The Fiftieth Annual General Conference of the IAEA
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
held its Fiftieth Annual General Conference in Vienna, Austria from September
18 to 22, 2006. The conference adopted many resolutions. These included: measures
to protect against nuclear terrorism; strengthening the safeguards system and
the application of the additional protocol; strengthening technical cooperation
activities; strengthening activities related to nuclear science and technology;
strengthening international cooperation in the transport of nuclear materials
including waste; implementation of the Safeguards Agreement with the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea, application of IAEA safeguards in the Middle East;
and the acceptance of four new members into the IAEA which will bring its
membership to 144 states.
The general conference elected eleven
countries to serve on the 35-member board of governors for 2006-2007. The
newly-elected board members are Austria, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Croatia,
Ethiopia, Finland, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Thailand. They take the
seats of the members who have ended their two-year period of service, namely
Algeria, Ecuador, Ghana, Portugal, Singapore, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Sweden,
Venezuela and Yemen. The 35-member board for the 2006-2007 also includes
Argentina, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, Cuba, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece,
India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Libya, Morocco, Norway, Russian
Federation, Slovenia, South Africa, Syria, Britain, and the United States.
The conference was not without its
controversies. Some of the Arab states expressed reservations about the
credentials of the Israeli delegation. In a statement they pointed out that
Israel had annexed the city of Jerusalem and that the General Assembly of the
UN had resolved on December 15, 1980 that all legislative and administrative
measures taken after the occupation of the city were null and void and
unlawful. The resolution had called upon all states, specialized agencies and
international organizations to disregard any measure contravening the
provisions of the General Assembly resolution. In spite of the provisions of
that resolution, the credentials of the delegation of Israel were issued from
occupied Jerusalem. The Arab states argued that the IAEA, a specialized agency
of the UN, should reject those credentials. Israel replied that the Arab states
were trying to use the rules of procedure to advance their political interests.
The General Conference agreed to note the views of both sides and adopted a
resolution accepting the credentials of all delegations, including those from
Israel.
Many of the Arab states also requested that
the General Conference include an item on its agenda entitled "Israeli
nuclear capabilities and threat". In a letter to the IAEA Director
General, the Arab states asked that the General Conference "take
appropriate measures to ensure that Israel places all its nuclear installations
under Agency safeguards and accedes to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons." Resolutions to this affect were passed by the General
Conference in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991. They have all been ignored by
Israel. After 1991 efforts by the Arab and other states to put this matter back
on the agenda failed. This time a draft resolution did go to the General
Conference but no vote was taken on it. Canada called a vote to adjourn the
session and drop the topic off the agenda. The vote was won by 45 votes in favour, 29 against, and 19 abstentions including from
Russia and China. The main countries supporting the effort to block the vote
were the United States, Israel, France, Germany, Britain and Canada. However, another
resolution was passed, without specific mention of Israel, that supported a
nuclear-weapon free zone in the Middle East. This resolution received 89 votes
in favour, 2 votes against from the United States and
Israel, and 3 abstentions.
It is one of the oddities of the IAEA that
supervision of the application of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970
is its most high profile activity, yet the criteria for a country to belong to
the IAEA do not include acceptance of this treaty. Therefore, India, Pakistan
and Israel are all members of the IAEA but none of them are signatories to the
NPT. It is not just that these states have not signed the NPT; there are other
countries that have not signed it too. What stands out about these three
countries is that they have all become nuclear-weapon states. They have done so
primarily with the assistance of the United States, Britain and Canada which
promote themselves at home and abroad as the greatest defenders of the
non-proliferation regime.
If India, Pakistan or Israel were to sign the NPT the way it is today,
they would be required to disarm. This is because the treaty only recognizes
the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France as entitled to possess
nuclear weapons. But why should these countries disarm when the five original
nuclear-weapon states have ignored their obligations to disarm under the terms
of the NPT? The alternative is that the treaty would need to be amended to add
the three countries to the nuclear-weapon club, but that would open up another
can of worms. If India, Pakistan and Israel were admitted into the club, why
not other countries like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea?
The importance of these struggles within the
IAEA is that they are contributing to the isolation of the real warmongers and warmakers in the world. How can the Canadian government
claim that it is in favour of peace, disarmament and
non-proliferation when it is blocking a resolution asking Israel to sign the
NPT, put its nuclear activites under international
supervision, and forsake its nuclear weapons? The same thing applies when it
comes to the decision of Paul Martin's Liberal goverment
to lift its ban on the export of dual civilian and military nuclear technology
to India.
These challenges and resolutions within the
IAEA alone will not stop the imperialists and their allies from persisting in
their war preparations and aggressions. Indeed, the creation of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty had nothing to do with peace and disarmament and
everything to do with the five nuclear-weapon states holding the threat of
nuclear attack over the non-nuclear states and forcing them to submit to one or
another of the big powers. There has never been any time since the declaration
of the NPT that the five nuclear-weapon states have engaged in disarmament of
their nuclear, biological, chemical or conventional weapons. Similarly, there
has never been a time when they have applied non-proliferation in a
non-discriminatory manner. During the Cold War, and to this day, the United
States, has kept its allies within NATO, such as Germany, Belgium and Turkey,
armed with nuclear weapons. The other nuclear-weapon states have accepted this
state of affairs.
Yet, the fight against the discriminatory and
selective application of the NPT, as occurred at the Fiftieth General
Conference of the IAEA, is creating a credibility crisis for the big powers and
assisting the trend that favours equal rights and peaceful relations among states.