• UK
  • 22:09 22 Nov 2009
  • |    Geneva
  • 23:09 22 Nov 2009
 

Ambassador's diary

This Diary is a record of the Ambassador's work from 2007 to September 2008. The Diary has now been replaced with the Ambassador's Blog. Visit the Blog to gain an insight into the Ambassador's current activities. The Blog is more interactive than this Diary and gives you the opportunity to: post your views and comments, see the contributions from other people, and read the replies from the Ambassador.

Welcome to the Ambassador's diary. My aim here is to give visitors to our website a more personal view of the UK Disarmament and Arms Control Delegation in Geneva. Contrary to the image portrayed by some chocolate manufacturers, the life of the modern diplomat is not an endless round of cocktail parties. Multilateral diplomacy is an increasingly important part of diplomatic life and has its own particular character.

On the other pages of our website you will find a detailed description of the types of issue we deal with in Geneva. Our main role is to develop the international law which governs the many areas of arms control and disarmament. So, basically, we negotiate new treaties and review old ones to see whether they need updating. Since many of these treaties are quite old, making sure they are still relevant to the 21st century is an important task.

UKDis Geneva is a small core team of five people but this can easily be doubled for the various meetings where we represent the UK. The UK delegation at such meetings usually includes officials from other government departments, but also members of leading NGOs or academics with specialist experience in the areas we deal with.

Please send your Feedback/Comments.  We want to know what you think.

12 September

 

To London for a major Relaunch of the Arms Trade Treaty initiative where David Miliband convenes a meeting in the Foreign Office of UK stakeholders ranging from NGO's (Oxfam, Amnesty, Saferworld etc), British Industry and faith groups. Links to the event and background to the ATT are as follows:

 

- The Foreign and Commonwealth ATT page  

- Videos from the event: A voiced BSN feature

- Interviews on YouTube:

  - Foreign Secretary

  - Jeremy Hobbs, Oxfam

  - Brinley Salzman Defence Manufacturers Association

- Photos from the event on Flickr

- David Miliband's article in the independant

 

5 September

 

Back to work with a vengeance, as my return coincides with another round of negotiations in the CCW on Cluster Munitions, an official visit from colleagues in London and the final stages of the negotiation of the Conference on Disarmament annual report. The CD report goes through with only minor changes keeping the door open for negotiations on an FMCT next year (it is beginning to sound like "Next year in Jerusalem!"). The recent events in Georgia where cluster munitions are alleged to have been used by both sides gives new impetus to the discussions in the CCW. Although over 100 countries have said they will sign up to the new Oslo treaty banning these weapons, the majority of users and producers of cluster munitions show little willingness to do so. Georgia shows that the "stigmatisation" of these weapons is still not achieved. The difficult question we must face is how long will that take and can we take the risk with civilians lives that it could be many years before the worst types of Cluster munitions are completely removed from the worlds arsenals. Despite the often heated discussions, time is running out for the CCW to achieve meaningful progress, with only one weeks formal negotiations in November before the mandate runs out.

8 August

After a very difficult start to the week in the ATT GGE, we eventually manage to forge a common view among the 20 states who are most in favour of an ATT  to balance the views of the 5 states who have been successfully blocking progress over the past few days and whose continued opposition threatens to frustrate our efforts to agree a final report from the 4 weeks of discussions. Formal meetings of the GGE are suspended for most of Thursday to allow for shuttle diplomacy between the two camps and by the evening we have secured a text that everyone can live with. Friday the report is finally adopted and it is smiles all round (or almost). I fly out from New York that evening to begin some summer leave. Looking back over the past 6 months it has been quite a slog with almost back to back negotiations since April, but the results have been worth the effort (I think). Back on these pages in September. Feedback/Comments.

 

1 August

 

The weekend seminar on the ATT went well and allowed us to develop our thinking with a wider group of states than participate in the GGE as well with major US Corporates who confirm that they see real benefit in an ATT if it is truly global. Also a moving presentation by Rapper Emmanuel Jaal a former Child Soldier in Sudan who uses his music to convey a strong message about the human cost of  the failure to regulate the global arms trade.

