HVK Archives: India's veto of the CTBT is futile
India's veto of the CTBT is futile - The Times of India
Praful Bidwai
()
12 September 1996
Title : India's veto of the CTBT is futile
Author : Praful Bidwai
Publication : The Times of India
Date : September 12, 1996
As the 50th session of the U.N. .general assembly (GA)
reconvenes to vote on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,
the dice appear loaded against the treaty's opponents.
If the sole purpose of New Delhi's controversial veto
against the treaty at Geneva was to prevent the CTBT from
coming into being, then it is almost certain to be
frustrated. If, on she other hand, it was to underscore
India's isolation, undermine the N. Conference on
Disarmament and weaken the impetus for nuclear
disarmament, then New Delhi will have eminently
succeeded. The CD is the world's only multilateral forum
for disarmament negotiations.
The line-up at New York is extremely adverse for India.
Australia already has 120 co-sponsors - a five-fold
increase within ten days. So the CTBT will probably go
through with :two-thirds of the GA's 185 members signing.
The sponsors are not only committed to vote for the
treaty, but to oppose any amendments. They include a
broad spectrum: much of Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and
virtually all of Latin America, besides much of the
developed world. Many non-sponsoring non-aligned states
(e.g. Malaysia) will probably vote for the CTBT.
India is unlikely to be able to rope ,in most NAM
biggies, although Iran and a few others might move
amendments which require a (virtually impossible) two-
thirds majority. This is neither surprising nor the
result of nuclear weapon-states' arms-twisting (which
they are capable of, but have apparently not resorted to
so far.) India found few backers in the 61 -member CD.
Even Iran, held out as the bright white hope and ally,
did not finally block the CTBT. In New York, few states
will back Indians' anti-CTBT stand, which most see as a
means of keeping out of a non-discriminatory nuclear
restraint measure for narrow, sectarian considerations,
while mouthing lofty rhetoric on disarmament. India
would have drawn even more hostility but for her past
record of campaigning for disarmament. Now its goodwill
is exhausted.
New Delhi has two cards to play at New York: move
amendments to the CTBT; and sponsor 'parallel'
resolutions, e.g. for CD negotiations on nuclear
disarmament.
Given India's isolation, It is almost impossible that
amendments will go through. As for 'parallel' motions,
they can only come up after the first item on the agenda
(CTBT) is disposed of. Even if passed, such resolutions
are of doubtful value. The GA passes scores of them.
The motions could also be opposed this time on strong
procedural grounds. The GA's 50th session has already
voted for CD negotiations on nuclear disarmament.
It is of course unfortunate that the CTBT's substance
won't be discussed in New York. The treaty's preamble
should be strengthened and its entry-into-force article
amended. The article makes the CTBT's enforcement
dependent on ratification by 44 states, including India.
This is unprecedented, and makes a worthy restraint
measure hostage to political vicissitudes. But unfair as
it is to India, the article cannot be used to coerce
India or pass sanctions against it. The Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties forbids this.
India nevertheless blocked the CTBT, and even Its
transmittal from the CD to the U.N., for reasons that
have to do, first, with potentially expanding (not just
retaining) its nuclear-weapons option; and second, with
fashioning a new pro-active diplomacy around its
supposedly 'principled' defiance of the CTBT.
The first reason represents both a departure from India'
s well-established position of 'ambiguity' and an
Irrational yearning for Great Power status based on
military-nuclear might, not genuine national defence
considerations. The second is based on the mistaken
belief that muscle-flexing alone earns respect.
New Delhi has not been able to translate this new-
paradigm diplomacy into practical tactics. The Geneva
veto won't prevent the CTBT from being signed. What it
succeeds in doing is weaken the CTBT's authority (it
won't have the same weight as a consensual treaty agreed
at a negotiating forum), and undermine the CD just when
it is about to negotiate further measures, in particular
a treaty cutting off fissile material production for
weapons (Fissban). New Delhi is already jittery about a
Fissban; some anti-disarmament ex-diplomats are calling
it an "NPT-III".
However, nothing suits the NWSs interests better than a
weakened CD. They have always resisted nuclear
restraint. They took 23 years to give the CD a CTBT
negotiating mandate. This only became possible after the
cold war's end and other developments favouring a nuclear
restraint momentum. Again, nothing could hurt India's
security interests more than defusing this momentum.
There is an alternative to this counterproductive
diplomacy, Rather than vent its frustration upon the NWSs
- while in reality following them by moving towards
joining the nuclear arms race - India should make a
unilateral declaration that it will not conduct a nuclear
test and even while the CTBT is not in force.
Whatever the weaknesses of the present CTBT, it is
indisputably a normative measure favouring nuclear arms
reduction and disarmament and a commitment not to conduct
nuclear test explosions. This commitment is the least
that India can demand of the world, and above all, of
itself.
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