22 February 2010

Beyond Existing Treaties

 

The 2005 NPT review conference was unable to adopt any agreements.

The 2005 NPT review conference was unable to adopt any agreements.

By Rebecca Johnson

In addition to agreeing on next steps for nuclear disarmament, the 2010 review conference on nuclear nonproliferation should start laying the groundwork for a treaty abolishing nuclear weapons. Rebecca Johnson is executive director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy in England. This article appears in the February 2010 issue of eJournal USA, A World Free of Nuclear Weapons.

While the current nuclear weapons nonproliferation regime should be supported and strengthened, the existing Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) does not have the right mix of obligations and powers to bring about a world free of nuclear weapons.

Achieving that goal requires a universal nuclear weapons abolition treaty. As agreement on and ratification of such a treaty will not happen soon, the 2010 NPT Review Conference, scheduled for May in New York, should establish nuclear abolition as the objective of future nonproliferation efforts. The conference should also commit to the next interim steps on reducing the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines and the numbers in existing arsenals, while laying the groundwork to make the world free of nuclear weapons.

U.S. Can Lead Way

Much of the world reacted with relief and excitement when, in an April 2009 speech in Prague, President Barack Obama stated “with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world free of nuclear weapons.”

The president clearly understood the challenges he would face in achieving that goal. He addressed the need to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in national security strategies, to pursue further concrete disarmament steps, and to undertake a global effort on nuclear security, including strengthening the practical application of regulations to stop dangerous materials and technologies from falling into the hands of people that might want to use nuclear weapons to threaten or attack others.

The importance of the Prague speech lies in two core themes: 1) recognition that nonproliferation and disarmament become sustainable only when nuclear weapons lose (and are perceived to have lost) their military, political, and security value; and 2) the importance of civil society. “We are here today because enough people ignored the voices who told them that the world could not change,” Obama said. “We are here today because of the courage of those who stood up and took risks.”

If Obama can follow up with practical policies and measures to reduce both the perceived value and the numbers of nuclear weapons, the United States could lead other key states to break through the nuclear impasse.

NPT’s Mixed Record

The NPT (agreed 1968, came into force 1970), as extended and updated by the 1995 and 2000 review conferences, is the cornerstone of the nonproliferation regime born after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. It obligates non-nuclear states to forgo development of nuclear weapons and requires nuclear states to move toward disarmament. It also permits the transfer of nuclear technology to states pursuing nuclear energy programs for medical, energy, and other non-military purposes.

With 189 states as parties, the NPT has enormous normative influence, but its Cold War genesis has left it with weaknesses that make it difficult to strengthen the NPT’s structure and implement powers sufficiently to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and materials to governments and terrorists that are determined to have them.

Review conferences take place every five years, and the record is decidedly mixed. In 1990, the conference ended in deadlock after the United States refused to commit to negotiating a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (PDF, 8.3 MB) (CTBT), despite that objective being endorsed in the NPT. Subsequently, the exposure of clandestine nuclear programs in Iraq and North Korea revealed the inadequacy of NPT safeguards and other compliance mechanisms. As a consequence, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) developed the Additional Protocol to strengthen its inspection powers and supplement the safeguards required of non-nuclear weapon states.

By 1995, the United States was leading the way in multilateral negotiations on a CTBT in Geneva. In accordance with the original treaty, which set an initial 25-year duration for the NPT, the 1995 conference required a decision to be taken on whether and for how long to extend the treaty.

The tough diplomatic negotiations over four weeks resulted in the 1995 conference deciding to extend the NPT indefinitely after strengthening treaty review processes and adopting a number of principles and resolutions crafted “to move with determination towards the full realization and effective implementation” of the treaty provisions. Among these principles was the setting of universal adherence to the treaty as an urgent priority and a call for establishment of internationally recognized nuclear-free zones, “especially in regions of tension, such as in the Middle East.”

The disarmament section of the Principles and Objectives comprised three basic elements: conclusion of a CTBT, a treaty to cap the military production of fissile material such as plutonium and highly enriched uranium, and the “determined pursuit ... of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of eliminating those weapons.” CTBT negotiations concluded successfully with a treaty in 1996, but negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) failed to get under way.

