Transparency
treaties are verification mechanisms of disarmament proposals. They
are crucial to arms limitation agreements. Any country can agree
to remove certain weapons. What is important is that the nation actually
follow through on the agreement. Transparency treaties outline
methods by which nations are investigated, when they are investigated,
and how the results of investigations are published.1
When a nation agrees to disarm
or promises not to proliferate arms, it takes a huge security risk.
If it disarms and another nation secretly stores weapons, its national
security is compromised since it will be caught without means to defend
itself is under attack.
Verification is absolutely vital to any disarmament
treaty. No nation will sign an arms limitation measure if it feels
that another nation could possibly hide weaponry.2
However, strict measures of verification can
also be debilitating because a distrustful environment is fostered when
one country feels that another is suspicious of it. Also nations
also do not appreciate the intrusive nature of strict verification.
In fact, rigorous verification measures are supported by those who do not
wish to have arms control because the entire disarmament treaty will not
pass if parties feel that verification is too strict.3
1Lubensky, Steve. "Verification
of Transparency Treaties." University of Pennsylvania
Model United
Nations Conference. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania,
2000.
2The Nuclear Turning Point.
Harold Feiveson, Ed. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute
Press, 1999.
3Krass, Allan S. "Arms Control
Treaty Verification." Encyclopedia of Arms Control and
Disarmament.
Richard Dean Burns, Ed. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons,
1993.