valid evidences that can be use in convincing the government and the general public about the negative health consequences of landmines (Hubert, p. 12). For this reason, convincing the individual experts to actively participate in the creating public awareness about the landmine issues increases the chances that policy makers would immediately take actions in solving this kind of humanitarian issue. The ICRC plays an important role during the early stage of the public campaign. With this, the ICRC medical personnel can take an important role in terms of publicizing the actual human cost of landmines (Hubert, p. 9). By continuously publicizing important landmine issues, the ICRC could effectively call the attention of the international group to implement an international humanitarian law against the use of landmine weapons. Since the state policy is required in solving landmines-related problems, the state as a partner plays an important role in the development of negotiation process needed to develop and implement treaties and other related protocols (Hubert, p. xiii, 13). For this reason, it is crucial to develop a strong partnership between the humanitarian advocates and the states. Given that organizations with the same purpose lobby together in order to fight and prevent the use of landmine weapons, the multilateral organizations focus more on the implementation of anti-mine campaigns (Hubert, p. 12). For instance: Back between 1980s to 1990s, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs lobbied with Handicap International to increase their power in terms of developing legal restrictions concerning the mines. Between Hubert and Rutherford’s explanation behind the negotiation process for landmine issues, I consider the article written by Hubert is better in terms of depicting the landmines negotiations since the author was able to clearly explain the individual actors that plays specific role in the landmine negotiations. Although both authors acknowledges the importance of collaborative cooperation process among the individual stakeholders, the fact that Hubert was able to identify the significance of each NGO and non-NGO’s role in the negotiation process is more informative as compared to generalizing the solution for mines negotiation process. History repeats itself. For this reason, I strongly agree that that the lessons from the landmines negotiation can be applied to other negotiations since the examples provided in each article has given the readers a better insight on how world politics negotiation process is officially conducted. This new form of negotiation process is innovative and distinctive because it provided us different strategies on how negotiation processes takes place in real-case scenarios. Question II The UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) was formed to emphasize the humanitarian impact of using conventional weapons and to ban the use of these weapons for the reason that it can harm the civilians. In line with this, CCW Protocol II which aims to provide scope and guidelines with regards to the use of land mines, booby-traps and other related devices was implemented back in October 1980 (ICRC). Since many countries find the implementation of CCW slow when it comes to the process of negotiating a win-win agreement with regards to balancing the use of conventional weapons for military purposes and humanitarian issues, the Oslo Process was established back in February 2007 (Cluster Munition Coalition a; Wiebe, Brehm and Borrie). The CCW process is different from Oslo Process in terms of regulating and banning cluster munitions in the sense that CCW process was too slow in preventing the increase in the use of anti-personnel mines (Wiebe, Brehm and Borrie). Basically, one of the main problems that cause the CCW process to be less effective than the Oslo Process is because the CCW process failed to accurately define the main object of the said regulation which is necessary in terms of strengthening the process of implementing the UN Convention on CCW. Given that it was not properly stated in CCW as to whether or not to completely or partially ban the use, production, and transfer of some or all conventional weapons, many countries were confused regarding the limitations of using certain conventional weapons (Wiebe, Brehm and Borrie). The establishment of Oslo Process resulted to a successful negotiation and formal adaptation of an international treaty which prohibits the cluster munitions (Cluster Munition Coalition a). Since the Norway and other governments strongly supports the implementation of the Oslo Process, it was possible for Norway and other responsible governments to clearly address the problems associated with cluster munitions, address the problem realistically, design a useful and carefully studied framework to encourage other countries and NGOs to cooperate and provide assistance in making the political objectives possible, translate the problems on cluster munitions into political action, design a future instrument that will outline the scope and solution to the main problem, and publicly announce the future goal (Cluster Munition Coalition b). Most of these step-by-step processes were not present in CCW making it difficult to regulate and ban cluster munitions. The positive and negative points of CCW and Oslo Process are as follows: CCW Process Oslo Process Positive There’s an annual conference regarding the progress of CCW. Since the development of the CCW Process was transacted in a traditional multilateral forum (Borrie, Disarmament Diplomacy), there is a strong possibility that more countries would strongly support the legal and political guidelines that will be formed under the CCW Process. Norway and other governments