Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

THE FUTURE OF THE NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION REGIME:
THE 2010 NPT REVIEW CONFERENCE
Vi ce n t e Ga r r i d o Re b o l l e d o
INTRODUCTION: THE NPT AT A CROSSROADS
The eighth Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review
Conference is due to take place at the United Nations headquarters
in New York from 3 to 28 May 2010. In addition to examining
the functioning and effectiveness of the Treaty, the 189 States Parties
are to reflect for slightly more than three weeks on the future of disarmament
and non-proliferation, two concepts, which, as we shall see,
are closely linked.
This is a decisive conference and will take place at a critical moment.
The so-called nuclear non-proliferation regime needs to be reinforced
in order to ensure that all the States Parties, nuclear and non-nuclear
alike, comply with the obligations contained in the Treaty. But, above all,
what is at stake is the credibility of the very NPT as the «cornerstone of
the non-proliferation regime and nuclear disarmament», as it has often
been defined (1). There are proposals of all kinds for the future of the
Treaty, each stemming from specific interests (nuclear countries that
are signatories to the Treaty or P5s, which uphold divergent national
stances on some aspects of disarmament and non-proliferation; States
Parties which are non-nuclear but technologically and industrially advanced;
countries at the nuclear threshold which are Parties to the NPT;
nuclear countries which have not signed up to the Treaty; coalitions of
states sharing common positions such as the New Agenda Coalition
and the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries; and the European Union,
(1) See, among others, the Statement of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nominee for
Secretary of State, Testimony before Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 13 January
2009, p. 8., http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2009/ClintonTestimony090113a.pdf.
— 181 —