ISIS Europe News In This Issue

The verification system, centred on the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has over the decades
strengthened significantly, both in formal procedures,
and in the acquired collective experience of its
practitioners. The growing adoption internationally of
the Model Additional Protocol (AP) is a particularly
positive development, since it expands the declaration
a state must make to the IAEA of activities that might
contribute to the development of nuclear weapons and
broadens the agency’s right of access to verify the
declaration. But while more than half of the states
with safeguards agreements with the IAEA now also
have APs in force, it is less encouraging that 30
NNWS parties to the NPT still do not have even
comprehensive safeguards in place. Moreover, the AP
is not in force in some key regions, including much of
the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America.
The challenges ahead
Most observers at the 2009 NPT Preparatory
Committee (PrepCom) regarded the results of this last
preliminary meeting as largely positive, although that
assessment had as much to do with the low bar that has
been set for judging ‘success’ and the dismal failure of
the 2005 RevCon. While no agreement could be
reached on substantive recommendations, an agenda
was adopted for the 2010 RevCon, something that was
not achieved until the third week of the 2005 RevCon.
The meeting was also notable for the largely
professional and collegiate approach of delegations
and the absence of rancour that had plagued past
PrepComs.
However, one of the major challenges at the RevCon
will be in neutralising or sidelining the handful of
NWS and NNWS that, on past experience, are likely to
promote positions that stand no chance of gaining
consensus. Uncompromising national positions in
2005, for example, as adopted by the US, France and
Iran (in relation to past disarmament commitments)
and Egypt (in relation to the 1995 resolution on the
Middle East) contributed to the stalemate and had the
effect of ending all prospects for agreement on
substantive recommendations. Moreover, the
wrangling over process and technicalities meant that
there was little or no debate at the 2005 RevCon on
vital non-proliferation issues, such as North Korea’s
nuclear programme and its status under the NPT, or on
serious nuclear trafficking incidents.
review of the 'Programme of Action' known as the '13
practical steps towards global nuclear disarmament'
agreed in 2000. These clearly achievable confidencebuilding
measures and commitments were viewed at
the time as an expression of the 'step-by-step' approach
favoured by NWS, and as fulfilment of their pledge
made at the previous 1995 review conference to
advance nuclear disarmament – a pledge that enabled
the historic consensus to indefinitely extend the NPT.
These 13 steps remain central to the debate today
because the failure to agree a Final Document at the
2005 RevCon means that they remain the most recent
multilaterally agreed disarmament framework.
Consideration of these steps was blocked at the 2005
RevCon, but it is unlikely that States Parties will allow
this to continue indefinitely – and nor should they.
Finding the critical points for progress
For decades many States Parties have been willing to
talk about the possibility of a nuclear-weapon free
world without ever really believing that it is feasible,
nor take the steps necessary to make it more possible.
More pressing concerns in the Cold War prevented any
significant breakthroughs, and the opportunities after
the Cold War were largely squandered. NWS believed
it was enough to reduce warhead numbers and wait to
see what would come next. The ideology supportive of
a new generation of nuclear weapons that arose within
Washington in particular (but that also spread to the
other NWS) was a particular blow to the possibilities
of progress.
Under the inspirational leadership of Barack Obama,
however, a growing group of political leaders and
mainstream ‘opinion shapers’ has been arguing that the
current trends will inevitably lead to a world where the
number of nuclear weapons states may grow to 25-30
in a few years, the concept of nuclear deterrence has
little meaning, and the chances of non-state terrorist
actors acquiring and using nuclear weapons grows
apace. The historic bargain between the NWS and the
NNWS to the NPT is now faced with both ‘breakout’
and declining legitimacy.
It can be clearly demonstrated that the need is not only
overwhelming and urgent, but that actions are practical
and possible. Some of the dynamics for achieving
NPT stability at the 2010 RevCon include:
In the NWS’ camp, both France and China convey the
view that they are very uncomfortable with the new
US vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. Getting
these two countries (and the four outside of the NPT)
to lend their support towards that objective is likely to
be a major challenge. This situation may be
exacerbated by the likely calls from NNWS for a
Shared goal of a Nuclear Weapon-Free World
(disarmament is the key). The NWS continue to try
and legitimise their nuclear doctrines on the fraudulent
grounds that their status is ‘recognised’ under the NPT.
They know this to be a falsehood yet they blithely
carry on regardless. This must change. All of the NWS
should re-affirm their commitment to nuclear
European Security Review no. 48, February 2010, ISIS Europe, page 4