7.1 Organizations

Two types of practices and proposals can be distinguished in the field of verification of arms control agreements. There are organizations dedicated solely to verification, and there are international organizations with a broader mandate that have received, or will receive a verification or monitoring function. There are only a few organizations, exclusively devoted to verification/monitoring.

The idea of multilateral and international organizations dedicated to or operative in the field of the verification of arms control agreements is currently receiving renewed and heightened interest, under the impetus of the CFE, CSCE and CW negotiations, and of the Gulf War settlement.

Various factors may explain this renewed interest in the role of international organizations:

- increased importance is being attached to the verification of disarmament agreements;

- the institution-building process is considered to have a high confidence-building potential;

- economic considerations may motivate advocacy of involvement by international organizations;

- the wish to deny access to certain types of weapons can also be considered a positive factor.³⁵

³⁵ C. de Jonge Oudraat, “International Organizations and Verification”, in Verification of Disarmament or Limitations of Armaments: Instruments, Negotiations, Proposals, UNIDIR, 1992, 207-208.

The involvement of international organizations is opposed, however, on the grounds of economic circumstances and the confidentiality of the data. Another major objection is related to the political and legal elements of the verification process: no State is eager to delegate decisions that involve compliance to a third party or to an international body. There is a fine line between fact-finding and the political qualification of facts in an international co-operative environment.³⁶

³⁶ See note 35.

The UN Security Council may intervene in the verification process. The Council may carry out its own investigations and make its own assessments, as it did, for example, when chemical weapons were used in the conflict between Iraq and Iran.

Issues relating to the Gulf War, and the disarmament measures adopted by the Security Council in Resolution 687 (1991), which involve international control, raise problems of a different kind, namely, the consequences and settlement of an international conflict, rather than the verification of certain treaties. The obligations verified are those resulting from the Resolution and not directly from the treaties to which it refers. Certain obligations, for example, those relating to the destruction of missiles, do not fall under the aegis of any specific treaty.³⁷

³⁷ U.N. Doc. UNIDIR/92/28, 3.