Progress in Nuclear Security

You would think that the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference would promote a rigorous commitment to a nuclear free world. Instead, our working report segments are weak, vague, and largely repetitive. However, this is precisely the design desired by the Chair. In the real world, he tells us, the NPTRC reports are brief, positive, and uncontroversial in nature to enable the report to be adopted by consensus of the body. It's not as interesting to write a paper without opposing views or disention, but it is much more challenging to caucus with every single nation in the 152-member conference to make sure that everyone agrees before we go into voting procedure.

Good stuff: discussions are very productive, papers are written quickly, cooperation is higher than any other committee I've ever been in, and no one disagrees with the general goals since all parties are already signatories of the NPT.

Annoying stuff: regional blocks are working to produce regional papers, so some blocks like Asia and the Middle East are very small, but the African bloc is huge. It's hard to have everyone heard and keep the discussion going in a coherent direction without meandering off topic. Another thing with the large size is that editing becomes a nightmare, because thirty delegates are pointing and shouting and asking questions and debating the minute word choices and the fine subtleties of the English language. I had a dispute with one of the other sponsors over the sentence "The role of Nuclear Weapons Free Zones have grown to include..." and, though conceding that "role" was indeed the subject, he insisted that the verb should remain in number agreement with the object of the prepositional phrase "because say it aloud, it sounds better that way." ARRRRGG! NOOOO! It sounds as teeth-grindingly unnatural as it appears in print. I'm sure the Dias will agree and correct it, so I didn't bother breaking the mandated "consensus."

We got the draft segment submitted, so I look forward to reading the full working draft report later today. From what I've seen, it will be a very promising document!