The World's Non-Proliferation Regime in Time

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by George Bunn

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  1. The regime includes suggestions for standards and financial assistance plus requirements for physical protection of nuclear material from theft by terrorists or others. These efforts range from the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, to the technical assistance provided by the IAEA and some countries, to the financial assistance offered by the G-8 and some other IAEA members to countries that need assistance in order to provide better security for nuclear material in their possession, to an April 2004 Security Council resolution that requires countries having nuclear materials to protect them in various ways from being acquired by "non-State actors" such as terrorists. In addition, though with a smaller current membership than these multilateral regimes, the Proliferation Security Initiative is a cooperative arrangement calling for border, airport and ship inspections of shipments to prevent the illegal transport of nuclear weapons, materials or technology.


  2. The regime includes prohibitions on testing such as the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty and the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The first prohibits nuclear weapons tests everywhere but underground, and the second will prohibit them even underground if it goes into force. For the large majority of NPT members not having nuclear weapons, these treaties contribute to non-proliferation not just by inhibiting testing but by reducing the discrimination inherent in the NPT between those permitted to have nuclear weapons and those not so permitted. These members see an agreement to stop testing by the P-5 as a step of compliance by the P-5 with their NPT promise to cease the nuclear arms race, reduce their nuclear weapons and move toward nuclear disarmament.


  3. The regime includes "no-first-use promises" by the P-5 to other NPT members, usually called "negative security assurances." All of the P-5 but China have stated some exceptions to these promises. (The US exception permits use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear-weapon NPT member if it attacks another non-weapon NPT member while the attacker is in alliance with a State having nuclear weapons. Recently, the United States asserted another exception by saying it might use nuclear weapons to counter a biological or chemical attack.) These promises were meant to help reassure NPT members without nuclear weapons that they did not need to acquire them because the P-5 would not use nuclear weapons against them.


  4. The regime includes promises by the P-5 that some protection will be provided to other NPT members in the event of a threat of attack, promises called "positive security assurances." The P-5 have promised to seek immediate UN Security Council orders providing security assistance to any NPT member not having nuclear weapons if it is threatened with attack by another nation's nuclear weapons. For allies of some of the P-5, allies not having nuclear weapons, there are stronger assurances: promises of military help if an ally is attacked or threatened with attack, promises made, for example, to NATO allies. Though often not thought of as elements of the non-proliferation regime, these alliances may well be essential to keeping countries such as Germany, Italy, Japan and South Korea from seeking nuclear weapons.


  5. The regime includes various multilateral institutions such as the IAEA, the UN Security Council, the periodic NPT Review Conferences, and the UN General Assembly First Committee which considers non-proliferation recommendations for General Assembly adoption.


  6. An important but not sufficiently effective element of the regime is the Nuclear Suppliers' Group. It has long had a recommendation against export of uranium enrichment and plutonium separation technology-unless the recipient is a facility owned and operated by a bilateral or other international organization in which operating experts from one country can watch those from another to assure that the plutonium or enriched uranium produced by the technology is not used to make nuclear weapons.


Mohamed ElBaradei has recommended a much stronger requirement, and the G-8 agreed in June of 2004 not to export any uranium enrichment or plutonium separation technology for a year. However, gaining widespread agreement to deny the technology useful for enriching uranium and separating plutonium to any country not now having it will not be easy. The NPT recognized an "inalienable right" to develop and use nuclear energy "for peaceful purposes without discrimination," even for NPT members that had agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons, so long as they did not make nuclear weapons. The enrichment and separation technologies can be used for making weapons as well as for fueling peaceful nuclear reactors. And, some NPT members not having nuclear weapons have argued that they have an "inalienable right" to acquire these technologies. How this problem will be solved is not yet clear, but it must be if the non-proliferation regime is to survive. The regime is seriously challenged today. It needs strengthening-including this and other steps if it is to continue to be effective.

George Bunn helped negotiate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and later became US ambassador to the Geneva Disarmament Conference. He has also taught at the US Naval War College and the University of Wisconsin Law School, and served as Dean of that law school. During his distinguished career, which he concluded in 2004, he worked for the US Atomic Energy Commission, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a major Washington law firm, the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation.

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