Co-sponsored by Pugwash Japan and US Pugwash
and the Center for Global Partnership 

Tokyo, Japan, 24-25 January 2009

  

Report by
Jeffrey Boutwell 

 

            With support provided by the Center for Global Partnership, Pugwash Japan and US Pugwash brought together 27 participants from six countries for a workshop devoted to how Japan and the United States – as the two countries linked by a special bond in the nuclear age - can bring their respective strengths to bear to support international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation efforts, especially in the period leading up to the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, taking place in May 2010 in New York.

            The workshop opened with keynote addresses from Amb. Rolf Ekéus of Sweden, former head of the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) from 1991-1997, and Prof. Mitsuru Kurosawa, Osaka Jogajuin College, and advisor to Japan’s delegation to the NPT Review Conference in 2000 and 2005.  In his remarks, Amb. Ekéus pointed to the critical need for ensuring a successful 2010 NPT Review Conference, and the important role that major non-nuclear weapons states like Japan, and Germany, need to play to ensure a strengthened NPT regime.  For his part, Prof. Kurosawa called for a paradigm shift in Japanese and US security thinking, one component being the transformation of the Six-Party Talks into a Regional Security Framework that includes a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in Northeast Asia.

            In addition to the keynote speakers, workshop organizers greatly appreciated the participation of Amb. Nobuyasu Abe, former UN Under Secretary for Disarmament Affairs, and Dr. Shunsuke Kondo, Chairman of Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission, both of them are now appointed as advisors to the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND).

 

Workshop Sessions

            The workshop occurred only a few days after the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44^th President of the United States, an event which has created great optimism and hope around the world that a markedly different American foreign policy than that pursued by President George Bush during the previous eight years will produce a new spirit of international cooperation on many different issues, including nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

            As one of the first presentations noted, however, Pres. Obama is confronted by a very complex set of domestic and foreign policy issues, dominated above all by the worst economic crisis facing the US and the world since the 1930s.  Expectations must be tempered as to how much the Obama administration can accomplish in foreign policy, when its top three public policy priorities will be the economy, the economy, and the economy.

            Nonetheless, the President has enunciated a set of foreign and security policy goals that has resonated  with the international community, including his campaign pledge to work towards a “world free of nuclear weapons.”

Workshop sessions were held on 1) raising awareness of threats posed by nuclear weapons; 2) critical examination of the role played by nuclear weapons; 3) compatibility of the peaceful use of nuclear energy with nuclear nonproliferation; and 4) opportunities for US-Japan cooperation.

            Throughout the sessions, participants were reminded to keep their remarks as focused as possible on concrete policies and initiatives that could be taken by the US and Japan separately, or together, to help reinvigorate international momentum for making substantial progress toward large scale reductions in existing nuclear weapons, controlling and diminishing extant fissile material, promoting nuclear verification and proliferation-resistant technologies, and strengthening barriers between civilian and military uses of nuclear technology and materials.

  

Policy Recommendations from the Japan-US Workshop 

The following were the main initiatives/recommendations that participants felt could be realized in the near to medium-term through concerted efforts on the part of Japan and the United States. 

1. Organize and make public a statement by former senior Japanese government officials on the desirability of eliminating nuclear weapons, similar to the Wall Street Journal  article by George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn, and similar statements from former statesmen in the UK, Germany and Italy.
   
   
2. More broadly, to raise international public awareness about the very real dangers posed by nuclear weapons so that publics in both the nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states keep up the pressure on their governments to reduce and eliminate these horrific genocidal weapons.
   
   
3. President Obama should reaffirm his campaign pledge to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons, and should seriously consider becoming the first sitting US President to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 
   
   
4. The Obama administration should seek early ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and work toward early entry into force of the treaty. 
   
   
5. The two countries should seek early negotiations on concluding a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT), in part by working together to convince China to drop the linkage between the FMCT and space weapons.
   
   
6. Japan and the US should coordinate research and development of new technologies to improve and disseminate verification and proliferation resistant technologies, with the aim of strengthening both the disarmament and non-proliferation objectives of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
   
   
7. The US and Japan should coordinate strategies, with other countries in “coalitions of the willing,” to expand IAEA safeguards agreements to some 30 NPT states parties that do not yet have them. 
   
   
8. As technological leaders in the civil nuclear field, Japan and the US can help build international support for international fuel cycle arrangements, such as the MNA concepts proposed by the IAEA.
   
   
9. Recognizing the grave threat posed by terrorist acquisition and use of a nuclear device, the two countries should accelerate efforts to further safeguard fissile material and work with work with countries to implement UN Resolution 1540 measures.
   
   
10. Japan and the US could seek international support for globalizing the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Weapons Treaty (INF) – possibly through the Conference on Disarmament (CD) - thus completely eliminating this destabilizing class of weapon, as the US and Russia have already done.
    
    
11. The two countries could begin a dialogue on concluding a bilateral No First Use agreement.

            There are other issues on which the US and Japan could consult, bringing in other countries as necessary, to forge coalitions of countries with particular interest in issues relating to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.  Such cooperative efforts could be particularly important vis-à-vis the concerns of major non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS) concerning their obligations and rights under Article VI of the NPT.  One can also imagine that Japan’s technology could be of interest to Iran in providing a solution to the issue of Iran’s nuclear program.

Analysis is also needed to examine whether long-standing strategic concepts are still relevant in the greatly altered security environment of the 21^st century.  In particular, teams of Japanese and American strategic thinkers could analyze:

1. The future of extended deterrence in East Asia and the extant relevance of the US nuclear umbrella;
   
   
2. The global environmental and climate change affects of even a limited nuclear war, for example in South Asia;
   
   
3. The feasibility of devising prior penalties and sanctions for countries that violate their NPT obligations, in order to establish clear red lines for punishing such violations before they occur.

 

            These and other studies could be useful in helping to devalue the role of nuclear weapons in political and military affairs and increase public awareness of the threat posed by nuclear weapons.

            In sum, the next 12-18 months, from January 2009 through June of 2010, will be an important period in which to reverse the setbacks to the non-proliferation regime that have occurred in recent years.  The goodwill that Pres. Obama brings into office and the opportunity for setting in place the foundation for a successful NPT Review Conference in May 2010 are opportunities that Japan and the US can take advantage of in many different ways.  

 

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            Workshop participants and Japan Pugwash and US Pugwash are grateful to the administration and staff of the Institute for International Studies, Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo, for providing the conference facilities and superb workshop support.