International Conference
On
INDIA’S PERSPECTIVES ON ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT
Seeking Security through Co-operation
At
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDY, SHIMLA
Rashtrapati Nivas, Shimla
(18-20 May 2015)
CONCEPT NOTE
We do not believe that a nuclear war should be fought and we do not believe that a nuclear war can be won.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
But elimination will only happen if all countries — nuclear and non-nuclear states — genuinely work towards this result. Nuclear states must abolish their arsenals, as was indicated by the unanimous opinion of the International Court of Justice, the highest international tribunal. The five nuclear states seem to expect others to refrain from obtaining bombs while at the same time maintaining their own caches of deadly weapons.
Christopher Weeramantry
Yes, ‘n’ how many times must the cannon balls fly Before they’re forever banned?
Bob Dylan
Disarmament initiatives have been an important element of India’s foreign policy history from the beginning. For instance, in 1954 India under Nehru’s leadership was the first country to propose an agreement to ban nuclear weapons tests, which ultimately culminated in 1963 in the Treaty Banning Nuclear Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water (Partial Test Ban Treaty) (PTBT). Though this was only a partial triumph, Nehru was rightly recognized for his leadership of the global campaign that led to the PTBT. Even as he remained opposed to weaponization, Nehru’s vision of India’s future did involve the robust use of nuclear science and technology for peaceful purposes. Historically, some of the country’s most accomplished diplomats have been associated with India’s disarmament diplomacy. Although India took the lead in many of these issues, it nevertheless found itself at a disadvantage in many cases, most obviously with regard to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). India chose to stay out of the NPT regime and in the years that followed, there was perhaps an unstated shift of policy from nuclear abolition to ambiguity. Two important moments in the 1990s mark a watershed in India’s long association with arms control and disarmament: rejection of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, and the overt weaponisation of India’s nuclear deterrent in 1998.
Workshop Focus
The proposed workshop seeks to assess the Indian approach to nuclear disarmament and global arms control issues and also to explore how India should move forward, if there is a need for a new approach or if the country needs to expend more effort. The focus will be on four important trends and developments during the last decade.
The first important trend relates to global politics and the contemporary prospects for nuclear disarmament. Five years after his speech on nuclear disarmament at Prague, US President Barack Obama’s enthusiasm for the issue appears to have dissipated. In addition, one of the major contemporary obstacles to further progress on nuclear disarmament is the deteriorating state of great power relations. US-Russian relations appear to be in free-fall as a consequence of the Ukrainian crisis. At the same time, Chinese assertiveness in East Asia is garnering greater pessimism about the likelihood that Washington and Beijing can work together to promote global security public goods, including in the arena of nuclear arms control and disarmament. The first panel in the proposed workshop will therefore examine the state of relations between the West and Russia and China and the consequences for arms control and disarmament.
The second trend relates to the prospects and consequences of further nuclear proliferation, especially the likelihood that the world may be entering a New Nuclear Age. Even as the talks over the Iranian nuclear programme appear to be making some progress, the parties are still far apart on key issues, raising the question about whether there can be any successful resolution to the issue or indeed even to determine what ‘success’ means in this particular context. Meanwhile, the discussion about the Middle Eastern Nuclear Weapons Free Zones has not progressed much. In East Asia, North Korea shows little sign that it will give up its nuclear weapons. All this suggests that we might be on the cusp of a new nuclear age, with many more nuclear-armed powers. The second panel in the proposed workshop will discuss these nuclear proliferation challenges and what they portend for global nuclear disarmament.
The third issue pertains to multilateralism and disarmament politics. Multilateral efforts at nuclear arms control and disarmament, specifically at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, have been blocked for close to two decades. Nevertheless, India and other third world countries have insisted that the CD should be the primary focus of multilateral efforts and are reluctant to consider new rules to break the deadlock. The third panel in the proposed workshop will discuss whether we need to look to new multilateral approaches or how multilateral efforts on arms control and disarmament can be rejuvenated.
The fourth big development of the past decade relates to new issues in arms control, specifically cyber security and Outer Space. The global arms control and disarmament agenda is getting even more crowded as new issues come up that require multilateral action. Cyber security affects all countries but there are differing approaches to how best the threat is handled, which is further complicated by clandestine nature of the issues surrounding cyber-security and variety of state and non-state actors that are involved in this issue. Space security is not a new issue, but it has new dimensions both because new capabilities are emerging and because many more nations are involved. In addition, both are issues that deeply affect India. This fourth panel of the proposed workshop will address some of the complications and how these might be best addressed.
Participants would be required to write complete papers to be presented at the conference. Revised versions of these papers will, thereafter, have to be submitted within a stipulated time to the IIAS, Shimla with a copy to the Conveners of the conference who will also be the editors of the conference volume on behalf of IIAS. After editing, the volume will be submitted for peer-review and if approved would be published either by the IIAS, Shimla itself or in collaboration with the any of the international publishers that the Institute already works with.
A limited number of participants will be invited for the seminar. Those interested in participating should send a synopsis (700 words) of the proposed paper to following Email ID’s:-
- varunsahni@jnu.ac.in
- r_rajesh@mail.jnu.ac.in
- aro@iias.ac.in
- Link:
- http://iias.org/india_perspectives_arms_control.html
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