NGO Analysis of the 2004 PrepCom

- Confusion and Anger as NPT Meeting Closes in New York, Rebecca Johnson, Acronym Institute
- Basic Rules for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Greenpeace
- Business As Usual and No Progress Made, Carol Naughton, British American Security Information Council
- Nonproliferation Treaty Meeting Collapses Without Decisions, Jim Wurst, UN Wire
- Renuclearization or Disarmament: A Fateful Choice for Humanity, Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., Middle Powers Initiative (Executive Summary)
- A Higher Wager, Rhianna Tyson, Reaching Critical Will
- Report on the 2004 PrepCom, Di McDonald, Nuke Watch

The NPT PrepCom 2004: Acronym Special Coverage Confusion and Anger as NPT Meeting Closes in New York
May 8, 2004

The Third Session of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the 2005 Review Conference of the NPT closed in disarray around 8 pm Friday May 7, 2004, with adoption of only parts of its final report containing the most minimal agreements to enable the 2005 Review Conference to take place. States Parties were unable to take decisions on important issues such as the agenda and background documents, in large part because the US delegation was determined to oppose and minimise references to the consensus final document from the 2000 Review Conference, which had resulted in the ground-breaking 13-step plan of action on nuclear disarmament. The United States, actively abetted by France and Britain, with the other nuclear weapon states happy to go along, wanted to rewrite the NPT's history by sidelining the 2000 Conference commitments, at which they had made an "unequivocal undertaking… to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals". A majority of other states, by contrast, wanted the 2005 Review Conference to build on both the groundbreaking agreements from 2000 and the decisions and resolutions from the 1995 Review and Extension Conference.

The meeting, chaired by Ambassador Sudjadnan Parnohadinigrat of Indonesia, was expected to be difficult, but was made more so by the ideological US obstruction to anything that mentioned the CTBT or the 2000 agreements. The nonaligned states, frequently spearheaded by South Africa, a key player in both 1995 and 2000, refused to capitulate, though far too many of the western non nuclear weapon states appeared ready to roll belly up and settle for a lowest common denominator trade-off. Most notably, as the meeting went through its motions, a significant number of parties showed preference for 'waiting out' the problem, in the hope that time, further consultations and, most importantly, more constructive political circumstances (which many associated with possible regime change in the United States in November), might make consensus more reachable before the 2005 Conference opens.

Throughout the meeting, there was much stating of positions, but little stomach for confrontation or compromise. After two weeks of lacklustre debates, with much repetition and very few new ideas, the last day of the meeting turned into a bad-tempered shambles that ended in near farce, with a series of confused decisions taken without interpretation, with the majority speaking English but two delegations insisting on French. The PrepCom even failed to abide by its own rules whereby, if discussions have been held in closed session, the meeting is opened to the public for formal decisions to be properly taken.

Along with the rest of civil society, the Acronym Institute was outside the room throughout the long day, gleaning information from a series of frustrated delegates as they wandered back and forth for cigarettes or coffee. As debates went round and round in circles, messing up earlier agreements on access for nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), adding and subtracting words to slide just one outstanding - but importantly context-establishing - paragraph on the agenda past the US blockage, it was clear that many delegates, including, some complained, the Chair, had lost the plot. Their confusion about what they were doing even extended to the final decisions, as illustrated by contradictory reports of what occurred at the end.

President-Elect Ambassador Sergio Duarte of Brazil may have to wait some time before there is full clarity about what was decided and what he will have to do over the next year to create the conditions for the Review Conference to get to work in May 2005. Certainly, the PrepCom failed to agree any substantive recommendations and refused to annex the Chair's summary of the meeting, which will be issued merely as a chair's working paper, with no authority. The Chair's summary, issued late on Thursday evening, was - as with its predecessors - challenged by several states, including the United States and Iran. Canada was angry that the summary had failed to mention initiatives on strengthening the Treaty's enforcement mechanisms; there were complaints that text on nuclear energy and safeguards provided by the Vice Chairs had been ignored. Illustrating the difficulties of walking this Chair's tightrope, the summary provoked grumbles from some states that it too closely resembled the chair's summary issued by Ambassador Laszlo Molnar of Hungary the previous year, while others complained that it read like a NAM (non-aligned states) document, of which Indonesia is a prominent member.

As it turned out, however, the chair's summary was little more than a sideshow, paling into insignificance as states parties realised they were in danger of not being able to take the necessary decisions to enable the 2005 Conference to be held. After much to-ing and fro-ing it appears that the disputed parts of the report dealing with the more fundamental issues of agenda, background documents and subsidiary bodies will now be turned into a chair's working paper that will be forwarded together with the bare bones of a report that were agreed.

In view of the confusion and the lack of reliable documentation on the decisions, a more substantive analysis will be published by the Acronym Institute once the decisions have been clarified and the statements and documents have been further analysed.

