The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

NPT PrepCom 2008

2008 NPT PrepCom: Decisions taken, Security Assurances debated

May 6, 2008

Rebecca Johnson

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The NPT PrepCom in Geneva today took six important decisions to facilitate the organizing and holding of its third meeting in 2009 and the eighth NPT Review Conference in 2010. Towards the end of the afternoon (May 6), the Chair of the PrepCom, Ambassador Volodyrmyr Yelchenko read out each of the proposals and, hearing no objections, brought his gavel down on adoption of the decisions. The seats behind some nameplates appeared to have been vacated, but whether this was due to other pressing engagements or the exercise of 'diplomatic absence' I could not possibly say.

The decisions came after the Chair had received assurances in his consultations with key players, while the PrepCom cluster debates chewed their way through more than 50 statements and a higher rate of 'rights to reply' than usual, most of which seemed to relate to Iran and Syria. However, there was an illuminating spat late on Monday when first Russia and then China exercised their right of reply to take issue with how a UK statement had characterised the talks in London on the Middle East, including the P5+1 discussions on Iran and the Quartet on the peace process.

Most of Monday and part of Tuesday were spent on statements about IAEA safeguards, the Additional Protocol, nuclear weapon free zones, regional issues and the Middle East. The PrepCom has also moved swiftly into Cluster 3, which covers issues related to Article IV (nuclear energy), including nuclear fuel cycle safety and security, as well as proposals for multinational alternatives to national programmes for uranium enrichment and plutonium separation.

This update from the Acronym Institute will cover the decisions taken today and the issue of security assurances, now that I have managed to get hold of most of the relevant statements on this.

Decisions on organisation, funding, dates and venue for future meetings

In accordance with the decisions adopted today, the PrepCom has decided that the Third PrepCom will be held in New York from May 4 to May 15, 2009, and be chaired by Ambassador Boniface Guwa Chidyausiki of Zimbabwe. It has also been decided that the Eighth Review Conference of the NPT will be held in New York from April 26 to May 21, 2010. The Chair for the Review Conference has not yet been nominated. The post traditionally goes to a NAM state and by the processes of regional rotation is likely to come from the Asia-Pacific region.

In view of visa concerns raised by some NAM countries, including Iran, Syria and Venezuela, the Chair gave an accompanying statement on the record. He acknowledged that concerns have been expressed regarding the issuing of visas, and said that he had held consultations with representatives from the host countries who assured him of their intention to facilitate access in accordance with normal diplomatic procedures.

The PrepCom also agreed to the in-principle appointment of the Secretary-General for the Review Conference, who will be a senior official of the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs. The formal nomination will be made by the UN Secretary-General in consultation with PrepCom members, and the official would then be authorised organize for the Review Conference in the expectation of the nomination being formally confirmed by the 2010 Conference on the first day.

The other two decisions concerned the funding of NPT meetings. The draft text provided in earlier Acronym reports was revised after consultation. In effect, however, the Committee agreed in the first of these "that assessed and outstanding dues must be paid in proper time". To facilitate this (and enable some pressure to be brought to bear on late payers through naming and shaming - though it would never be put like that in diplomatic circles), the Committee asked the UN to provide a financial report, which will be circulated as an official document.

The Chair prefaced the taking of the financial decisions by recalling that NPT meeting costs had to be borne by the members of the NPT and that work could be undertaken by the Secretariat only if sufficient finances have been provided. He gave a detailed history of the problems ODA had in getting states to pay their dues to enable the 2008 PrepCom to take place. Apparently not all the PrepCom members had paid outstanding and assessed dues in advance of this PrepCom; though the UN allowed its Services to support the PrepCom it made it clear that this will not be allowed in the future if significant funding from states is still outstanding.

Security Assurances

Introduction, backstory and terms

When the NPT was being negotiated in the 1960s, some states made the not unreasonable request that if they were expected to give up the option of developing such powerful strategic weapons, they should not be subjected to threats or attacks utilizing nuclear arms. Hence they called for the treaty to include a provision whereby the nuclear weapon states (NWS) would guarantee not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against countries that joined the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states (NWS). This promise not to attack became known as 'negative security assurances' (NSA). In addition, there were requests for support and assistance in the event that a NNWS was threatened or attacked with nuclear weapons - so-called 'positive security assurances' (PSA).

In view of their cold war nuclear doctrines, the major NWS refused to have binding security guarantees put into the treaty text, but carried through the UN Security Council a resolution promising immediate assistance to any NPT party that was threatened or attacked with nuclear weapons. This positive security assurance became UNSCR 255 (1968). Following this, in 1978 and then 1982, the NWS gave unilateral negative security assurances to NNWS, with exemptions or conditions (for some) relating to states in nuclear alliances. In the month leading up to the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, the five NWS again provided unilateral security assurances, unconditional only in the case of China. These were then noted in a further UNSC resolution 985 (adopted April 11, 1995). Both the 1995 and 2000 Review Conferences affirmed the role of the NPT with regard to security assurances, but didn't manage to get much further.

Few delegations addressed security assurances at the 2008 NPT PrepCom directly. Most did so either in the context of nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZ) or in relation to concerns about nuclear doctrines that risked lowering the threshold on the use of nuclear weapons. These include deterrence concepts that hold open the threat to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively if a NWS or its allies, military forces or "vital interests" were considered to be threatened by an attacker using non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction (biological, chemical or even, if appears from some doctrines, overwhelming conventional forces).

Security assurances have long been an important issue on the NAM agenda, though it is usual to preface the debate by underscoring that the only sure way to prevent the threat or use of nuclear weapons is to ensure their total elimination and prohibition. Pending the total elimination of nuclear arms, the NAM "reiterates that efforts to conclude a universal, unconditional and legally binding instrument on security assurances to non-nuclear weapon states should be pursued as a matter of priority."

