The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

An Introduction to the 2010 NPT Review Conference 2010, By acronym institute director Rebecca Johnson

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The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is scheduled to hold its 8th Review Conference during 3-28 May in New York 2010.  All countries except India, Israel, and Pakistan have joined this Treaty, although in 2003 North Korea withdrew in order to develop nuclear weapons, which it demonstrated with nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

The NPT, which entered into force in 1970, deals with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and contains commitments on nonproliferation, safeguards, nuclear disarmament, nuclear energy and nuclear-weapons free zones.  Its first paragraph explained the reason why the NPT was negotiated and needed: “Considering the devastation that would be visited upon all mankind by a nuclear war and the consequent need to make every effort to avert the danger of such a war and to take measures to safeguard the security of peoples...”

The priorities identified during the 2007-09 review process, since the 2005 Review Conference failed so abysmally are:

• making the treaty universal –189 states are members, but not India, Israel, Pakistan or North Korea;
• nuclear disarmament, with most states emphasising the need to update and reaffirm the 13-steps agreed by the 2000 Review Conference, although a growing number now support laying the groundwork for future negotiations on a universal nuclear weapons convention;
• persuading more non-nuclear countries to adhere to the Additional Protocol to strengthen safeguards and prevent proliferation;
• promoting nuclear energy for non-military purposes, in accordance with Article IV;
• safety and security for nuclear materials and programmes;
• regional non-proliferation and disarmament, particularly the 1995 Resolution on the Middle East that was agreed in 1995;
• measures to deter countries from emulating North Korea and withdrawing from the NPT to use their civilian nuclear programmes to make nuclear weapons;
• institutional measures to implement decisions and strengthen the regime; and
• enhancing the role of civil society, including support for disarmament and non-proliferation education. 

These will be the issues debated in three main committees (open to NGOs). It is expected that three subsidiary bodies will be established, to address practical disarmament steps and security assurances, regional issues including the Middle East, and withdrawal from the treaty.

The review process may not have succeeded in forwarding agreed recommendations on these difficult challenges, but it has accentuated the degree to which the NPT, as currently interpreted and implemented, lacks the institutional rules, practices and powers to deal effectively with proliferation challenges.

When the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced its withdrawal in 2003, there was no role for NPT parties, and the Security Council appeared paralyzed. Unable even to address whether Article X could be legitimately evoked for withdrawal by a state that was already being investigated for noncompliance, the NPT meetings were reduced to having the Chair take custody of DPRK’s name plate to avoid debate and decision on whether to classify that country as a non-party or a noncompliant party that is temporarily not being seated.  That solution might have been expedient at the time, but its avoidance of the compliance questions surrounding DPRK’s withdrawal made the NPT appear weak and ridiculous.

With concerns fuelled by Iran’s uranium enrichment programme and suspicions that the recent burst of interest in building nuclear energy facilities has less to do with wanting to reduce carbon emissions and more to do with countries hedging their bets, the nonproliferation regime in 2010 has to deal with many problems that the treaty is ill-equipped to address.  A growing number of states parties believe that the NPT’s institutional deficit should be addressed, with different proposals such as establishing a standing secretariat, replacing the current review process with short, annual meetings of states parties with decision-making powers and the ability to convene special sessions to address emergencies such as a state party announcing its intention to withdraw from the treaty, as North Korea did in 2003, or other kinds of actions contrary to a state party’s obligations under the treaty.  In this regard, a number of states argue that nuclear fuel facilities should now be multinationalised to minimise the risk of countries using national facilities or materials obtained under Article IV for nuclear weapons programmes in violation of the NPT.

Since the 2005 Review Conference failed, the May 2000 NPT Review Conference was the last to achieve a substantive success. The May 2000 final document incorporated the famous “thirteen practical steps on disarmament” that were negotiated and agreed following proposals from the New Agenda Coalition of seven non-nuclear-weapon states (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden).  This NPT disarmament plan of action has not been fulfilled and needs now to be reformulated to take into account recent developments, integrating necessary principles, objectives and incremental steps with the comprehensive objective of a nuclear-free world that is now on the agenda, supported by many governments.

