Originally published on the CGS blog on May 20, 2015.
In my last blog, I outlined the framework of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the role of the Review Conferences. Here I will deal first with the evolution of the NPT Reviews and then with possible avenues for future action.
Every five years, the NPT Review Conferences provide an opportunity for governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to evaluate progress in disarmament among the nuclear-weapon States and to sound a warning about tension areas, such as the Middle East, the two Koreas, and India-Pakistan relations. The hope of governments participating in the Review is to seek consensus on a “Final Document” embodying agreed statements of policy and recommendations for action. It has also become practice to measure the success of each Review Conference according to whether or not it was able to reach agreement on such a final statement.
The First Review in 1975 had great difficulty in drafting a consensus statement. The drafting committee had failed to reach agreement, and the Review was “saved” by the last-day dynamic efforts of the President of the Conference, Inga Thorsson of Sweden, who largely wrote and then presented a “President’s Statement” accepted by the reluctant participants.
In 1980, the Second Review Conference was unable to agree to a Final Document, despite three extra days and all-night meetings. From 1975 to 1980, negotiations on nuclear arms control between the US and the USSR had seen a lack of progress or results. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in the last days of December 1979 made any arms control agreement even less likely, especially on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which was the focus of efforts at the time.
The basic position of the most active of non-nuclear States was that the NPT only stopped the dissemination of nuclear weapons, but did not curb the continued manufacture, stockpiling or sophistication of weapons by the existing nuclear States − what became known as the difference between horizontal and vertical proliferation.
The Third Review Conference was held in Geneva in 1985. Since the 1980 Review had failed to reach a consensus, there was real pressure not to have two “failures” in a row. NGOs were particularly active in the period just prior to the conference, setting out propositions, and holding talks with the most “NGO-friendly” ambassadors. There had been no progress in nuclear arms control since 1980. Moreover, the stagnation of the world nuclear energy markets had dashed the hopes of many developing countries that accession to the NPT would bring them the benefits of nuclear energy. Originally, the NPT was to have three pillars: disarmament, non-proliferation, and access to nuclear energy and technology for peaceful uses.
In 1986, the disastrous accident at Chernobyl indicated that Soviet nuclear-energy technology was as unsafe as the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Finally, Fukushima in Japan has ruled out prospects for nuclear energy. All that is left is some unspectacular nuclear technology in medicine, agriculture, and the testing of materials.
A day before the end of the 1985 Review, I met the President, Mohamed Shaker, and because much of the negotiations are closed to NGO representatives, I asked him how things were going. He replied “Fine,” and said not to worry. The next day, Middle East issues almost destroyed the consensus. Iran demanded that its condemnation of the Iraqi attacks on the Bushehr nuclear reactor under construction be entered into the final document. Iraq responded by threatening to withdraw its support of the document.
The unexpected issue, which reached its climax around 3 AM, was being discussed in the President’s office just behind the meeting hall. During this time everyone stayed in the hall, not knowing when the discussions would end. I spent much of the time talking with the Ambassador of Yugoslavia, who had played a leading role as spokesman for the Non-Aligned Movement. He said that he would not call for a vote so as not to destroy the consensus, but as there is always an occasion to make last comments after the Final Document is accepted, he had a 23-page speech of observations on why the Final Document was inadequate and ended by saying that had there been a vote, he would have voted no.
At nearly 6 AM, the Conference started its final round. Iran agreed to a compromise. Its statement would be printed in an annex to the Final Document, but not in the document itself. With that, the Final Document of 1985 was accepted. The President said that since everyone had been up for at least 24 hours, he would forego the customary speeches thanking the President for his efforts.
I passed the Yugoslav Ambassador in the parking lot as we were leaving and asked, “And the 23 page speech?”
He replied, “It will go down in history as one of the great speeches never made.”
The 1990 Review was the last held in Geneva and the last in which I participated directly. By 1990, the USSR was nearing its collapse, and the Eastern European group was more independent of Soviet views than in the past. The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan had calmed some of the East-West tensions. The difficulties reaching consensus were obvious from the start with the early statement of Yugoslavia on behalf of the Non-Aligned. The criticisms and demands from the 23-page 1985 speech were no doubt dusted off and remade, stressing the importance of the NPT as a “legally binding instrument which confirms the urgency of the cessation of the nuclear arms race and of nuclear disarmament.” The emphasis was on the concept of “legally binding” and the fact that the nuclear-weapon States were not living up to Article VI by negotiating disarmament, but in fact continuing the race unabatedly with qualitative improvements of nuclear weapons.
