Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-159)
ROY ISBISTER
AND DR
DAN PLESCH
28 JANUARY 2009
Q140 Chairman: You have referred
to this relationship. Clearly, when we are talking about the dangers
of proliferation, and when there are delivery system which are
possible for use with both conventional systems and nuclear systems,
how much should we concentrate on stopping countries possessing
major conventional arms, or should we just concentrate on the
dangers of proliferation of those weapons which are the most serious
or the most destabilising on the nuclear side?
Dr. Plesch: I think that there
is a problem overall in having a policy of "Do as we say,
not as we do". Proliferation and disarmament are two sides
of the same coin, and one sees all the time in international dialogue
that one should not just have, as it were, a proposal implemented
by the most powerful. One example is the welcome idea to globalise
the intermediate nuclear forces treaty, which we, with a number
of other countries, have put forward in Geneva. However, this
would, of course, remove the main strategic system from regional
powers, which typically rely on ballistic missiles. In Geneva,
this is treated with a certain amount of humour. We are not globalising
the US-Russian strategic arms reduction treaty and we are not
globalising some other treaty. We are not involving naval forces,
which these countries would regard as a threat to them. At the
moment, we are just suggesting a weapon that is—their equivalent
of Trident. I would like to pick that up, as I have done in this
paper, and say that it is a very good idea to think about globalising
some of these key agreements from the Reagan-Gorbachev era, but
let us see what more we can do to be more holistic.
The problem with just picking off one area is,
of course, that we all know that, for example, nuclear weapons
are considered in a conventional and regional security context
by most countries. At the other end of the spectrum, we also know,
when we are looking at small arms or the arms trade, that countries
are looking at major systems and, from the perspective of sustainable
development, weapons production and wars involving major conventional
weapons are a problem along with small arms.
Roy Isbister: From our perspective,
there are two different things here. One is the potential harm
that the weapon can do, and the other is the harm that weapons
are actually doing at the moment. Looking from the conventional
weapons side, what we are focussed on is addressing the issue
of weapons that are causing harm at the moment. As a rule, we
do not talk about stopping countries from getting these kinds
of weapons. It is about access based on potential use—looking
at things on a case-by-case basis and judging transfers by certain
criteria, and deciding whether it is a reasonable transfer or
not.
141 Sir Menzies Campbell: I was
very attracted by Dr. Plesch's reference to a period when more
things were possible than appeared likely. I was trying to think
what factors contributed to that: political will, obviously; the
cost of keeping up; the relative economic weakness of one of the
major parties—Russia. Dr. Plesch may have more factors.
How far are those present, or not present, in 2009?
Dr. Plesch: Well, we are all looking
at the unfolding economic crisis. Of course, one even hears the
rhetoric of the 1920s depression, leading to world war. We have
to understand, first of all, that the generation that fought and
won the second world war regarded comprehensive measures through
the United Nations to control conflict as a realist necessity,
not as some sort of liberal add-on, and weapons control was critical
to that. We are now seeing a period of retrenchment of weapons
spending, and there are countries that cannot afford it. You can
find yourself in some sense in a re-run of one of the tragedies
of the interwar period, in which Britain, France and the United
States backed away from disarmament, and German and Japanese social
democrats went home disillusioned. They were discredited at home—and
we saw what happened—then the British and the French did
not have the political will. They did the worst of all worlds:
they did not do the arms control-disarmament track, and they did
not have the political will to prevent the build-up of the dictators.
That would be the worst case that we might follow. Right now,
we have the opportunity to get ahead of the game by picking up
where we left off in the mid-1990s.
Q142 Mr. Purchase: The Chairman
asked whether or not we could realistically do the whole thing,
and you remarked a few moments ago that non-proliferation and
disarmament were two sides of the same coin. The British Government
take the view that non-proliferation is the most urgent priority,
and that the disarmament proposals come later. Of course, the
British Government have already agreed that we should modernise
the nuclear platform. In your mind, there may be some contradictions
in the way in which Government policy is being applied. Would
you like to comment?