 

The first week’s discussion in the GGE are as predicted rather difficult. We seem to be going backwards from where we were in May. The sceptics successfully exploit differing views amongst ATT supporters on the priorities for an ATT. We mobilise some of our embassies overseas to work behind the scenes on or behalf to persuade the more extreme sceptics to moderate their approach. By the end of the week we have at least persuaded everyone that the GGE report to the UN General Assembly should cover the issues discussed in a factual way and without endless qualifications that everyone did not agree to what was proposed. Next week the real fun begins as we try to agree conclusions and recommendations to the General Assembly. Back in Geneva the Conference on Disarmament has restarted it’s work. My able DPR is heading the UK team in my absence. Feedback/Comments

 

25 July

In Geneva the discussions on Cluster Munitions grind to a close in the CCW and delegations are sent away to consider a new draft text of a possible agreement. We return to this in September, but will only have 2 full weeks discussions to bridge some fairly considerable gaps

On to New York for the 3rd and final meetings of the Government experts meeting who have been tasked by the UN Secretary General to examine the ¨Feasibility, Scope and Parameters¨ of a future Arms Trade Treaty and report back to the UN General Assembly,  ie if an ATT is agreed ,what would it cover and how would it work? 28 Countries selected by the UNSG are represented on the GGE including all the major sceptics, so we are in for a some challenging discussions. But first the NGO community has organised a weekend seminar with representatives from business, civil society and some of the countries who were unable to secure a place on the GGE. No peace for the wicked (or disarmers ) clearly! Feedback/Comments

18 July

 

The second week of discussions on Cluster Munitions drags on, making slow if any real progress. I return to the UK (again!) for a meeting which David Miliband has called to discuss the long term strategy on Nuclear Disarmament (I note that this meeting has already been leaked on the blogosphere so see no harm in mentioning it here). A very interesting day with some dauntingly serious intellectual horsepower being applied to this complex and often emotive issue. Feedback/Comments

 

11 July

 

The first week of  a renewed effort in Geneva to achieve wider international agreement to ban Cluster Munitions, this time in the CCW context a forum that contains all the users and manufacturers of Cluster munitions who stayed away from the Dublin Conference. The meeting gets off to a bad start despite the best efforts of the (Danish) Chairman with many of the Dublin proponents vaunting their credentials, a tactic unlikely to bring the sceptics on Board. The US makes a very welcome if belated statement that it accepts that some types of cluster munitions need to be phased out. Unfortunately this is where most of us were 12 months ago and they get few thanks for their effort. Clearly we have a long way to go.

 

I spend 24 hours in Oxford to attend a seminar on the ATT organised by a new Think-tank with NGOs, academics and some of the fellow GGE representatives including some of the major sceptics. A very useful initiative with the academic community bringing new perspectives to our work and challenging our assumptions. I was certainly kept on my toes, but it made sure we were covering all the angles. I hope we can encourage more debate like this. I spent most of the following day with our major NGO partner, Oxfam, with whom my personal working relationship goes back to Sudan famine of the 80’s. I make the point that 20 years later the world community is again involved in helping the same people I was helping when they were starving children. If we do not deal with the strategic agenda (part of which is ensuring a responsible global arms trade) we will find ourselves constantly repeating the operational agenda. Feedback/Comments

 

28 June

 

We hand over the baton of the CD Presidency to the United States. Despite some very serious efforts locally and much lobbying by UK missions in capitals, we have not managed to break the impasse and get the CD back to work, but it is certainly not for want of trying. David Miliband has been personally involved in writing and speaking to key players, but in the end there was no appetite for compromise. A shame; and as a result most of our work and that of other Arms Control ambassadors is increasingly now outside the CD. A forum is simply a platform. There is nothing wrong with the CD as an institution and it has been reinvented at least twice in the past. If nations resolutely refuse to engage, the focus of attention will simply move elsewhere as we have seen with Cluster Munitions. All eyes are now on the 2010 NPT Review conference to re-energise the Nuclear Non Proliferation institutional architecture and the ATT is beginning to be seen as one of the key parts of the conventional weapons proliferation architecture. Feedback/Comments

13 June 2008

Still hard at work trying to persuade the other doubters of the need to agree to an FMCT.  Other Geneva colleagues seem more active than hitherto in supporting our efforts.  But the UK Presidency of the Conference on Disarmament has only a week to run before we hand over to the United States. Feedback/Comments