participated in the development and implementation of the Oslo Process. The Oslo Process clearly identified the problems and provided effective political intervention that will solve the problem. It also provided a clear vision re: future goals. The Oslo Process was not transacted in a traditional multilateral forum (Borrie, Disarmament Diplomacy). Negative The main objectives stipulated in CCW Process were not clearly studies nor well-defined. The development of the CCW Process was transacted in a traditional multilateral forum (Borrie, Disarmament Diplomacy). Therefore, takes longer time to be finalized. Since Oslo Process was not transacted in a traditional multilateral forum (Borrie, Disarmament Diplomacy), there is a strong possibility that some countries would end up objecting on some legal and political issues related to the guidelines set in banning the use, production, and transfer of some or all conventional weapons. In terms of disarmament diplomacy characteristics, the use of the CCW Process is more complex, creatively planned, and has more positive effects in terms of increasing the human security worldwide as compared to the Oslo Process since the CCW Process was transacted in a traditional multilateral forum. However, the CCW Process takes more time and longer negotiations as compared to the Oslo Process since there are more people involved behind the development of the CCW Process. Under the leadership of Norway, the Oslo Process did not follow the traditional multilateral forum when developing guidelines which aims to balance the military and humanitarian issues behind the use of conventional weapons. For this reason, the Washington state was greatly disappointed since the Oslo Process did not follow the framework used in CCW Process which aims at strengthening the international humanitarian law (Borrie, Disarmament Diplomacy). Part II Question I Brief Description of the Rise of ATT Process on International Agenda Adopted from the General Assembly back in December 2009, Garcia explained that the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) aims to legally bind the signatory of ATT members to support and oblige with the guidelines set “to proscribe the international transfer of arms that are likely to be used to perpetrate widespread human rights violations in situations of conflict or armed violence in general” (p. 1). With this, the ATT will concentrate only on the legal side of transferring fire arms (Garcia, p. 14). In relation to the negotiation process behind the ATT on the international agenda, the UN General Assembly First Committee together with 153 states accepted to support the drafted resolution behind the implementation of ATT in 2012. Since the United States is one of the few countries that are highly dependent on the manufacturing of firearms, the U.S. government did not accept to participate in the implementation of the ATT which aims to prevent gun dealers from engaging in illegal arms trafficking (Garcia, p. 3). In general, the globalization of arms trade is difficult to implement because of the fact that each country has its own way of reporting trade activities related to guns and other similar weapons. There are some countries that do not record small fire arms or light weapons while others have not clear account with regards to the deliveries of other major conventional weapons. For this reason, it took time for the development of ATT to rise on international agenda. With a total of 18 peace laureates forming the Commission of the Nobel Peace Laureates, the first attempt to implement the ATT resolution started back in May 1997 (Garcia, p. 9). Since there were countries that were actively sponsoring terrorism and violence, the treaty which aims to increase transparency behind the transfer of fire arms in respect to human rights remained weak (Garcia, pp. 9 – 10). Since the UN Charter stated that “every state has a right to individual and collective self-defense against acts of aggression, and that every human being has the inalienable right to life, liberty, and security of person as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (Garcia, p. 10), actors behind the promotion of the ATT resolution were able to persuade more people and more countries to promote the implementation of the ATT resolution. During the late 1999, Oscar Arias in Costa Rica together with some NGOs advised Daniel Bethlehem and other international lawyers at the Lauterpack Research Center for International Law at the University of Cambridge to reformulate the treaty. Eventually, the laureates together with governments, and other related NGOs continuously worked on the development of the Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers (Garcia, p. 12). After many years of lobbying with European NGOs, the EU finally enacted the Code of Conduct on Arms Transfer in response to ATT resolution in 1998 (Garcia, p. 13). During the same year, the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) also agreed with the Moratorium on the Importation, Exportation and Manufacture of Light Weapons (Garcia, p. 13). Passing the Act of the International Arms Sales Code of Conduct in 1999, the US president was made responsible to negotiate a multilateral regime codifying norms regarding the exportation of firearms. With this the US-EU Declaration of Responsibility in Arms Exports was implemented in December 2001 (Garcia, p. 12). Aiming to push the ATT resolution on international agenda over the last two decades, several negotiating actors had to go through a series of multilateral coalition (Garcia, p. 14). With this, the Nobel laureates’ initiative was used as part of the coalition-building process for ATT to become culminated in the initial UN resolution back in December 2006. Since