This content is an interview discussing Earl Turcotte's extensive career in arms control and disarmament, focusing on landmines, cluster munitions, and nuclear weapons, and advocating for international action and treaties to abolish these weapons.
gonna record to the cloud um
um
just give it a minute um
okay welcome everyone I'm really pleased
to introduce to you uh Earl turcotte uh
he is in Ottawa and we will be talking
to him today about our theme which is
landmines conventional Warfare and
actually cluster bombs so I will
introduce you to him and then we'll have
a short and very I hope Illuminating uh
discussion so I would need to share the
screen for a second and here you are I
if you don't mind
um Earl I'm just going to explain to the
students that you have a ba from the
University of Windsor an MMA in
Philosophy from the University of Ottawa
and an M.A in international affairs from
Carleton University so that's a very
preeminent University in terms of
international relations
after short-term positions with wask
what we call the world University
Service of Canada which is still around
and as a UNICEF volunteer in India in
the mid-1970s Mr turkhart served as a
parliamentary assistant to a Canadian MP
which is short for Member of Parliament
in 1978 and 1987 9 79 I'm just doing
some reference letters for that same program
um after completing Graduate Studies in
1982 he joined Ceta that's short for the
Canadian International Development
agency serving in various capacities
over a 22-year period
including as country program manager
these are titles of positions within
suda planner country analyst
first Secretary posted in Ghana in
Africa and finally as chief of ceta's
mine Action Unit that's for mines which
we'll be talking about today for several years
years
in 2004 Mr turcott joined the United
Nations development program in New York
City as the senior development advisor
with the United Nations development
program undp mine action team
in mid 2005 he returned to Canada to
join the Canadian Department of Foreign
Affairs and international trade and as
we've talked about that's now called
Global Affairs Canada as the senior
coordinator for mine action and director
of the Mind action team
for the following seven years he led
diplomatic responsibility for Canada's
engagement on the anti-personnel
mine that anti-personal mind boundary
I don't know why I call it the landmine
boundary but I'm I'm wrong and we can
talk about that and the convention on
Conventional Weapons and was Chief
Canadian negotiator of the convention on
cluster munitions
for several years he also managed
Canada's engagement in the UN program of
action on small arms and light weapons
which is what we've been talking about
in the class
Mr turcotte left the Canadian Public
Service in 2011 from 2012 to 2014 he
served as the UN development program's
Chief technical advisor to the
government of Laos or Leos how you
pronounce it is up to you in the
unexploded ordinance sector and was
based in Vientiane can you pronounce
that Ben 10 yeah
since returning to Canada Mr turcotte
has focused largely on nuclear
disarmament he has served terms as
chairperson of the Canadian Network to
abolish nuclear weapons
cnanw which is how I met Earl as
Canadian coordinator of parliamentarians
for nuclear non-proliferation and
disarmament pnmd and as a member of the
peace and security working group of the g78
g78
he remains a member of the Canadian pug
wash group for Science and peace which
is also how we have met in many
conferences Mr turcott has published
numerous articles on mine action and on
nuclear disarmament so this works so
well with our theme today which is I'm
turning now back to you Earl a mine
action and then I'm hoping in a second
shorter interview to talk to this very
well-known diplomat who knows so much
about nuclear disarmament as well thank
you Earl for coming and if I had a big
audience we would clap thank you Erica
okay just a minute um
um
uh anyway thank you Earl I just wanted
to check the recording was working
because it's such a great interview I'm
hoping and do you want to tell us a
little bit more about how you decide to
become interested was it way back when
you were a parliamentary assistant or
did you become more interested in global
issues later on in your career
well actually uh uh Eric I became very
interested in global issues uh when I
was hitchhiking around Europe and North
Africa at 18 years of age after I had
dropped out of high school
oh no
back uh for about three years uh but uh
even though that was extremely limited
exposure it uh it certainly expanded my
horizons uh so uh it affected my choices
in terms of what I studied and after
doing Philosophy for many personal
reasons I decided to focus on
International Affairs at the Patterson
School of International Affairs in
Ottawa which led I was delighted it led
into into 22 years with the Canadian
International Development agency working
on Canadian foreign aid programs uh
before I I moved on briefly to the UN
and then to Canadian Foreign Affairs uh