Dr. Plesch: I have not seen the
full text, but there was a remark attributed to the Secretary
of State for Defence, who said in Scotland that we needed our
nuclear weapons for the long term in respect to terrorism. A colleague
of mine was immediately confronted with this at an embassy in
Washington by one of our closest allies, saying, "How on
earth can we take seriously anything the British Government says
about developing a good relationship and about disarmament if
they are coming out with this sort of stuff?" I have not
read the original—I think it was maybe said in respect of
the domestic situation in Scotland—but the more one talks
about our needing it indefinitely, the less one has an audience
in other states. It is common to say: "Oh, other countries'
decisions are not reflected in what we do." That is not the
experience one has in talking to people in those states. There
is a relationship, for example, between the Indian decision to
go formally nuclear, and pressing ahead without them with the
nuclear test ban and the non-proliferation treaty, which they
saw as needing a real disarmament component.
Q143 Mr. Purchase: You have opened
up another question, but given that this whole area has been fraught
with contradiction for many years, do you take serious issue with
the British Government's view that non-proliferation really is
at the top of the agenda? Ideally we would like to do everything
all at once, but what can we do in practical terms?
Dr. Plesch: In practical terms,
getting disarmament, and the world seeing that we are serious
ourselves, is the best way to get countries to buy into our objective
on proliferation. So I do think they are two sides of the same
coin, and that is said very commonly around the world. They should
be pursued in parallel: a twin track, to hark back to another
era.
Q144 Mr. Horam: On the arms trade
treaty, can you answer some of the views of the sceptics about
the process? Either one of you will do on this one. The previous
US Administration argued that the arms trade treaty would lower
the bar, because to get in all the serious exporters of arms,
you have to make it less comprehensive. What is being done now
by voluntary means will have to be watered down. It will not,
in practice, tackle the illicit and irresponsible arms trade transfers,
which are half the problem. So, it will not do much good. How
do you respond?
Roy Isbister: I respond by disagreeing.
For a start, if you get the world's largest exporter, the one
country that is exporting more than 50% of the arms moving around
the world, on side, then you are going a long way to not lowering
the bar. It seems like a weirdly circular argument that the US
was employing there. You need them on board—
Mr. Horam: You mean the US?
Roy Isbister: Yes, the US. You
need them on board, so that they are pushing for the highest possible
standards.
I think that I speak for the entire NGO community—if
I may—in that an arms trade treaty without high standards
is not worth pursuing. It has to address some of those key issues.
That is what we are championing. As I have mentioned, there are
now a number of regional agreements, so there are a lot of states
that have signed up to certain standards. If we could extend those
into the global environment—
Q145 Mr. Horam: How do you see
the Wassenaar arrangement in that respect? Is that the sort of
thing that you are thinking of when you talk about voluntary and
regional agreements?
Roy Isbister: The Wassenaar arrangement
is a dangerous area to get into with the arms trade treaty, because
it is not regarded favourably by a lot of states. It is seen as
a political and excluding instrument—if you are not in,
you are out. For regional agreements, there is an obvious sense
to that—if you are in a certain region, you are in; if you
are not in that region, it is perfectly sensible that you are
not involved. So, Wassenaar is seen by a lot of states as politically
charged. Wassenaar has a contribution to make in how it responds
to technical problems—for example, in developing the military
list—but to introduce it to the debate on standards would
not be helpful.
Q146 Mr. Horam: Okay. Suppose
you get what you are shooting for—a legally binding agreement
with high standards. How will you enforce it?
Roy Isbister: That is clearly
a complex question, and it is sometimes frustrating in that people
will look at it in isolation from other international law. You
will have all the normal problems and, hopefully, solutions involved
in enforcing international law.
Q147 Mr. Horam: You mean sanctions,
or what?
Roy Isbister: You would need that
in the treaty, ultimately. You need to be setting out how it is
going to be implemented. That would cover a range of issues, such
as record keeping, information sharing, transparency, capacity
building, then monitoring the implementation, right down to disputes
settlement, and further development of the treaty.
With a lot of the mechanisms used for implementation,
it is more useful to look at this in a positive sense. If you
had a strong arms trade treaty—the way we see it at the
moment—a lot of states would not immediately be able to
implement it fully, because they do not have the capacity to do
so, willing or not. So, you would use the implementation framework
of the arms trade treaty to develop people's capacity to implement
and to develop shared understandings. You would have those difficult
cases, but they should be used as a way of developing the case
law, so that people understand what an arms trade treaty involves
and how they are supposed to live by that.
