TASK
SETTING
TASK
1, 2 (Promotion of the START process)
In his speech of May 1, 2001, George W. Bush declared the
abrogation, albeit not unilaterally, of the ABM Treaty, and the
construction of a worldwide missile defense shield, and also announced
deep cuts in nuclear weapons without touching upon the START process.
At a result of this, this item of the 2000 NPT agreement was brought
into crisis. At the June 2000 US-Russian Summit in Ljubljana,
Slovenia, it was made clear that all negotiations would start afresh,
and after the talks, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said that his
country would conceivably abrogate the ABM Treaty unilaterally.
Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by saying that Russia might
respond to this by strengthening its nuclear arsenal. This showed a
possible serious future juncture regarding their fundamental positions
on the ABM Treaty.
It is also clear that the expected abrogation of the ABM Treaty
by the US is closely linked to the missile defense plan. Therefore,
the US’s unilateral pursuit of missile defense would be an
unacceptable policy from the viewpoint of preserving the START
process.
For the Japanese government, giving great importance to the
START process has consistently been one of the central pillars of its
nuclear disarmament policy. There has been some cynical analysis that
the GOJ just mirrors the US in promoting START. No matter whether this
view is fair or not, Japan has of course been urged to take measures
to preserve and strengthen the ABM regime in order to keep the
consistency of its policy. The text of the 2000 Path Resolution
incorporated just the same words on this item from the NPT Final
Document.
Therefore, under the circumstances in which the START process
has fallen into a crisis, the Japanese government should have checked
the US moves towards withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and made efforts
to prevent it. Unless a more effective process for the elimination of
nuclear weapons than the START process is assured, it is necessary for
the Japanese government, as the minimum expression of its intention,
to continue to call for the “preservation and strengthening of the
ABM Treaty and the promotion of the START process” in its UNGA
resolutions.
On the other hand, it would be an appropriate measure to decide
to suspend at least temporarily the US-Japan research cooperation on
TMD technologies, as a criticism of the overall missile defense system
pursued by the Bush administration, and arguing that the said TMD
might constitute a part of the system and thus have a harmful
influence on the nuclear disarmament process.
TASK 3 (Verifiability and irreversibility of the
US-Russian cuts)
With regard to the direction for deep cuts in nuclear warheads,
it can be said that the US and Russia are in agreement, but there too
a major problem has arisen. US unilateralism, which makes light of
international frameworks based on multilateral consultations, as
exemplified by its unilateral refusal of the Kyoto Protocol to cope
with global warming and its expression not to support the CTBT, has
shown itself here all too well. It was foreseeable that if the US
ignored the NPT (13+2) steps, the path to the total elimination of
nuclear weapons would be battered by self-centered US policies.
Even if we welcome the deep cuts in nuclear warheads
themselves, they must lead the two countries to fulfill the
“unequivocal undertaking to totally eliminate their nuclear
arsenals.” For this purpose, they must be incorporated into a treaty
framework, and there must be guarantees, with verification of
transparency and irreversibility.
TASK
4 (New Outer Space Treaty)
It also appears that the Bush administration’s missile
defense initiative opens the door to a new dimension of arms
expansion, which is the deployment of weapons in outer space. This was
shown in the speech of President Bush on May 1, 2001, where he
specifically mentioned the effectiveness of the boost phase
interception of missiles. Expanding weapons deployment into the
dimension of outer space would be a seriously harmful action running
against peace for humanity in the 21st century. An arms
build-up in space would bring about competition for military
supremacy, which would run counter to global public opinion calling
for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
In order to stop this tendency, NGOs made a proposal for a new
treaty to prevent wars in space, complementing the 1967 Outer Space
Treaty. This new outer space treaty could act as an effective brake
against the Bush administration’s policies. Considering the impasse
in the CD, it might be effective to negotiate the new treaty outside
the CD, at the initiative of like-minded states. Japan is also urged
to work positively in this field.
EVALUATION
As for TASK
1, though Japan was urged to make
serious efforts to save the START process, it anticipated the US
government’s trend and made an orbital adjustment even before
October 18, 2001, the deadline of submission of draft resolutions for
the 2001 UNGA. At that time, the US-Russia agreement on nuclear arms
cuts (Bush-Putin meeting, November 13-14, 2001) had not been made, nor
had the US notification of unilateral withdrawal from the ABM Treaty
(December 13, 2001). But the submitted draft Path Resolution already
set START in the past, and deleted even the names of ABM and START
from the future tasks. This attitude displayed, to the international
community, the subordination of Japan’s nuclear disarmament
diplomacy to the US. It seriously disappointed Japanese citizens who
somehow put their hopes on Japan’s independence.
Under these circumstances, there has not been a single action
taken by the GOJ to respond to TASK
2.
On December 13, 2001, the US unilaterally notified to the other
States parties, that is Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, that
the US would withdraw from the ABM Treaty. This brought about a
remarkable change in the international environment regarding this 7th
item. The US can be said to have trampled the 2000 NPT agreement
openly. Furthermore, the constitutional legitimacy of the withdrawal
from the ABM Treaty has been continuously disputed inside the US.
Therefore, the international community faces two problems: One is to
put into question the US violation of the NPT agreement and President
Bush’s policy tendencies. The other is, on this occasion, to start
working for the establishment of a more speedy nuclear disarmament
process than the ABM/START regime.
TASK 3
is becoming more important considering this
second point The NPR, the foreword of which was released at the
beginning of 2002, made it clear that the US will pursue arms
reductions without any treaty codification and will continue to depend
on nuclear weapons into the far distant future. The Japanese
government only emphasizes the words “deep cuts,” and is not
willing to allow an independent examination of this. Furthermore, it
has not shown any efforts to get Japan’s requests reflected in the
US-Russian talks, just keeping its position “to maintain a calm
watch on the US-Russian talks.”
As for TASK
4, no sense of crisis is found in the
Japanese government’s official position on missile defense, which
reads: “The GOJ expresses the understanding that the US is
considering the missile defense program while making various
diplomatic efforts to address the proliferation of ballistic
missiles.” Looking back, the Japanese government has not paid
adequate attention to the criticism that the TMD, whose technologies
Japan started to research cooperatively with the US, violates the
Japanese Diet Resolution that states “the purposes of the objects
launched into outer space should be limited to peaceful uses (May 9,
1969).” We want to find some hope in the fact that the GOJ has given
minimum support for the Amorim proposal and promoted the establishment
of the Ad Hoc Committee on the PAROS (prevention of arms race in outer
space) at the CD. However, we should also note that the Amorim
proposal does not give any treaty-negotiating mandate to the Ad Hoc
Committees.
As a whole, Japan’s negative attitude on this important task
is quite disappointing, and we give it an E grade.
