May 2005

Editorial material in Peacework is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License unless copyright is otherwise specified.

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Reviving Nuclear Disarmament through the Non-Proliferation Treaty

Preceding the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in New York in May, 2005, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation released a special report, Back to Basics, by David Krieger and Carah Ong, calling on the nuclear weapons states to disarm. What follows are excerpts of the executive summary of the report. The full report is available for download from www.wagingpeace.org, 1187 Coast Village Road, Suite 1, PMB 121, Santa Barbara, California 93108-2794, 805/965-3443. [Editor's note: For an ingenious, visionary call for nuclear abolition, see Jonathan Schell's book, The Abolition].

"In my view, we have come to a fork in the road: either there must be a demonstrated commitment to move toward nuclear disarmament, or we should resign ourselves to the fact that other countries will pursue a more dangerous parity through proliferation. The difficulty of achieving our ultimate objective -- the elimination of all nuclear weapons -- should by no means be underestimated. But at the same time, it should not be used as a pretext for failing to start the process of drastic reductions in existing nuclear arsenals, and simultaneously to explore the development of collective response mechanisms that will be needed against any future clandestine nuclear proliferation efforts." -- Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was built on a basic bargain: the non-nuclear weapons states agreed to forego developing or otherwise acquiring nuclear weapons in exchange for a commitment on the part of the nuclear weapons states to end the nuclear arms race at an early date and to engage in "good faith" negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament. For the treaty to succeed in its purpose, both sides of the bargain must be fulfilled. With a few notable exceptions, the non-nuclear weapons states have kept their end of the bargain. On the other hand, the nuclear weapons states have shown scant inclination to fulfill their disarmament commitments. Both sides of the bargain are equally important and mutually reinforcing. Preventing nuclear proliferation cannot be guaranteed without nuclear disarmament, and nuclear disarmament cannot succeed without preventing nuclear proliferation.

In order to counter the perceived power of nuclear weapons states, acquiring nuclear weapons has become the goal of some countries and extremist groups. The rapid spread of and increased ability to access information, along with scientific expertise and technical capacity, has also made it easier than ever before to build a nuclear weapon. Furthermore, it has also become easier to obtain fissile material from hundreds of poorly guarded nuclear sites throughout the world.

At the 2000 NPT Review Conference the parties to the treaty adopted by consensus a Final Document that contained 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. These steps included the ratification of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT); negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty; the preservation and strengthening of the AntiBallistic Missile (ABM) Treaty; and called for the nuclear weapons states to take unilateral as well as multilateral steps to achieve nuclear disarmament. The steps also called for greater transparency with regard to nuclear arsenals and for making irreversibility a principle of nuclear weapons reductions. On virtually every one of these steps, the nuclear weapons states have not fulfilled their commitments.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation calls for the following eight interlinking commitments to be made by the nuclear weapons states at the 2005 NPT Review Conference: 1) Total nuclear disarmament and good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament. 2) A timeframe for achieving significant markers on the road to complete nuclear disarmament in order to provide assurance of the political will by the nuclear weapons states to fulfilling their obligations in a timely way. 3) Policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states. 4) The verifiability of all steps in the process of eliminating nuclear weapons, including reductions in nuclear armaments and stores of fissile materials. 5) Stand down nuclear forces by taking nuclear weapons off high-alert status and increasing the time needed to fire a nuclear weapon from minutes to at least hours, and preferably days. 6) No development of any new nuclear weapons and a halt to improvement upon existing weapons. 7) A global, verifiable ban on the production of fissile materials and the disposal of fissile materials from dismantled nuclear weapons under international safeguards. 8) Accounting and transparency with regard to nuclear arsenals and regular reporting on progress made in fulfilling commitments to achieve the elimination of nuclear arsenals.

In addition to the above commitments, the Article IV "loophole" in the NPT, which encourages states to proceed with the so-called "peaceful" development of nuclear power, must also be closed. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation calls upon all states currently capable of producing highly enriched uranium and plutonium to immediately: 1) Negotiate a global ban on spent fuel reprocessing and reduce reliance on nuclear power in favor of energy from renewable sources. 2) Bring uranium enrichment and plutonium separation facilities under strict international control and begin universal on-site inspection of nuclear power facilities. 3) Regulate and store spent nuclear fuel from reactors under strict international control. 4) Make the International Atomic Energy Agency Additional Protocol mandatory for all states, including the nuclear weapons states. 5) Highly restrict the trade of all nuclear materials and technology and place them under strict international control.

The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is at a fork in the road. Nuclear proliferation can be prevented, but only if the nuclear weapons states also uphold their end of the bargain.

Previous Article    Next Article