The 2000 NPT Review Conference took place in even more contentious conditions. India and then Pakistan had conducted several nuclear explosions each in May 1998. In October 1999, the U.S. Senate declined to ratify the CTBT.

 

Residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2005 showed the NPT parties meeting in New York their support for nuclear nonproliferation.

Residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2005 showed the NPT parties meeting in New York their support for nuclear nonproliferation.

Despite these obstacles, a coalition of seven non-nuclear weapon states negotiated directly with the five declared nuclear weapon states on a program of action on nuclear disarmament that led the 2000 conference to consensus on the most substantial final document ever. Participants strengthened the language on nuclear disarmament, IAEA inspections, universal NPT adherence, and safety and security.

When NPT parties met again in May 2005, though, the review conference was unable to adopt any agreements at all. The United States repudiated its earlier disarmament commitments and wanted to focus only on noncompliance by countries such as Iran and North Korea. Non-nuclear weapon states criticized insufficient progress toward disarmament by the nuclear weapon states. The Arab countries wanted more progress towards achieving their objective to make the Middle East a zone free of nuclear and all weapons of mass destruction, while Iran refused to accept any criticism of its own nuclear program, which many feared could be used to produce nuclear weapons in the future. The differences proved too great to bridge.

Today’s Needs

For any chance of a successful review conference in 2010, the parties must not only heed warnings from past conferences but also rethink today’s requirements for achieving nuclear security, nonproliferation, and disarmament.

A number of signs suggest that the 2010 conference will meet with greater success than its immediate predecessor. The CTBT is unlikely to be a major stumbling block this time. More than 150 of the 180 signatory states now have ratified the test ban treaty. While it still lacks nine of the required ratifications to enter into force, both the United States and China say that they intend to pursue ratification and work to ensure that other countries do so as well. While the U.S. Senate rejected the CTBT in 1999, President Obama has pledged an aggressive new effort to win its approval.

A Preparatory Committee for the 2010 review conference has endorsed a number of measures, including:

• universal NPT participation;

• strengthened safeguards against proliferation, including enhanced inspections of nuclear facilities;

• guarantees of the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy as long as programs conform to nonproliferation requirements;

• commitments to improve the safety and security of national programs and the transporting of nuclear materials;

• support for negotiations on further nuclear weapon-free zones, with a specific eye on regional nonproliferation and disarmament in the Middle East;

• measures to address treaty withdrawal (to prevent others emulating North Korea);

• the importance of civil society engagement, including disarmament and nonproliferation education.

More fundamentally, 21st-century nuclear security and proliferation challenges require moving beyond the NPT. President Obama’s Prague speech reinforces the growing understanding that true security requires not just the reduction and management of nuclear arms but their elimination. The 2010 disarmament talks should aim to transform the Cold War nonproliferation regime into a nuclear abolition regime for security in the 21st century and beyond.

Leaders who want peace and security in a nuclear weapons-free world must lay the foundations now. They must render nuclear weapons less valuable by defining and enacting rigorous legal, technical, safety, and verification requirements. They must also create the ethical understandings, political commitments, cooperative international security arrangements, practical controls, and verification institutions necessary to make nations feel secure without nuclear weapons.

Another step is to stigmatize nuclear weapons as inhumane and unusable for everyone. Before the treaties prohibiting the production and possession of biological and chemical weapons were agreed (in 1972 and 1993, respectively), nations took the important first step of declaring that the use of such inhumane weapons would be considered a crime against humanity. If a similar step were taken now to ban the use of nuclear weapons, it would greatly strengthen nonproliferation and disarmament efforts.

Nuclear weapons abolition has been discussed in the United Nations for decades and promoted by a number of governments. In October 2008, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon outlined a five-point disarmament plan and suggested work begin on a framework of separate, mutually reinforcing instruments or “a nuclear weapons convention, backed by a strong system of verification, as has long been proposed at the United Nations.”

In 2010, generalized concerns and exhortations will not suffice. If that is all that the conference can achieve, then the ink will barely be dry before cracks in the nonproliferation regime begin to reappear and widen. Far better for nations to move boldly ahead to assure a future free from the threat or use of nuclear weapons.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.