What Next for the NPT?

Facing the Moment of Truth

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by Roland Timerbaev

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Still more concerns may undermine the NPT. More than thirteen years after the end of the Cold War, the great majority of non-nuclear-weapon States (NNWS) believe that the original nuclear-weapon States (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States) have not lived up to their NPT undertakings and do not seem to be intending to fulfill their part of the NPT "grand bargain" - the commitment to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons. The two of them - the US and Russia - have negotiated a number of agreements to cut down the number of their strategic nuclear weapons, but the other three (China, UK and France) have not even joined the negotiating process. They argue that the US and Russia with larger nuclear arsenals should first downsize their stocks of nuclear weapons to some lower levels before they agree to sit down at the negotiating table. The NPT does not specify any such levels, and here we have a case of an obvious violation of Article VI of the treaty. But the larger NWS, in the view of many NNWS, have also not done as much as they should have done to implement this Article. And the most eye-catching and striking issue, relating to Article VI, is the continuous unwillingness of the United States, as well as of China, to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) - the most sought for measure, which was specifically singled out in the Preamble of the NPT.

The May 2005 NPT Review Conference is set within this quite mixed record. Even more so, the Preparatory Committee that met in 2002, 2003 and 2004, has not agreed on many procedural matters, including a draft agenda and a program of work, and did not commission background documentation, normally provided in advance by the UN Secretariat, the IAEA, organizations like the CTBTO and nuclear-weapon-free-zone agencies. Thus, delegates to the Review Conference may have to spend much of the allotted time wrangling about procedural matters and would be deprived of the opportunity to know the unprejudiced views of international organizations as to how the NPT States have been implementing the treaty provisions.

On top of it, the Preparatory Committee has failed to agree on any substantive recommendations to the Conference. Significant differences emerged between those delegations who saw the treaty obligations primarily in terms of Articles I and II and wanted to focus on the non-compliance by a few States, such as North Korea and Iran, and those countries for whom the NWS failure to make sufficient progress towards complying with Article VI was at least, if not more, important. While the United States wanted to point the finger at Iran or North Korea, by contrast the great majority of other States, including many US Western allies, sought to be more even-handed.

We have been witnessing increased international cooperation in combating the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the spread of dangerous materials. However, one has to admit that this continuous struggle is becoming more and more complex and demanding.

When in 1995 the NPT Review and Extension Conference by consensus extended the treaty indefinitely, it did so on certain conditions, embodied in the Decision on the Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, the main one being that NWS should, on their part, give a pledge to speed up the implementation of their commitments under Article VI, including the conclusion of the CTBT. In addition, the conference adopted a decision, co-sponsored by the NPT depositories - Russia, United Kingdom, and the US - calling for the establishment in the region of the Middle East of a zone free of any weapons of mass destruction.

At the 2000 Review Conference, the countries of the so-called New Agenda Coalition (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, New Zealand, Mexico, South Africa, and Sweden) succeeded in getting, also by consensus, the agreement of all the NWS to implement the so-called "thirteen steps", which were aimed at making systematic and progressive efforts to implement Article VI. Again, number one among these steps was to be "the early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty".

As a result, the last two Review Conferences have been concluded on an optimistic note, with consensus decisions, well-intended promises and pledges and renewed hopes for more productive efforts in implementing the provisions of the NPT, thus contributing to the strengthening of the regime. Even testing by India and Pakistan of nuclear explosive devices in May 1998 has not shaken the universal belief in the regime's viability.

Against this background and with the recent record described above, what may we face in 2005? Would the next Review Conference continue to give the assurance of the continued robustness of the treaty regime or, on the contrary, may we have to witness the beginning of its disintegration?

It is a hard question to answer at this point in time. Usually, delegations arrive at Review Conferences with their extreme positions and start haggling until the time when such conferences reach "the moment of truth", which happens at the very end. This, however, belongs to the domain of diplomatic tactics. In reality, whether or not the 2005 conference is to adopt a formal final document, would not affect very much the present very distressing situation with regard to the actual status of the treaty's implementation and of the non-proliferation regime as such.

The NPT regime may survive as a livable international legal and practically applied norm only if it is consistently adhered to and supported by all its members - both the NWS and NNWS - and if the remaining non-member States are included in the regime in some way and in a capacity that would be generally acceptable. One of the most important goals in assuring the survivability of the regime is the intent of the NWS to lessen their reliance on nuclear weapons as a prime factor of their foreign policy objectives and practices. This is one of the most pressing requirements included among the "thirteen steps" adopted by the 2000 Review Conference and pursued by NNWS during the 2005 preparatory process.

In more concrete terms, what, in my opinion, could be done to assure the successive outcome of the 2005 Review Conference and the further strengthening of the international non-proliferation regime?

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