Dr. Plesch: When we look at how
we related to central and eastern Europe in developing and exporting
standards and norms, a lot of that was voluntary—"You
want to be part of a larger club, it makes huge sense for you
to get involved." At the other end of the spectrum, we can
look at what was done in UN Security Council resolution 1540,
on proliferation, where we can talk about mandating national laws
in particular areas. What is significant in the bigger picture
is the momentum generated by states towards that effort in, historically
speaking, an incredibly short time with a huge amount of leadership
from the UK. Therefore, yes, there is a good reason to pick up
on particular problems and issues, but the central trajectory
is very positive, which is starting be focused on.
If I may say so, it is also a question of looking
at some key elements—for example, the verification of end-use
certificates—to focus on the things that will really matter
on the ground.
Q148 Mr. Horam: You mentioned
the UK Government. If an arms trade treaty of the kind that you
want had already existed, do you think that it would it have made
any difference to the UK policy of selling arms to Israel, Saudi
Arabia or Indonesia?
Roy Isbister: We have issues with
a number of the sales that the UK has been involved in. The arms
trade treaty, as we conceive it, would have had implications for
some of the UK arms sales.
Dr. Plesch: In terms of how we
would like to see it, yes, it would and it should. However it
was cast, you would certainly have more debate on the issues and
more pressure then we have at present. If you look at UK policy
towards Israel, for example, there is dispute about items going
to Israel, but not the sort of platforms that were regularly sent
a few decades ago.
Q149 Mr. Hamilton: What would
be the best basis for an arms trade treaty? Should it be based
on generic categories of weapon or on a comprehensive list? If
it were a list, where would you start? Would you use the Wassenaar
arrangement list or another kind of list?
Roy Isbister: I think that the
Wassenaar list is probably not a bad place to start. As I said
before, it is a technical list. In a way, it is separate from
the political agenda of Wassenaar. A lot of technical experts
and licensing officials, have been involved in building it up
over years, so it has a very solid technical base. One other factor
to take into account is what states do nationally. There are differences
around the fringes but there is a lot of common ground over what
states currently control nationally. Currently, debates are about
narrowing the scope of what states control nationally as things
stand.
At the moment, one of the main ideas is called
seven plus one, which is the seven categories of the United Nations
register of conventional arms, plus small arms and light weapons.
I think that it would be a mistake to end up with that. If you
look at it historically, the register came out of the end of the
cold war, and was intended for the key cold war items. It was
seen as a confidence-building measure to address the trade and
holdings in those kinds of weapons. Different kinds of military
aircraft, vehicles and vessels are not included in the register.
Attack or fighter aircraft are in the register, but the support
craft are not. Fighting vehicles are included, but not other military
vehicles. Those other types of equipment have become critical
in the kinds of wars that are currently being fought, so their
control is critical. The list needs to have a very broad scope
and also to include components that would not be included in seven
plus one.
Q150 Mr. Hamilton: In other words,
a detailed list is far more useful and would be far more effective
with an arms trade treaty than the broad categories.
Roy Isbister: How it actually
ends up working in practice and whether you use a list that is
as technically detailed as the Wassenaar list is still up for
grabs. It certainly needs to be clear in its comprehensiveness
so that it covers the full range of military equipment. Ideally,
we would like to see that move into the area of dual-use weapons
as well.
Q151 Mr. Hamilton: I was going
to move on to that, but perhaps Dr. Plesch would first like to
comment on that list.
Dr. Plesch: I have two comments
on that. First, you have to be aware that the Wassenaar arrangement
grew out of COCOM as a cold war device and that there are old
memories around that process, although it has proved extremely
useful. Secondly, if I may hark back to an earlier part of our
discussion, many states—you can already see it in the UN
debate—are starting to ask, "Well, will there be no
monitoring among those states that hold those weapons as it is
just about transfers, and what happens to states that produce
their own?" Those lists could be used not only for the reduction,
removal and scrapping of weapons, but possibly for the monitoring
and verification of holdings as part of a separate process. I
do not think that we need to overburden the arms trade process,
but if we look at the earlier part of our discussion, we will
see that there is a read-over on the work being done in the ATT
for concerns about our actual holdings.
Q152 Mr. Hamilton: Mr. Isbister,
earlier you touched on dual-use items, but how would you deal
with those under an arms trade treaty?
Roy Isbister: Ideally, we would
like to see dual-use items included, and we would then move on
to technical questions about what we would base the list on. The
UK has talked about extending into the area of dual-use items
by controlling production equipment for producing items on the
military list, so that might be an intermediate way forward. Also,
we would hope that the arms trade treaty will develop over time
and imagine that procedures will be included for review conferences
and so on. If that cannot be addressed in the immediate term,
it might be addressed further ahead. It is a complex area.