However - and this PrepCom was no exception - the statements from both sides have for some time appeared to be political ritual. The NWS seldom move beyond affirming UN Security Council resolution 984 (1995) and recognizing the security assurances offered by the NWS in protocols to nuclear weapon free zones, while the NAM repeats its traditional calls for further work or multilateral negotiations on a legally binding instrument providing unconditional security guarantees to all NNWS. In this case, as it had done before the 2005 PrepCom the NAM also called for a subsidiary body on security assurances at the 2010 Review Conference.

Only about ten statements made any explicit reference to security assurances other than in the context of NWFZs. Arguing that "it is the legitimate right of states that have given up the nuclear-weapon option to receive security assurances," Indonesia on behalf of the NAM called for the 2010 Review Conference to "focus substantially on this crucial issue". Arguing that "legally binding security assurances within the context of the treaty would provide an essential benefit to the States parties and facilitate further progress in both nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation," the NAM called for a subsidiary body on security assurances to be established. There was, however, a slight variation on the ritual wording when the NAM statement said that in their "collective view, the only assurance against the dangers posed by nuclear weapons against human civilisation remains general and complete disarmament".

South Africa made clear that it considers security assurances to be logically and politically part of the NPT agreement under which states voluntarily agreed to forego the option of developing their own weapons, and that "the negotiation of legally binding security assurances should... take place under the NPT umbrella within the context of the strengthened review process of the treaty". Referring to the "vulnerability" concerns of NNWS, South Africa endorsed the NAM position and quoted from the July 1996 ICJ Advisory Opinion which deemed that "a threat or use of force by means of nuclear weapons that is contrary to Article II, paragraph iv of the United Nations Charter, and that fails to meet all the requirements of Article 51, is unlawful." Having put forward a detailed working paper on security assurances to the NPT PrepCom in 2003, South Africa argued that if the NWS have already granted security assurances, as some claim, "it would appear logical that they should not object to codifying such assurances in a legally binding instrument".

Indonesia subsequently gave a statement from its national perspective in which it emphasized that the NSAs extended through NWFZs were only a "partial solution", since not all NNWS were covered by the existing NWFZ treaties and none of the NWS was party to all of them. Where the NAM statement seemed clear that NSAs should be addressed in the NPT context, Indonesia appeared to lean towards the CD, saying that the proposed decision by the CD's presidents this year (CD/1840) could "be used as a good start to deal with NSAs in a more transparent and comprehensive manner in the framework of Ambassador-5 proposal".

This ambivalence about where to address the issue is just one of the complications. While some states focus on addressing NSA in the NPT context, with a view, for example, to negotiating a protocol or agreement to be attached to the NPT, others support NSA negotiations commencing in the Conference on Disarmament (CD). The collective position of the NAM is for work in the NPT context. This was reiterated by Mexico on behalf of Latin American and Caribbean states and is supported by a number of western countries. Canada, for example, noted that "negative security assurances would then rightly become a benefit of Treaty membership and there would be no need to categorize states that are not party to the NPT."

There were also differences among the NWS, three of which preferred to discuss security assurances in the context only of the NWFZs and the assurances they had provided in 1995. The UK, for example, argued that further progress made on NWFZs would provide "on a credible regional basis, the internationally binding legal instruments on negative security assurances which many are looking for". China, which is the only NWS to offer unconditional "no use of nuclear weapons against NNWS" security assurances to all NNWS together with a declaratory pledge of no first use of nuclear weapons would consider a possible agreement or protocol in the context of the CD. By contrast, Russia, argued that the CD was "best placed to develop a global arrangement on negative security assurances" and gave its support for establishment of an ad hoc Committee on Negative Security Assurances in the CD "with a negotiating mandate".

In fact, the CD is in no position to take forward such negotiations, unlike the fissban which has a CD negotiating mandate (and still can't get negotiations underway). Moreover, CD membership includes the "D-3" de facto, non-NPT, nuclear armed states - are these to be accorded NWS status and asked to give security assurances to NNWS (which would be anathema to many NPT members) or would they themselves, despite not being NNWS, have a right to be accorded security assurances from the P-5 NWS? Hence, the issue becomes bogged down and ritualised, which is where it lies until resurrected at successive NPT meetings.

Few outside the NAM gave emphasis - or even a paragraph - to security assurances, Japan was characteristic of this minimalist approach, appreciating the reaffirmation by the NWS of the NSAs "to the levels" noted in UNSC resolution 984 (1995) and regarding NSAs in the context of regional NWFZs as a "practical and realistic step" for their effectiveness, without going further.

For a non-NAM state, Ukraine gave unusually substantive attention to this issue, even offering to convene an "International Conference" on security assurances under the auspices of the UN if it finds support from NPT delegations. Acknowledging that "some of the states that possess nuclear weapons remain outside the global regime of nuclear nonproliferation", Ukraine sought to include them as it identified four key elements that a legally binding instrument on security assurances should include:

• an obligation for states that possess nuclear weapons to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any non-nuclear states, to respect their sovereignty and existing borders;
• an obligation for states that possess nuclear weapons to refrain from coercive political, economic and other forms of pressure on NNWS;
• an obligation for providing assistance to any state that became a victim of an act of aggression or an object of threat of aggression with use of nuclear weapons; and
• provisions that would stipulate the responsibilities of a state possessor of nuclear weapons in the event that it violated these obligations;
• established procedures for reacting to cases of such violation or impingement on sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of NNWS with the use of nuclear weapons.

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© 2008 The Acronym Institute.