Reframing the Debate
Against Nuclear Weapons

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by Rhianna Tyson

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Opportunities at Hand

One of the goals of the Review Conference, then, should be to utilize the opportunity to reframe nuclear weapons to ultimately push us toward a viable prohibition regime. The first step is to reassert the inalienable relationship between disarmament and non-proliferation; this must remain one of the most important goals.

In the absence of a total prohibition regime, the Review Conference should seek to ensure "tit for tat" measures that appease both the disarmament advocates and the non-proliferation champions.

Non-nuclear weapon States should engage in broad consultations amongst themselves, with a view to reach consensus on a variety of strategic non-proliferation measures. Such unified NNWS support would demonstrate good faith commitments to the non-proliferation goals of the NPT and would also provide incentive and pressure on the NWS to offer their own creative offers of disarmament.

There already exist a range of important and potentially effective non-proliferation measures that continue to amass support. The support for the additional protocol to IAEA safeguards agreements as a condition to Article IV, for example, has grown exponentially since the idea was first floated years ago. All NPT States should also heed the advice of the Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, which asserted that, "Multilayered action is required. The first layer of an effective strategy to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological weapons should feature global instruments that reduce the demand for them. The second layer should contain global instruments that operate on the supply side - to limit the capacity of both States and non-State actors to acquire weapons and the materials and expertise needed to build them. The third layer must consist of Security Council enforcement activity underpinned by credible, shared information and analysis. The fourth layer must comprise national and international civilian and public health defence."

Meanwhile, NWS should be prepared to submit national plans on disarmament to the Review Conference. These national plans would demonstrate the "good faith" efforts to "unequivocal(ly) undertak(e) to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals," as agreed upon in Step 6 of the 13 Steps. Experts such as Dr. Patricia Lewis, Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, has already put forth this proposal at the 59th session of the First Committee, and NGOs have incorporated this call in a new, global abolition campaign entitled "Dare To Plan."

National plans would outline the conditions that must be met in order for them to start dismantling their arsenals in an irreversible manner. Israel, for instance, while a non-signatory to the NPT, has offered several times that peace treaties with its neighbors could serve as an invaluable impetus to reining them into the NPT family. France and the UK often maintain that significant reductions from Russia and the US must be a precursor to further cuts in their own arsenals.

The national plans would then also outline what unilateral steps they would take after these conditions were met, replete with timeframes and milestones. How long would it take each government to de-alert all nuclear weapons? What steps would have to be taken prior to and during the dismantlement process? What are their plans for the remaining fissile materials and what kind of assistance, if any, would be necessary in order for them to fulfill their plans?

India, another non-NPT State, has already devised such a national plan for disarmament under the Rajiv Gandhi administration, which the current Congress government is seeking to purportedly update and revise.

Such plans would not only be a welcome demonstration of their commitment to Article VI; they would also facilitate a greater working relationship with the civil society community of experts, technicians, scientists and security analysts, who can offer insight and analysis and help them to refine and execute their plans when the time is right. Grassroots NGOs would also be offered food-for-thought, a platform around which they could mobilize public support and launch outreach and educational initiatives to promote the goals and objectives of disarmament in a human security framework.

A Choice of Futures

The world's governments soon will review the oft-cited "cornerstone of the disarmament regime." If the 2005 NPT Review Conference is allowed to dissipate into a prostrated, ineffective talk shop, polarized by diverging, narrow concepts of national security, they will ensure security for no one. All States and citizen groups must work to reinstate the primacy of the grand bargain: non-proliferation in exchange for disarmament. They must not pit one of the twin goals against the other; rather, they should utilize the opportunity to engage with civil society, high-level governmental representatives and each other in order to ostracize the nuclear weapons, rather than those who seek them, as the threat to global security that they are. Fulfilling this potential will take concerted effort from all, most especially from those already in possession of these deadly arsenals.

As Dr. Ron McCoy, President of the Nobel prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, has stated on behalf of more than 70 NGOs, "When we ask you to consider the human implications of the choice between proliferation and non-proliferation, between disarmament and a perpetual enslavement to nuclear weapons, we are really presenting you with the choice between two futures. Only one of these futures is acceptable or worth pursuing. The NPT will only be an effective tool in that pursuit if the States Parties commit themselves to the urgent task of revitalizing the Treaty as both a non-proliferation and a disarmament agreement. At its heart, this is a choice between hope and hopelessness. We submit to you that we can no longer put off making this choice."

Rhianna Tyson is the Project Manager of Reaching Critical Will, a disarmament initiative of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, United Nations Office. E-mail: rhianna@reachingcriticalwill.org.

For more information on Reaching Critical Will, visit: www.reachingcriticalwill.org.

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