then, a total of 153 governments started negotiation to raise the ATT resolution as international ATT (Garcia, pp. 14 – 15). Leadership of UK and Co-Authors on the Rise of ATT Process on International Agenda As reported by Garcia, the main foundation of UK leadership for the ATT campaign lies behind the humanitarian development and moral justification (Garcia, p. 21). In response to the breach of international and regional obligation to comply with the human rights law, the use of the negative impact of illegal fire arms such as losing the lives of millions of people because of war enabled the United Kingdom to convince more people to support the need to implement the ATT resolution (Garcia, p. 21, 26). Up to the present time, UK has been strong and firm in leading the development of multilateral nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation treaty (UK Arms Control and Disarmament). Because of the strong determination of UK government in controlling the illegal transfer of fire arms, it is not impossible that the country would eventually succeed in the implementation of the said treaty. Question II The implementation of ATT can work provided that there is a smooth flow of negotiation between each country that is involved in the promotion of ATT resolution. Technical problems or conflicting issues that could hinder the success rate of meeting the ATT goals can be eliminated. Through proper negotiation between UK and other countries, the chances of solving implementation problems could be increased. However, long lists of problems are still likely to arise even after the negotiation process between countries involved has become successful. Even though the government in each country strictly prohibits illegal purchase of firearms, there will always be some significant group of individuals who has the courage to smuggle illegal firearms. Up to the present time, not all countries are transparent when it comes to the actual number of selling and purchasing of weapons. Russia, North Korea, and Iran are among the countries that do not strictly follow trading transparency when it comes to purchasing new weapons (Garcia, p. 4). Because of the lack of a uniform standard or international regulation with regards to the legally allowed trading process for the transfer of conventional firearms (Polland, p. 2), implementing the ATT resolution will never easy. This particular issue serves as a hindrance in making ATT negotiation successful. In my personal opinion, each country around the world has its own human rights or economic interest to protect. Some countries would simply comply with the requirements and support the implementation of ATT resolution to promote global peace and order. However, not all countries have the same political views with regards to the socio-economic impact of passing the ATT resolution as an international agenda. Because of the conflicting interest of each country, it is unlikely that all countries would eventually strictly comply with the guidelines stipulated under the ATT resolution. With this, the United States, Russia, Germany, France, and Western Europe are among the major manufacturers and suppliers of conventional weapons whereas the major importers of conventional weapons are China and India (Garcia, p. 4, 8). Since countries like the United States’ economic condition is highly dependent on the manufacturing and selling of firearms, it is but a common strategy for the US to trigger war with other countries in order to promote the selling of firearms. Although this strategy is totally against the promotion of worldwide peace and order, some of US’s ex-presidents like Bush had the tendency of convincing the Americans the need to push through war with Iraq in response to the 9/11 incident. Since the US president has the executive power to dictate the US military army to go through war, it is very difficult to simply break the military chain-of-command that comes from the US president down to the US army troops. Considering that the selling of guns and weapons is a significant part of the US economy, passing the ATT as an international treaty would mean that the US economic condition would be greatly affected. For this reason, passing the ATT could tempt the US-based gun manufacturers to make the trading of guns and weapons illegal. The same thing is likely to happen with other countries that are highly dependent on the manufacturing and selling of guns and other illegal weapons. Because of the conflicting interest of each country with regards to the passing of the ATT resolution, affected countries like the US is unlikely to participate in making the implementation of ATT effective and successful (Garcia, p. 2). Case of Republic of Korea Specifically the case of Republic of Korea is so much similar with the stand of the United States with regards to adopting with the recently drafted ATT resolution particularly with regards to banning comprehensive nuclear tests and total elimination of the nuclear weapons (United Nations). Similar to the case of the United States, North Korea has long time been keeping mass destructive weapons like nuclear weapons. For this reason, North Korea decided to withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty back in 2003 (Chaffee). On top of this, North Korean government also publicly announced its nuclear testing which contributed to an estimated magnitude of 4.2 earthquake in October 2006 and 4.7 back in April 2009 (BroadBand Siesmic Data Collection Center; Fire Earth). Because of the negative impact of implementing ATT resolution as international treaty, the Republic of Korea is strongly against the ATT resolution because the country’s economic condition will be strongly affected with the success of the said