A noiseless patient spider

In the year 1900 the American poet Walt Whitman described how a noiseless, patient spider explored "the vacant vast surrounding" and how it "launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself; even unreeling them - ever tirelessly speeding them".

Now, there is probably no better way to describe the current state of affairs of the international nuclear disarmament machinery, which has been the topic of discussion at the UN First Committee during the last days.

To see it from the outside, for the first time, is a somewhat troubling experience. The UN First Committee, in a nutshell, is a room filled with chattering suits, listening inattentively to a relentless stream of words. One "distinguished representative" after another presenting resolution upon resolution - most of which, symptomatically, were presented last year and will be presented again next year.

For an organ tasked with the job of considering "the principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments”, this committee seems surprisingly absentminded. For someone who is born and raised in Norway, where the UN is commonly assumed to be a heavenly sphere of rationality and consideration, it is striking to see how unfocused the UN diplomats really are.

The UN diplomats are usually pictured as a bunch of solemn, thoughtful and nicely dressed characters with a not insignificant amount of political power. In reality, however, it is more likely that most UN diplomats are not at all solemn, but bored, not thoughtful, but frustrated, and their power seems in most cases to be restricted to choosing the colour of their tie. Oh those poor diplomats, most of them have their hands tied up in past government positions and group loyalties; they all move like they believe they are expected to; imprisoned by history and an outdated worldview.

This lack of flexibility in the First Committee has been clearly demonstrated in the last couple of weeks. A group of likeminded countries, led by Norway, Austria and Mexico (“New NAM”), has recently been trying to garner support for a new resolution which seeks to kick start the international disarmament machinery.

The so called international disarmament machinery, whatever that is, has been completely stuck for 15 years. At present, the key cog in this machinery is the so called Conference on Disarmament - an international forum, based in Geneva, which is mandated to negotiate multilateral disarmament treaties. And the Conference on Disarmament - or the CD, as it is called in diplomatic acronym speak - has been without a programme of work since 1996, and consequently, not even begun substantial negotiations on nuclear disarmament issues.

Believing that the lack of progress in the CD is due to a defect in its institutional setup - particularly a misunderstood allegiance to the consensus rule - the draft resolution proposed by New NAM aims to put a cap on how many years the CD can allow itself to remain deadlocked. More specifically, the resolution suggests that if the CD has not adopted a programme of work when the next session of the First Committee starts in October 2012, the committee will set up two working groups which will start negotiations on nuclear disarmament and prevention of an arms race in outer space, respectively.

The exact wording of the draft resolution is probably less interesting than the amount of opposition this initiative has been met with by the other countries in the First Committee. At the moment, New NAM has managed to gather support from between 50 and 60 countries, mostly from the western hemisphere. As expected, however, the permanent members of the UN Security Council (USA, UK, France, Russia and China) are unwilling to support any initiative that could potentially disrupt the deadlocked status quo, and they are consequently sceptical to the draft resolution proposed by New NAM. More interestingly, however, is the fact that leading countries in the so called Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) - a group of 120 states, established during the Cold War, which do not consider themselves aligned with or against any major power bloc - is also very sceptical to what they see as an attempt to undermine the CD. As they see it, the lack of progress is not due to a flawed institutional setup, but due to a lack of political will - and therefore ok. Although NAM probably won't vote as a bloc on this draft resolution, the opposition expressed by leading NAM countries like Egypt and Indonesia, seriously reduces the likelihood of success.

Now, why would non-nuclear armed states like Egypt and Indonesia voice opposition to an attempt to kick start negotiations on nuclear disarmament? Explanations vary, but none seems to be fully convincing. Some says that the fondness of the CD expressed by some NAM countries is due to the fact that membership in the CD is restricted to 65 countries, and that certain NAM countries simply likes to be part of the club. Other says that the NAM countries which are members of the CD is quite comfortable with the current deadlock, as a lack of disarmament leaves open the possibility for these countries to acquire their own nuclear weapons in the future. A third explanation points to the fact that the resolution presented by the New NAM has a "western" taste, and therefore triggers knee-jerk opposition from, mostly developing, NAM countries.

In any case, we will know, probably on Friday or Monday, whether the draft resolution will be voted upon or not. Stay impatient.