Among the most important of these new developments was the call by President Barack Obama in Prague (April 2009) to create the “peace and security of a world free of nuclear weapons” and the special session of the UN Security Council chaired by President Obama on 24 September 2009, which adopted Resolution 1887 on nuclear security and nonproliferation. This stated in its opening paragraph: “Resolving to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons, in accordance with the goals of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)...”   However, a large number of countries from the Movement of Non-Aligned States (NAM) have expressed concern that Resolution 1887 is unbalanced because its operative paragraphs reinforce obligations and controls on the non-nuclear states without entailing any more concrete steps on disarmament.  Though Resolution 1887 may represent some aspirations or commitments that will be helpful for facilitating agreements in the 2010 Review Conference, the NAM has warned that they expect much more on nuclear disarmament in May.

One way forward that is attracting growing support is the practical five point plan put forward in October 2008 by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.  He recommended progress to be made on the long-held objectives of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a fissile material production ban, further deep reductions in existing arsenals and better uptake on the IAEA Additional Protocol.  To give coherence and effectiveness to these steps,  the Secretary-General recommended negotiating a framework of mutually reinforcing instruments or “a nuclear-weapons convention, backed by a strong system of verification, as has long been proposed at the United Nations”.  

Traditionally, the success of a review conference has been determined by whether or not a final document is able to be adopted by consensus. Consistent with the rules of procedure and precedents set by the review conferences of 1985 and 1995, however, there are more options available for a review conference to adopt forward-looking commitments and decisions.  In reviewing nuclear-weapons-related developments since 2000, there is little disagreement that the assessment must be more negative than positive. However, if states parties likely to be criticised, such as the nuclear weapon states and Iran, veto critical assessments, it would be better to reflect the contrasting views, as was done for a contentious issue in 1985, rather than to delete or dilute the concerns for the sake of getting consensus on every sentence.  Similarly, if some states use the tactics of linkage or ‘all-or-nothing’ to obstruct the adoption of agreements on issues that are overwhelmingly supported, the Review Conference President, Ambassador Libran Cabactulan of the Philippines, could consider emulating the President of the 1995 Conference, Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala, who found a way to get three important decisions and a resolution adopted without a vote, despite deadlock in Main Committee I and lack of consensus on a final document.  The decisions were adopted without a vote in 1995 on the basis that the Conference recognised that a majority existed in support of specific decisions. The resolution on the Middle East was likewise adopted as a resolution on a specific regional issue regarded as of majority importance for the sustainability of the NPT and nuclear non-proliferation. 

The rules for the NPT are not the same as for the Conference on Disarmament. The CD has rules of procedure requiring consensus for all decisions, including the agenda and programme of work, and so is unable to move forward without total consensus. The NPT rules are more practical. Recognising that consensus is desirable, the NPT rules require only that consensus must be actively worked for; if failing to achieve consensus, there is an option for the Review Conference to vote in the event of immovable and unresolvable obstructions. The knowledge that this option exists may be helpful in facilitating consensus, as it was in 1995!

With the positive and negative challenges of our complex post cold war world come both crises and opportunities that were not anticipated in 1968. The challenge for NPT states parties in 2010 is not only to debate the serious issues relating to nonproliferation, nuclear disarmament and the nuclear fuel cycle, but to come up with substantive and practical agreements on how to take these forward and to facilitate and ensure compliance with obligations and agreements that are undertaken. 

The following elements were drafted by Rebecca Johnson and are being put forward following discussions with a number of governments and experts, including the Middle Powers Initiative (MPI).  Though they differ in some key respects from the summary in the January 2010 Briefing Paper from MPI, they build on the three themes and excellent analysis by John Burroughs in that MPI Briefing Paper.

