Book Description

United States law can both help and hinder the use of instrumentation as a component of arms control verification in this country. It can foster the general use of sophisticated verification technologies, where such devices are consistent with the value attached to privacy by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. On the other hand, law can hinder reliance on devices that cross this constitutional line, or where such technology itself threatens health, safety, or environment as such threats are defined in federal statutes. The purpose of this conference paper is to explain some of the lessons that have been learned about the relationship between law and verification technologies in the hope that law can help more than hinder. This paper has three parts. In order to start with a common understanding, part I will briefly describe the hierarchy of treaties, the Constitution, federal statutes, and state and local laws. Part 2 will discuss how the specific constitutional requirement that the government respect the right of privacy in all of its endeavors may affect the use of verification technologies. Part 3 will explain the environmental law constraints on verification technology as exemplified by the system of on-site sampling embodied in the current Rolling Text of the Draft Chemical Weapons Convention.