while I was with Sita I had an
opportunity we we had a program
to clear anti-personal landmines and
cluster Munitions all the detritus of War
War
I had witnessed the impact of that
largely in Southeast Asia and parts of
Africa that I had traveled in so when
the opportunity came up there was a
competition for the position of chief of
the mine Action Unit I I decided to go
after it and uh and that then became my
focus for the next almost 15 years I was
on arms control disarmament and largely
programming to clean up the the detritus
of war that continues to kill and maim
often for decades after conflict has ended
ended
yeah detergent is a very polite word for
the destruction that has been created by War
War
um and I think that's a very diplomatic
word as well and that that had a big
impact on you
combined with your education at the
Norman Patterson School of International
Affairs which is the has been for a long
time the top training at the Master's
level but if you want to do
international relations you don't know
you can hitchhike and learn a lot about
the world too that's another way of
learning about it so this is very I
think helpful for the students they're
all interested in pursuing a career
possibly as a global citizen
um as a global citizen can you tell us a
little bit more about land mines I will
I will be talking to the students using
PowerPoint slides showing the impact
and also Cambodia and you can imagine
you've seen all these kinds of pictures
and slides but tell us a little bit more
about how how you feel about land mines
um
rudimentary landmines were used as early
as the American Civil War uh cluster
Munitions uh earliest recorded events as
I understand it was during World War II
when they were used by Germany on on England
England
but they uh certainly expanded both
weapons became somewhat more
sophisticated and expanded uh across
many parts of the world
um anti-personal landlines have been
used in many many countries uh uh from
for decades uh until uh in the late
1990s uh most of the countries of the
world came together and decided to ban
them uh and
11 years later uh the same a similar
process was used to ban cluster
Munitions now the weapons have a lot in
common two things in particular one is
they are absolutely indiscriminate
weapons uh in the case of landmines they
are usually victim activated so when
someone comes near nearby or steps on
the landline especially anti-personal
landmines of course they go off uh they
can they they usually maim but they can
often kill
um in in many cases the intent of uh of
militaries that use them is to maim
because it it
exacts an ongoing cost if you like on
the the at their adversaries on the
perceived enemies
both of our weapons of Terror in that
the vast majority of victims have been
civilians the international Committee of
the Red Cross estimates that more than
95 percent of land mine and cluster
Nation uh victims have been civilians
and a large number of them have been
killed long after the war has ended long
after conflict has has ended so as a
weapon uh of use for the military
first of all they are absolutely
contrary to the laws of war or
International humanitarian law that
requires that a distinction be made
between civilians combatants and non-combatants
non-combatants
um these weapons simply cannot do that
so they cannot discriminate and you said
that they're they're non-discriminating
weapons in their impact so they do not
discriminate between the military and
civilians in fact you mentioned that not
the estimate is that 95 of victims are
civilians not military soldiers or
professional late trained soldiers yeah
95 Yes actually in some cases uh more
than 95 up to 97 depending on on the theater
theater
um anti-personal landmines once they're
set in the ground wherever they are set
of course then anybody who comes along
at any time uh can be victims cluster
bonds uh are are in many respects a more
horrific weapon they are designed as
what is called an area-wide weapon uh
they in effect saturate a wide area so
by Design they are indiscriminate the
whole point is to saturate a wide area
not not they are a polar opposite of a
Precision weapon the exact opposite of
that and uh they have been used again
indiscriminately not only over military
targets but often quite deliberately as
they are in Ukraine today in civilian
areas precisely as a weapon of Terror
and to try to exact a price on the
civilian population in addition to
whatever military targets uh they might
be uh uh they might be trying to access
now of course the the other side of both
weapons is that they have very high
failure rates in the case of cluster
bombs cluster Munitions a cluster bomb
uh think of it as a large Hollow casing
uh that can be either launched from
ground but usually dropped from the air
that then opens up and in it are
typically hundreds of small submunitions
and they too are designed to spread out
so that they cover a wide area
up to 40 percent in some cases even more
do not detonate on impact which means
that they can be lying around
moving around with weather systems uh
