"A nuclear agreement in need of Canadian leadership"

Commentary by Amb. (Ret'd) Paul Meyer
Senior Fellow, The Simons Foundation
Published by Canadian International Council's OPENCANADA.ORG, Canada's Hub for International Affairs
July 13, 2015

Canada may not be involved with Iran negotiations, but it does play a key role in efforts to realize a treaty to ban the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.

In the world of multilateral diplomacy one can judge a lot from just the title of a document.

If these at times seem convoluted or awkward it is usually because the underlying politics share these characteristics. Such is the case with a recently released UN report, the title of which — brace yourself — is “Group of Governmental Experts to make recommendations on possible aspects that could contribute to but not negotiate a treaty banning production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”

It doesn’t take a veteran diplomat to discern that there is some sensitivity around the issue of such a treaty.

That sensitivity to a large extent explains why a treaty to ban the production of the essential material from which nuclear weapons are manufactured, despite having been an agreed objective of the international community for decades has never been concluded. To be more precise, negotiations for such a treaty have never even started.  Continue reading at OPENCANADA.ORG...

Amb. (Ret'd) Paul Meyer is a Fellow in International Security, Centre for Dialogue, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and Senior Fellow, The Simons Foundation.