The lead negotiator for New START defended the Obama administration’s decision to withhold the negotiating record between the United States and Russia — a key factor fueling Republican opposition to the treaty.
Speaking at the Brookings Institution yesterday, New START chief negotiator Rose Gottemoeller said the Senate already has all the information it needs to ratify the treaty.
“The complete story of the negotiations and the complete picture of the negotiations is provided in the article-by-article analysis that every administration does,” Gottemoeller said. “The testimony that was given … is part of the complete picture of what the treaty is all about. And, finally, we answered a thousand questions for the record that also give the complete picture of what the treaty is all about.”
More than a few senators disagree. As early as May 6, six members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee requested a copy of the complete negotiating records for New START, and, since then, committee member Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has reiterated that request.
DeMint cites as precedent two important occasions in the past when the government has released the complete negotiating histories for major arms control treaties. In the mid-1980s, the State Department produced the negotiating documents related to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and, in 1988, the State Department provided the Senate with the negotiating history for the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty — even before the Senate had given its advice and consent to the treaty.
But Gottemoeller said whatever precedent exists to justify the release of the records just doesn’t apply in this case.
“There was an effort to reinterpret the ABM treaty back in the 1980s and, pursuant to that, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked for some information from the negotiating record,” she said. “Some partial information was provided, but I want to underscore that that was years after the ABM treaty was ratified and entered into force.”
But negotiating records were released before the INF treaty was ratified — and an “effort to reinterpret” New START began almost as soon as the treaty was signed. The Russian Federation released a unilateral statement on April 8 that interprets the preamble of the treaty to restrict future U.S. missile defense capabilities, while the Obama administration insists the preamble does no such thing. The Russians and administration officials also disagree about the preamble’s legal force and effect.
DeMint and others say the negotiating records could provide much-needed clarity about the intent of the treaty. Gottemoeller said whatever insight the negotiating histories would offer would be offset by the damage the release would do to diplomacy.
“The Senate Foreign Relations Committee put out a very important comment in their report on the INF treaty where they said that as a practice the idea of handing out the complete negotiating record should not be turned into a habit or a practice because it would have … a chilling effect on future negotiations,” she said. “As the negotiator, I can say this is very important.”
By releasing the New START records, however, the State Department would hardly make the release of complete negotiating histories a “habit.” As Gottemoeller herself pointed out, the 110th Congress ratified 90 treaties and in none of those cases was the negotiating record either asked for or provided. Furthermore, the documents would be released in classified form and to the U.S. Senate only.
