Nuclear Disarmament after New START
The purpose of this paper is to examine and propose concrete nuclear disarmament measures which should be taken following the entry into force of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) on February 5, 2011. This treaty is the first concrete outcome from the famous Prague address by President Barak Obama in April 2009 and there still remain many items which should be pursued and implemented. I will take up the issues of the further reduction of strategic nuclear weapons, the reduction of non-strategic nuclear weapons, the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), and the consideration of a nuclear weapons convention. I will examine the circumstances surrounding each issue, and make proposals for their realization.
China's Perspective on a Nuclear-Free World
A new wave of interest in the complete elimination of nuclear weapons is washing over international security institutions. Although the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world is as old as the nuclear age, it seems more serious and urgent now, especially after President Barack Obama’s remarks in Prague, where he renewed the U.S. commitment to a nuclear-free world and laid out a road map to achieve this goal. In a UN resolution in September 2009, the original five nuclear-weapons states further committed to:
Analysis: The Agenda 2007 Proposals: Evolution or Revolution?
On 10 February 2004 the Commission published its proposal for the financial perspective 2007-2013. A week later it adopted the third report on economic and social cohesion. These two documents form the basis of the so-called ‘Agenda 2007 reforms’. They will be the greatest challenge for the enlarged EU after the intergovernmental conference, since they will determine the financial basis for EU policy-making until the middle of the next decade. The Agenda 2007 proposals certainly hint at courageous reforms, because they place a previously unheard-of emphasis on performance and quality. Under the proposals, structural operations should generate value for money, and the funds should focus on projects which generate added value at a European level. Overall the Commission’s proposals point in the right direction, because they balance, on the one hand, solidarity for the new Member States and weak regions in the old Member States with, on the other hand, investments in future tasks. Moreover, they constitute a paradigm shift. For the first time, the Common Agricultural Policy will not be the dominant expenditure category. Now it is up to the Member States to examine the proposals politically and find a compromise between sometimes very divergent interests. It is to be hoped that, during the debate over expenditure limits and division of funds, national interests do not outweigh European interests.