with rain snow with whatever uh and
burrowing into the ground in many cases
and Lasting for decades
um we have case of of the Vietnam War uh
in Southeast Asia where
um cluster bombs in particular the
bombings the sub emissions that are
often called bombies
um continue to kill people on a regular
basis so the Vietnam War ended for
America uh you know in in the 1970s but
it continues to kill Maine in Southeast
Asia so this kind of technology is
absolutely horrific and inhumane as well
as being contrary to International
humanitarian law and should never be used
used
exactly it should never have been
developed and it should never have been
used it is sad uh to be a tourist you
cannot go to Laos or Vietnam without
being walking in special areas that are
only for that have been demined at Great
cost and that is very very expensive we
talk in my other classes about land mine
clearing techniques and new technology
like robots but
um it doesn't seem very hopeful can you
tell us a little bit more about your
success as the Canadian under the
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lloyd
oxworthy and how he managed to obtain a
legal treaty by inviting countries to
Ottawa and then uh and another second
meeting as well and can you give us a
little bit of background on how Canada
was able to spearhead the landmines
treaty or the Ottawa process okay the uh
yes I'm happy to uh the the otherwise
treaty the the anti-personal Mind Ban
Treaty predates my time in foreign
affairs so so I didn't have first-hand
experience with that but okay I thought
you I apologized it yeah now basically
the situation is this uh there had been
discussions ongoing discussions and
attempted negotiations in the
traditional United Nations Forum uh for
conventional arms uh negotiations and
that is what is called a convention on
certain Conventional Weapons actually
has an even longer title but we call it
the problem with that forum is that it
operates on the basis of consensus
decision making which has been
interpreted or rather misinterpreted to
mean that there must be unanimous
agreement so that you can only succeed
at the pace of your slowest least
imaginative or most obstructionist uh
state which means it's painstakingly
slow there's a similar forum for uh
weapons of mass destruction the
conference on disarmament that also
operates on a consensus basis and that
has not been able to agree even on a
program of work for two decades you can
imagine how frustrating uh that was for
for countries around the world who
desperately wanted in this case and in
the case of Conventional Weapons to to
address first of all anti-personal
landmines and then a decade later
cluster Ministries uh there had been
some minor successes in the CCW they did
manage to ban uh incendiary weapons
blinding laser weapons dumb dumb bullets
uh and and and a few other weapons but
not the ones that were doing the most
damage an anti-personal landmines were
among them
so what happened is uh in light of of
basically hitting the brick wall
diplomatically in the CCW our then
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lloyd
ashworthy with strong support from our
then prime minister Jacques Ritchie and
his cabinet Collins
uh did something that uh that was quite
unique he simply invited the countries
of the world that were like-minded that
were interested in Banning anti-personal
landmines to gum together in another
Forum that was designed specifically uh
to ban these weapons so they knew before
they came into it that the intent was to
seek a total ban on this category of weapons
weapons
um so countries were able to self-select
and those who weren't interested didn't
participate and those who were
interested did
in the end uh there was uh the reverse
successful negotiations difficult
negotiations but very successful overall
and uh in 1997 the uh the Ottawa treaty
was opened for Signature and today just
over 25 years later
there are 164 State parties out of
roughly 193 94 countries in the world
this is remarkable it is one of the most
successful disarmament treaties ever in history
history
now the convention on clustered
Munitions uh uh first of all the the
prime movers on that in this case among
states Norway took the lead now this
happened during in in Canadian history
under the uh Stephen Harper
Administration in Ottawa uh that wasn't
in my personal view the same Progressive
courageous bold approach to Arms Control
and disarmament uh that had obtained uh
during what ashworthy's day but um
nonetheless Canada did participate
Norway took the lead in convening The
Forum the various Forum with six other
countries uh
uh in some core support
but in the end uh
108 countries I believe actually it
might have been a bit more than 108
countries came together
and negotiated the convention on cluster
Munitions which was open for Signature
in Oslo in December 2008 and today
already has 110 States parties and
another 13 signatories so uh it's also
well on its way to becoming an
incredibly successful uh disarmament
treaty the differences well is that