However, the main issue in 1990 was whether some nuclear States had breached their obligation not to help any non-nuclear State acquire weapons, particularly the US and the UK to Israel. The potential nuclear ambitions of North Korea, Iraq and Libya were also on the minds of delegates, but only Israel was named in a statement circulated by Egypt on the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.
Since 1990, the creation of a Middle East nuclear-weapon free zone has been the heart of the NPT Review. There has been no progress since 1990, and there is a feeling among some governments that the Review is not the most appropriate place to discuss this issue; at the 1995 Review, it was recommended that a separate conference be organized to deal with it. Such a conference has yet to be held.
In 1990, Mexican Ambassador Miguel Marin-Bosch led the charge on the failure of the nuclear-weapon States to deal in good faith with nuclear disarmament, or even with partial arms control steps. In the 1975 Review, I had worked closely with Marin-Bosch, who was the link between NGO representatives and Ambassador Alfonso Garcia Robles. We would exchange whatever information we gathered in the hallways. Both Garcia Robles and Marin-Bosch had free hands at the Reviews because few people in Mexico cared about NPT issues, even in the Foreign Ministry; meanwhile, US negotiators had to keep an eye on what the State Department wanted, how Congress might react, and what the White House was thinking. To get an agreement on a consensus statement, the US delegation was willing to make compromises.
In past Reviews, Garcia Robles was willing to go to the brink to get diplomatic concessions, but then step back so consensus could be reached. Marin-Bosch was not so polite, considering that the prospects for genuine disarmament were growing worse and could not be modified by changes in a written document. The Review went on into the weekend, but the President of the Review had to bring the Conference to a close without a Final Document.
In 1995, the Review Conference, moving to the UN in New York, was divided—the Review as usual and a separate section on the continuation of the treaty. The NPT had originally been designed for 25 years. In 1995, it was decided to continue the treaty “indefinitely and unconditionally,” keeping the five-year Reviews. The Review segment of the Conference was again unable to reach a consensus statement.
Since 1995, the Reviews have followed the same pattern. The key issue is a possible nuclear-weapon free zone in the Middle East. No progress has been made on this, though tensions and armed violence in the region have continued. There have been no disarmament negotiations among the nuclear-weapon States. The UN disarmament body is in a dormant phase, having unofficially closed up shop. Thus, issues raised in the NPT Reviews but not acted upon cannot be continued in a more permanent UN disarmament body. There are usually yearly resolutions in the UN General Assembly, but these do not lead to negotiations. In light of this lack of progress within the UN, there have been two related proposals to advance matters through a concentration on values and world law rather than geostrategic considerations.
One avenue is to view nuclear weapon use through a humanitarian lens. There have been a number of governmental conferences, first in Oslo and most recently in Vienna to stress that setting off nuclear weapons would violate the core values of humanitarian law. Personally, I think that although nuclear weapons have been “improved” since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the evidence of their destructiveness is clear. How we deal with the evidence is the real question. In the key countries, there is an abundance of information, but a paucity of ideas.
The second approach is to negotiate a Convention to render nuclear weapons “illegitimate,” somewhat along the lines of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban and the Convention on Cluster Munitions. A number of States, supported by NGOs, are seeking to delegitimize nuclear weapons by prohibiting their use and even possession under international law based on their indiscriminate effects. This approach draws on the 1996 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice as well as international human rights law, as use of nuclear weapons would infringe on the inalienable right to life. The UN General Assembly has passed resolutions along the same lines, and the idea will no doubt be highlighted during this year’s Review.
Such a Nuclear Weapons Convention would embody the universal condemnation of nuclear weapons by the emerging world society and so become part of world law. The hope is that the convention would be an important step toward the abolition of nuclear weapons, combining both the technical aspect of disarmament with the broader world law value of the right to life.
After the Review Conference, I will try to see how ideas have developed and what can be useful for next steps.
