Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

Vicente Garrido Rebolledo
is that there is little to add to what has been proposed for over forty years
and reiterated on countless occasions. However obvious it may seem,
what needs to be done is implement the Treaty obligations fully and effectively:
articles II (not to acquire nuclear weapons, directly or indirectly) and
IV (peaceful uses of nuclear energy) for non-nuclear states; and article I
(not to transfer them) and, especially, VI (general and complete disarmament,
the ultimate aim of the Treaty) for the nuclear powers.
For this purpose, international consensus is first required on the international
priorities which were defined at the 1995 NPT extension conferences
(«Principles and Objectives of Disarmament and Nuclear Non-
Proliferation») and specified in the document on the «Thirteen practical
steps» adopted at the 2000 Review Conference.
The first priority, as a confidence-building measure, should be the definitive
entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and
the establishment of a ban on the development of new types of weapons.
This entails ratification of the CTBT by some key countries such as the US,
China, North Korea, India, Israel and Pakistan (the last three being de facto
nuclear powers). As stated, the US intends to submit the text of the CTBP
to the Senate again for approval, but it is not clear whether the Obama
Administration currently has the 67 votes needed to ratify it. Therefore,
bearing in mind that it is not wished to run the same risks as in 1999
(when the Treaty obtained only 48 votes in favour), in order to prevent what
would be a failure of President Obama’s policy in non-proliferation matters,
it seems unlikely that the text will be submitted to the Senate without
previously securing political assurance of its approval—something that is
not certain to be achieved before the holding of the 2010 NPT Conference.
This could irritate some groups of countries (Non-Aligned Movement, New
Agenda Coalition, among others) and become a focus of attention of a
good many of the Conference’s debates, with the risk of turning it into the
only issue discussed during the first weeks of the event.
Second, negotiation of a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) under
the basic premise that it should be verifiable - the question which is
the main reason why the Treaty was opposed by the George W. Bush
Administration. Among the proposals for achieving a verifiable FMCT is
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