6 June 2008

Back to work in Geneva to take over the Presidency of the Conference on Disarmament.  As readers will recall, the CD has been blocked for the best part of the decade.  A draft decision to begin work was put forward earlier this year but 3-4 countries have real problems with the proposal. The week is taken up with a round of working lunches and dinners (bad for the waistline) mixed with quiet bilateral discussion with the major players.  In parallel the Ottawa Landmines Convention is holding an intersessional meeting at which I have to present the UK's request for a ten year extension to clear the minefields on the Falkland Islands left over from the 1982 conflict.  I take a keen personal interest in this having in the past worked in the administration of our South Atlantic dependencies - The Falklands, Saint Helena, Asuncion and Tristan da Cuhna and was lucky enough to visit the Falklands and meet the local people.  The demining dossier is complicated by Argentina's claim to the islands and this has not only slowed down the process, but also leads to formal exchanges in the public debates (to the bemusement of other delegations) where we re-affirm our respective positions on sovereignty. Feedback/Comments

2 June 2008

The final day of the Dublin conference. I had to leave early to be back in Geneva for my daughter's graduation from High School - a rather American phenomena and so missed the formal adoption of the new Convention.  But my work was completed by then.  A rather "bouncy" week - unsurprising perhaps given the media and political interest.  The outcome is a good one.  The new Oslo Treaty sets a new international standard (norm) banning the most unreliable weapon systems that have caused so much human misery in many parts of the world, but it does not prevent those who sign up to the treaty from taking part in international operations with those who decide to stay outside.  Much work to do now in the CCW to ensure that those countries which decide to keep Cluster Munitions do not undermine the new international norm.  Another challenging task. Feedback/Comments

30 May 2008

The first week of the Dublin Intergovernmental Conference starts at a hectic pace.  An average day runs from 8.30 am-1.30 am.  I have a terrific team from across the Whitehall Departments, but we are hard pressed to cover all the meetings required.  The Prime Minister and Foreign and Defence Secretaries are taking a keen personal interest in the proceedings; my mobile phone bill is going to go through the roof.  The NGO Community have their tails up and are running an impressive lobbying campaign.  As observers, NGOs do not have the right to formally table amendments to the draft texts.  Instead they circulate alternative proposals on pieces of coloured paper in the coffee lounge - is this environmentally sound?  I have an emotional meeting with the victims of Cluster Munitions and am very impressed by their fortitude and good humour given some terrible injuries. By the end of the first week the draft convention text is moving in the right direction allowing us to reveal more of the UK's intentions.  A quick break for a bus tour of "Dublin's fair city" on Saturday and then it will be back to work for the rest of the weekend. Feedback/Comments

23 May 2008

A difficult week in New York discussing the future Arms Trade Treaty with other members of the UN Group of Government Experts - 28 countries selected by the UN to examine whether an ATT is feasible and what it should cover and how.  The sceptics are particularly vocal, claiming that the case for an ATT is unproven.  We will return to this subject at the end of July.  My hotel room overlooks Smith and Wollenski's, the famous Steak House, recognisable to anyone who has seen "The Devil Wears Prada".  I have always enjoyed Meryl Streep's films since "Out of Africa" - shot on the farm I used to work on as a child in Kenya.  No time for sightseeing as I am off this weekend to Dublin for the Cluster Munitions IGC. Feedback/Comments

16 May 2008

A successful outcome to the Non Proliferation Treaty PrepCom meeting as we agree a joint statement with other permanent members of the UN Security Council (P5).  Agreement on such a statement has eluded us for the past eight years and it has only been achieved this time after some very intense discussion behind the scenes.  The close personal chemistry between the P5 Heads of Delegation was a key factor in finding the way through to the compromise. Unfortunately, the changes of government in the US and Russia mean that we will probably lose some good friends before we meet again next May. Feedback/Comments

2 May 2008

The first week of the NPT PrepCom, the major meeting on Non Proliferation Treaty in our calendar.  We avoid the exhausting procedural wrangling which dominated last year's meeting in Vienna and get down to some serious discussion of the issues.  The highlight for the UK is a side-event which is addressed by Dame Shirley Williams and Lord Malloch Brown (FCO Minister) on the subject of "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons".  This is the first time that a British Minister has addressed an NPT PrepCom audience. Good discussions with international NGO community and my team who make good use of their language skills e.g. with the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  However I am struck by how old attitudes are still widespread. Only a minority seem to be aware of the political wind of change on nuclear proliferation and disarmament issues and the increasing importance of these issues to the 21st century agenda, e.g. Climate Change.  Clearly we have much work to do over the next two years before we get to the Review Conference of the NPT. Feedback/Comments

Ambassador's Diary for March & April 2008
Ambassador's Diary for January & February 2008
Ambassador's Diary for November & December 2007
Ambassador's Diary for September & October 2007
Ambassador's Diary for July & August 2007
Ambassador's Diary for May & June 2007



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