treaty. Question III After reading Borrie and Garcia’s chapter on ATT, the human security of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the Human Rights Law (HRL) has a significant role in convincing more people around the world to strongly support the development and implementation of the ATT resolution. In line with this, it is clear that shifting the military-related problems to a more humanitarian approach is more effective in terms of enhancing the negotiation process of arms treaties since the use of these deadly weapons could lead to a massive life and ecosystem destruction. For the past decades, the international committee has long time implemented the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the Human Rights Law (HRL). Since the IHL strongly “represents a complementary body of law with sweeping obligations that are authoritative in nature” (Garcia, p. 39), justifying the need to implement the ATT resolution is much easier because it is not only grounded on the basic principles of IHL but also the international HRL. Since many people around the world are already familiar with these two particular laws, IHL and HRL serves as a useful instruments for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other related NGOs in the development of international law particularly with regards to the need to restrain the states from illegally transferring arms (Garcia, p. 32). In general, incorporating some of the basic concepts of the IHL and IHRL in the development of ATT resolution enables the laureates and other ATT Steering Committee to readily observe the norms used in the international law (Garcia, p. 32). Using this strategy, converting the existing laws on the arms transfers is more readily accepted by the international committee since basic guidelines and requirements of international treaties has already been incorporated in the newly drafted ATT resolution (ibid). Likewise, integrating HRL into ATT resolution strengthens the ATT by extending the power of international protection of HRL to the development of the international arms transfer law (Garcia, p. 32). For instance: Violation of the IHL and IHRL has its corresponding internationally accepted legal punishment for anyone who will be caught violation the said two laws. With this in mind, the NGOs and other organizations that are directly responsible in the development and drafting of the ATT resolution has already included the penalty for violation of the ATT once the resolution has been successfully implemented as an international treaty. As laid out in the UN Charter, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the 1984 Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or Punishment among others, any person who violates the future international laws on arms transfers would also be made responsible for violating some or all of other related humanity international laws in the process (Garcia, p. 34). Since the IHL and IHRL are among the well-established international laws on humanitarian issues, integrating the concept of IHL and IHRL on ATT arms treaties, the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Landmines Treaty increases the boundaries of the law. Instead of obliging only several states to participate in ATT and other related laws on arms transfers, making the ATT an international law obliges more countries to strictly observe the laws behind arms transfers (Garcia, p. 42). Even though there are some commentators who argues that integrating the HRL into arms transfers has to go through a series of further studies, I strongly believe that inclusion of the IHL and HRL bodies of law somehow strengthens the ATT arms treaties, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and the Landmines Treaty in the sense that it enhances the time needed to design a more effective international law on transferring arms. *** End *** References Borrie, John. "Disarmament Diplomacy." 2008 b. How the Cluster Munition Ban Was Won: Oslo Treaty Negotiations conclude in Dublin. Issue No. 88, Summer 2008. 30 June 2010 . —. Unacceptable Harm: A History of How the Treaty to Ban Cluster Munitions Was Won. 1st Edition. United Nations Publications, 2009. "BroadBand Siesmic Data Collection Center." 8 October 2006. October 8th, 2006 magnitude 4.2 mb event from an alleged nuclear test in North Korea. 29 June 2010 . Chaffee, Devon. "Nuclear Age Peace Foundation." 10 April 2010. North Korea’s Withdrawal from. 28 June 2010 . "Cluster Munition Coalition." 22-23 February 2007 b. Oslo Conference on Cluster Munitions. 30 June 2010 . "Cluster Munition Coalition." 2010 a. The Solution. 30 June 2010 . "Fire Earth." 25 May 2009. North Korea Nuclear Test Causes magnitude 4.7 Earthquake. 29 June 2010 . Garcia, Denise. Chapter II: The Arms of Trade Treaty Exerpts from: Denise Garcia's. Routledge, 2011. Hubert, Don. "The Landmine Ban: A Case Study in Humanitarian Advocacy." 2000. "ICRC." 10 October 1980. Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices (Protocol II). Geneva, 10 October 1980. 30 June 2010 . Polland, Guy. "Arms Trade Treaty. Debate Format." n.d. Rutherford, Kenneth R. "The Evolving Arms Control Agenda. Implcations of the Role of NGOs in Banning Antipersonnel Landmines." World Politics (2000): Vol. 53, pp. 72 - 114. "UK Arms Control and Disarmament." 16 June 2010. Working towards a world without nuclear weapons. 29 June 2010 . "United Nations." 26 October 2006. Seven More Texts Recommended to General Assembly; Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, Small Arms Among Issues Addressed. Sixty-first General Assembly. First Committee. 21st Meeting. 29 June 2010 . Wiebe, Virgil, Maya Brehm and John Borrie. "Disarmament Insight." 10 September 2008. The CCW: Can It Find Its Way? 30 June 2010 . Read More