whereas anti-personal landmines banned
anti-personal landlines only not
anti-type mines and other other types of
Mines the convention on cluster
Munitions banned all known forms of
cluster Munitions anything that could be
defined and at the time there were more
than 200 different types so it has
far-reaching consequences and has
already had tremendous uh humanitarian benefit
benefit
um and uh and millions of stockpiles of
submunitions have uh have already taken
place uh uh uh uh pardon me the
destruction of stockpiles has taken
place so uh it's having real impact uh
in the world
and you've been really key to promoting
the concept and you've spoken up very
courageously in front of the media and
in parliamentary in Parliament and and
so on I thought your concept of
self-selection was interesting you said
that countries self-selected to to
accept the Canadian invitation to talk
about land personal land mines not tank
land mines and then you also alluded to
the fact that uh they self-selected to
talk about cluster bombs
which countries apart from the
well-known ones like United States and
the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea that North Korea are not coming to
these kinds of negotiations can you tell
us a little bit about the countries that
are not attending
gee Eric I I could have easily had my
list in front of me
well I know it's Russia
um well uh now in the case of the
anti-personal mindband treaty one
notable difference between that and the
cluster Munitions convention is that the
United States did participate in the
negotiations uh for anti-personal
language again this predates me but that
is my understanding in the end they
chose not to become party to the
convention despite tremendous efforts
including by Mr axworthy himself to try
to persuade them to come on board they
just weren't prepared to do so at the
time they are still not a state party uh
they say largely because of the uh the
the uh the demilitarized zone between
North and South Korea which is heavily
mined and they believe
uh incorrectly in my view but they
believe that landmines are important for
the ongoing security of South Korea
um that said there are roughly 30
countries that are not party to the AP
landline convention but they still
largely respect the Norms that have been
established with respect to
anti-personal landmines the two
exceptions that I know to that are
Russia and Myanmar in the case of the
landlines it's a military dictatorship
you know that's an interesting point
that they still respect the global
regime although they are not State
parties they have not signed it and
ratified it they still respect it so
that gives us some hope too for other
treaties like the cgbt and so on yes and
this comes from the stigmatization uh of
the weapon uh as is beginning to happen
with nuclear weapons as well uh with the
treaty on the prohibition of nuclear
weapons the more these weapons are
stigmatized the the more pressure is
brought to bear on countries not to use
them so even if they aren't formally a
state party and are not bound by the
legal obligations they nonetheless uh
come under pressure not to use them
um in the case of the conventional
cluster Munitions the notable exceptions
for use recently most recently is the
Russian Federation has used cluster bonds
bonds
um according to to uh Human Rights Watch
and other ngos hundreds of times in
Ukraine and unfortunately uh Ukraine
itself has alleged to have used cluster
bombs in the in the ongoing fighting uh
three times uh that that that I have seen
seen
um there's a lot of pressure being
brought to bear on Ukraine not to
continue the use of cluster Munitions
um you may know that they have requested
uh cluster Munitions from the United
States and that option is not off the
table uh the last I heard I may be a bit
out of date on that but to my knowledge
that the United States has not provided
uh the Ukrainian military with cluster
bonds or cluster Munitions and I pray
that they do not for the reasons that we
we discussed earlier be doing any
short-term military gain word deed not
only nullify but far exceeded by the
impact on their own military and mostly
on their own civilian population from
their own territory uh so yeah
I mean we that the United States is
going through a debate about what type
of tanks and they're talking about
giving their
um their their most capable tanks Canada
has just offered as well not our most
capable tanks but some more Battlefield
tanks uh but nobody's really talking
about this whole issue of cluster bombs
in the United States that I'm seeing but
you raised the issue in the hill times
and wrote an article over the holidays
in December and so therefore I was
wondering did you get any feedback from
anyone saying oh I've read that and
that's making us think again about how
we should not export cluster Munitions
under any circumstances to any country
did you get any feedback or none
whatsoever uh from from anyone who might
be considering using them I got lots of
very positive feedback from like-minded colleagues
