Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

Vicente Garrido Rebolledo
security significance». This statement was followed by similar ones from
the United Kingdom and the USSR basically establishing an additional
dividing line between the two categories of states envisaged in the NPT
by distinguishing between peaceful and military uses of nuclear energy.
However, as a concession to the non-nuclear-weapon states (especially
the Federal Republic of Germany), it was necessary to agree to the introduction
of an article in the NPT establishing that «nothing in this Treaty
shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to
the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for
peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles
I and II of this Treaty» (article IV). This provision, which was criticised by
many states at the time on the understanding that it was very difficult to
establish a priori when nuclear material or even technical assistance could
be used for a civilian or military purpose, has been used for the nearly four
decades of the Treaty’s existence to justify many states’ dubious civilian
nuclear programmes.
India was also one of the states to level particularly fierce criticism in
1967 at the NPT drafts submitted by Soviets and Americans. It argued
that they purposely omitted specific non-proliferation measures—such
as the limitation of weapons and nuclear disarmament—which it considered
necessary not only because they guaranteed the security of
the non-nuclear-weapon states thereby lessening the risk of horizontal
nuclear proliferation, but also because their omission from the new
Treaty amounted to discrimination against non-nuclear-weapon states
(19). Basically India, like many states, held that the concept of nuclear
non-proliferation, as defined in the NPT, was incomplete, as it made
no reference to the nuclear weapons possessed by states that were
already nuclear powers and failed to comply with the most important
point of UN General Assembly Resolution 2028 (XX) which stated, among
other things, that «the treaty should embody an acceptable balance of
mutual responsibilities and obligations of the nuclear and non-nuclear
Powers».
Many states felt that the general disarmament measure contained in
article VI of the Treaty was ambiguous and insufficient compared to the
obligations demanded of the non-nuclear-weapon states. In the view of
the latter, the ultimate aim was to consolidate the nuclear status of the
then five nuclear-weapon powers, the only ones which, retaining the right
(19) GARRIDO REBOLLEDO, V., «India: ¿potencia militar hegemónica?», Cuadernos de la
Escuela Diplomática, No. 25, Madrid, 2004, pp. 259–287.
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