Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

Eduardo Serra Rexach
Chapter VI written by Professor Vicente Garrido, Director of the INCIPE,
an expert in this field.
This is a decisive conference for the future of disarmament and non-proliferation
and comes at a critical time; indeed, in the new strategic situation,
with more active interlocutors than in the past, it is more necessary than
ever for compliance with the Treaty obligations to be guaranteed and, above
all, for the credibility of the NPT itself to be maintained. The expectations
aroused by the advent of Barack Obama as US president are very great; in
April 2009 Obama himself announced «America’s commitment to seek the
peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons», and this declaration
was confirmed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Paris at the start
of the present year. This statement has brought about a highly favourable
change in both governments and civil society and at L’Aquila in July 2009
the G-8 reiterated its full commitment to the three pillars: non-proliferation,
peaceful use of nuclear energy and disarmament, which has kindled new
hope following the resounding failure of the 2005 review conference.
Professor Garrido begins by asking about the why and wherefore of a
NPT and considers that the question is best answered by explaining its
vicissitudes from the birth of the idea of nuclear non-proliferation in 1961
for the purpose of avoiding both a nuclear war and the accidental launch
of these weapons. The treaty itself came into being in 1968, following the
start of proliferation with the explosion of China’s first atomic bomb in
October 1964.
The history told by the professor is a history of success, as there are
no more «de iure» nuclear states than there were before the treaty (the
only new additions are the «de facto» nuclear states India, Pakistan and
Israel), despite the discrimination established by its entry into force (in
March 1970). Indeed, there were substantial differences between the regime
applicable to the nuclear countries on which relatively few obligations
were imposed (not to transfer nuclear weapons to another state or to
assist a non-nuclear state in manufacturing or possessing these weapons),
whereas the non-nuclear states were totally barred from manufacturing,
receiving or possessing nuclear weapons and this prohibition was guaranteed
by a verification system entrusted to the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), while the research, production and use of nuclear energy
for peaceful purposes was exempted from the prohibition. Therefore the
treaty confirmed the status quo that existed at the time of its birth by consolidating
the «right to nuclear weapons» of the countries that already had
them and making it out of bounds in the future to those who did not have
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