Q153 Mr. Hamilton: Finally, how
would you deal with transhipment?
Roy Isbister: We argue that all
states with jurisdiction over any part of a trade or a transfer
should have to give permission for the transfer to proceed. With
regard to the scope, it is not just the type of equipment that
is important, but the type of transfer, so we are talking about
export and import, transit and brokering, and that would be not
only when there is a change in ownership, but when there is a
potential change in control. You would also need to cover aspects
such as leasing arrangements, gifts and those kinds of things.
It needs to be comprehensive in scope with regard to not only
the type of equipment, but the type of transfer.
Q154 Mr. Purchase: The whole issue
of voluntary agreements is not to be scorned, as valuable work
has clearly been done. We hope to see a change soon in the American
standpoint on legally enforced agreements, so maybe they will
come around a little. In the case of Britain, I recall that the
late Alan Clark, when giving evidence to the Trade and Industry
Committee, said, "What's the problem? If we don't sell arms,
the French will." That was indicative of a culture that existed
at the time. How closely is that culture tied to a political viewpoint?
If we had another change in the American Government and the British
Government, have you any confidence from the work that you do
that we could overcome the culture that says, "Comme ci,
comme ça: if we don't do it, someone else will."?
It seems to me that unless you change the culture seriously, without
a legally enforced and properly policed agreement, we will go
no further forward than Wassenaar has already taken us.
Roy Isbister: That is a very fair
point. Part of the process of getting towards an arms trade treaty
involves changing the culture from one that says, "If we
don't sell arms, someone else will," to one in which we agree
on what is appropriate. At the regional level, using the EU as
an example, there has been such a change through the adoption
of the EU code, which has just become a legally binding common
position. We have seen a shift in attitudes. It is not perfect,
so what we are talking about is a work in progress. If it is a
work in progress at the level of the EU, it is obviously going
to be a slower work in progress at the global level. Nobody that
I know thinks that the ATT, once agreed, will be an immediate
panacea to the problems of irresponsible arms transfers but it
is a critical step on a path to finally coming to grips with it.
Q155 Mr. Keetch: Coming back to
dual use, this to me is a minefield, if I may mix my metaphors.
A Land Rover can be used as an offensive vehicle if it has someone
with an RPG in the back, or it can be used as an SUV. The trouble
is that almost anything potentially has a lethal content. Am I
right?
Roy Isbister: Yes.
Q156 Mr. Keetch: So how do you
limit that export? Do you say to Land Rover, "Sorry, we will
let you sell long wheelbase Land Rovers but not short wheelbase"?
What do you do? How do you make that happen? I can understand
with weapons, with aircraft and all of that, but when you come
to the dual use argument of limiting exports, if a contractor
in my constituency is making parts for Land Rover, for example,
why can they not sell that abroad?
Dr. Plesch: It also depends who
they are selling to and what the end-use certification is. If
they are sent directly to a militia group or a corporation working
in eastern Congo, your constituents might well think—
Q157 Mr. Keetch: Say, the Israeli
Government, for example?
Dr. Plesch: In present circumstances,
many people would say they should not be selling them.
Q158 Mr. Keetch: But to a Government
we have diplomatic relations with?
Dr. Plesch: There have been some
calls for an arms embargo on Israel.
Roy Isbister: You do have to make
judgment calls and you will have to draw a line somewhere at some
point. On some occasions you would be looking for end-use assurance.
Using the example of selling Land Rovers to the Israelis, you
would be looking for an end-use assurance. If you included that
within your dual-use products you would look for an end-use assurance
as to what that was going to be used for. But you might not include
that in an ATT on a global scale. You may not be able to go as
far in a global context as you can in an EU context, for example.
We have to be awake to that. You are trying to put forward something
that would be realistic and enforceable. Within the EU, given
the capacity and like-mindedness of the states, you can probably
achieve more than on a global level.
Q159 Andrew Mackinlay: Either
or both of you—is your expertise in weapons? What about
materials? Is that an area you can comment on?
Dr. Plesch: Materials tend to
come into play with weapons of mass destruction production, industrial
production and weapon-system production. The Wassenaar arrangement
has a long list of these sorts of sensitive technologies. As industrialisation
progresses, they become more and more accessible and one of the
problems with Wassenaar is that there are a number of significant
countries, including Israel, that are not part of it.
|
