Year
2002
Abstract
At the eve of the new century, the landscape of non proliferation and disarmament is contrasted. The past thirty years have seen the development of many important international or multilateral instruments aiming to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery and to reduce the size of the arsenals like the NPT and the AIEA safeguards, the Biological Convention or the Chemical Convention, the CTBT which entry into force is still pending, the Biological Convention or the Cut-off Convention which are hoped to be concluded in the years coming. the agreements between USA and the Russian federation on weapon fissile material declared in excess of defence needs, the disarmament of IRAQ under UNSCR resolution. Since the end of the nineties and in the aftermath of the dramatic events of 11 September 2001 which have seen the emergence of non State actors, a needs of considering the proliferation globally has emerged. Synergies between verification regimes should be considered, as appropriate, to reinforce their efficiency mutually. All these instruments imply to verify compliance of States with their commitments and rely on a specific verification regime. Verification regimes share common features : procedures, inspection techniques, information analyses, managed access, confidentiality. They have to incorporate new techniques to provide a high level of confidence, like satellite imagery and environmental sampling. Benefits and cost effectiveness can be drawn from a careful examination of the common ground they share. One regime may benefit from technical developments and experiences drawn from the others, taking into account their own specificity. Nevertheless, verification, to be accepted, has to establish and maintain a delicate balance between intrusiveness and protection and synergies are limited. The fact that each instrument has been adopted by states inside a certain frameworks of political benefit and against certain obligations should not be forgotten.