Taking into account recent developments, it is more necessary than ever to give priority to reducing the role of nuclear weapons in security policies and doctrines.  Marginalising the use and threat of nuclear weapons in international relations and military doctrines and making progress towards the elimination and prohibition of nuclear weapons are indispensable requirements both for tackling the drivers of proliferation and for strengthening the tools for nuclear security.

The step by step agreements undertaken since the end of the Cold War have reduced the major arsenals, but have done little to diminish the core drivers that fuel proliferation and insecurity.  To sustain the security imperative of nonproliferation in the 21st century, more attention must be paid to delegitimising and devaluing nuclear weapons as preparatory steps towards nuclear abolition. This will be neither quick nor easy, but nonproliferation will not be sustainable in the future without real commitments on disarmament and the pursuit of the total abolition of nuclear weapons for everyone.  A verifiable nuclear weapons convention is technically, legally and politically feasible.  If underpinned by an early agreement to make  the use of nuclear weapons a crime against humanity, the process of bringing states together to work towards a coherent security architecture for the universal abolition of nuclear weapons can reinforce nonproliferation and  facilitate progress on long-sought but obstructed steps such as the CTBT and fissile materials cut-off.

Proposed Elements for an Action Plan on Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation for the 2010 NPT Review Conference

Reducing the Role of Nuclear Weapons

• reaffirm commitments to diminish the role of nuclear weapons in security policies;
• affirm that, pending their total elimination, the sole purpose for nuclear weapons is to deter the use of nuclear weapons;
• reaffirm commitments to lower the operational status of nuclear forces and implement practical steps to take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger, high alert and continuous deployment configurations;
• end deployments of nuclear weapons outside the territory of possessor states;
• phase out extended nuclear deterrence and strengthen non-nuclear deterrence approaches and regional cooperative security mechanisms;
• universalise positive and negative security assurances, extending the legally binding obligations on all nations and individuals not to use nuclear weapons, to come to the aid of people and countries threatened or attacked with nuclear weapons, and to hold perpetrators and their suppliers to account under international law;
• delegitimise nuclear reliance and reinforce the nonproliferation regime by declaring the use of nuclear weapons a crime against humanity.

The Disarmament Process

• reaffirm the NPT unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of nuclear arsenals;
• support US-Russian negotiations and agreements on bilateral deep reductions to follow-on from START, and encourage all nuclear-armed states to undertake unilateral reductions in their respective arsenals, with a view to commencing mutual, plurilateral disarmament negotiations;
• reaffirm the principle of irreversibility, with commitments by the states with nuclear weapons not to increase or modernize their nuclear capabilities;
• reaffirm the principles of transparency, verification and accountability in fulfilling NPT obligations and agreements;
• support the establishment of a comprehensive, UN-based accounting system covering size of nuclear arsenals, nuclear weapon delivery systems, fissile material stockpiles, and spending on nuclear forces;
• commit to commencing preparatory work leading to negotiations on a universal convention or framework of instruments for the sustainable, verifiable and enforceable abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide.

Non-Proliferation, Security and Creating the Conditions for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

• support ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) by the remaining Article XIV states without conditions, leading to entry into force no later than 2015, and call for nuclear test sites to be dismantled and environmentally cleaned up;
• consider ways and means to make progress on the NPT commitment of a ban on the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes, taking into account the need to cap, reduce and ultimaterly eliminate stockpiles of high-enriched uranium and plutonium;
• support initiatives to promote a zone free of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons in the Middle East;
• explore practical initiatives to provide safe and secure multinational alternatives to national fuel cycle facilities, and join and support the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA);
• pursue practical initiatives to improve NPT governance and accountability;
• encourage universalisation of the IAEA Additional Protocol, in conformity with Article III of the NPT, and accept this inspections standard as a condition of nuclear supply.

Developed by Dr Rebecca Johnson, building on Dr John Burroughs’ Briefing Paper for the Middle Powers Initiative

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