SENSE OF CONGRESS ON THE FIVE-YEAR ABM TREATY REVIEW

SEC. 904. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON THE FIVE-YEAR ABM TREATY REVIEW (a) Findings.—Congress makes the following findings: 102 STAT. 2032 (1) The Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems, With Associated Protocol (hereinafter in this section referred to as the “ABM Treaty” or the “Treaty”) in Article XIV, Paragraph 2, reads as follows: “Five years after entry into force of this Treaty, and at five-year intervals thereafter, the Parties shall together conduct a review of this Treaty.”. (2) Such Treaty entered into force on October 3, 1972, and the third five-year anniversary date specified for the conduct of the review contemplated in the Treaty, therefore, was October 3, 1987. (3) As a fundamental principle of the canons of legal construction, a specified number of years after a specific and determinable date means the specified anniversary of such date and therefore the third five-year review of the ABM Treaty should have begun on or about October 3, 1987. (4) The Parties to the Treaty have not met as required by the Treaty because the United States refused to meet on the date specified in the Treaty for such meeting (October 3, 1987) and has refused since such date to propose a date for the meeting. (b) Sense of Congress.—In light of the findings in subsection (a), it is the sense of Congress that the President should, without any further delay, propose an early date to conduct the overdue five-year review of the ABM Treaty. The President shall inform Congress of the results of that review immediately after it takes place.