ABSTRACT
The Standing Consultative Commission (SCC) is a joint US-USSR institution created in accordance with the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) I agreements of 1972: the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Interim Agreement on Strategic Offensive Arms. The Standing Consultative Commission grew out of preliminary SALT meetings in November and December of 1969; the two sides agreed then to create a special arrangement for addressing matters of implementation of agreements that might be achieved. As to compliance-related questions, the essence of the SCC implementation task is to head off potential gross dislocations or irretrievable circumstances by acting early enough and finding mutually-acceptable clarifications and implementing understandings, as well as inducing unilateral changes in troublesome activities, to sustain intact the agreements. The nature of the SCC implementation task is elucidated by recognizing that arms control agreements involve three distinctive kinds of activities: negotiation of a new agreement, amendment of an existing agreement, and implementation and refinement of an existing agreement.