Background:

The NPT PrepCom opened at the United Nations in New York on April 26, 2004, and ran for two weeks. The meeting was required to come up with recommendations for the 2005 Review Conference, but seemed just to go through the motions, managing only to adopt a timetable of work at the end of the first week. On Friday, April 30, the decision was taken to enable NGO representatives to attend and receive statements and documents from the so-called 'cluster debates', on the non-tranfer and acquisition of nuclear technologies and nuclear disarmament, safeguards, and nuclear energy for non-military purposes. The objections to the timetable centred on whether there should be 'special time' allocated to the issues of security assurances (in accordance with which the nuclear weapon states commit not to use nuclear weapons to attack states without nuclear weapons) and the Middle East.

It was finally decided to fold the security assurances discussion into a session devoted to consideration of the practical pursuit of nuclear disarmament measures, and to include the Middle East question in a session on regional issues. For 'equity' among the three 'pillars' of the NPT, it was also decided to devote a session to 'the safety and security of peaceful nuclear programmes'. Symptomatic of the lack of real progress at this PrepCom, it turned out that many statements to these special sessions merely repeated, with slightly more detail or argument, on points already given in general debates.

As anticipated (see Rebecca Johnson, The NPT in 2004: Testing the Limits, Disarmament Diplomacy 76), the main focus of interventions from the United States has been noncompliance by North Korea and Iran and the need for stricter measures to deal with NPT parties who use the Article IV provision on nuclear energy to fulfil nuclear weapon ambitions. At the same time a large number of states, including many US allies, highlighted the importance of fulfilment of disarmament obligations - with emphasis on core agreements such as the CTBT - while also raising concerns about new developments in nuclear weapons or doctrines. States lined up to support Additional Protocol, and suggestions were put forward for how to manage nuclear fuel cycle supply, restruct exports in sensitive technologies and materials and provide better institutional tools for states parties to strengthen the treaty's implementation.

The General debate heard interventions from: Mexico on behalf of the New Agenda Coalition; New Zealand; Ireland on behalf of the European Union; China; Britain; Algeria; Mexico; Malaysia on behalf of the Group of Non-Aligned States Parties; Australia; Peru; Indonesia; South Africa; Egypt; Bangladesh; Republic of (South) Korea; Switzerland; Japan; Syria; Venezuela; Canada; Belarus; Kazakhstan; Bahamas and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The General Debate continued on Tuesday and Wednesday with statements from France; Brazil; the Holy See; the United States (John Bolton); Norway; Iran; Russia; Viet Nam; Burma/Myanmar; Cuba; Ukraine; Morocco; Egypt on behalf of the Arab Group; Nepal; Chile; Argentina; Serbia and Montenegro; Mongolia; Saudi Arabia; Kyrgyzstan; Cuba; Nigeria and Ecuador. As a result of the decision to open the cluster debates to NGOs, these statements are also obtainable from the website of http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org.

In one three hour session, the PrepCom was addressed by thirteen civil society representatives, including the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Senator Patrik Vankrunkelsven from Belgium, the Mayor of Kiev, Olexandr Omelchenko, the Hon Bill Perkins, the Deputy Majority Leader on New York City Council and attended by a host of others. The full texts of the NGO statements, as well as a daily news review with summaries of the many civil society panels held during the first week, are also available from reachingcriticalwill.org.

The 2005 Review Conference will be held from May 2 to 28. A fuller analysis of the third PrepCom will be published in Disarmament Diplomacy 77, due out in June.

Basic rules for the Non-Proliferation Treaty
Greenpeace

Friday, 23 April 2004, 8:36 am

Basic rules for the Non-Proliferation Treaty States: negotiation and nuclear disarmament, not proliferation and war New York -- Addressing an urgent need to ensure peace, Greenpeace has called on the 186 State Parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to commit to serious and effective negotiations of the Treaty which will lead to actual nuclear disarmament and effective nuclear non-proliferation measures. It is widely expected that the meeting, which will open for two weeks on April 26th at the United Nations in New York, will be greatly controversial with the possibility of complete failure.

While the NPT is at present the only treaty containing a legal obligation on states to get rid of their nuclear weapons, Greenpeace views the Treaty as also fundamentally flawed. Recent disclosures on the proliferation of advanced European enrichment technology to Pakistan, Iran and Libya, have 'shocked' institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The United States is likely to push an aggressive policy at the Conference against the proliferation of nuclear technology and materials to certain states 'of concern', while continuing to support the civil nuclear programs of their allies such as Japan.

"The U.S. in particular, needs to commit to the global treaty banning nuclear testing, renounce plans to modernize their arsenal and undertake real nuclear disarmament. There is no prospect of this under the current Bush Administration. The predictions for this conference are not good. At the end of two weeks unless there is a dramatic change we will be further away from nuclear disarmament and effective nuclear non-proliferation than ever before," said Tom Clements of Greenpeace International.

In a communication to NPT states (1), Greenpeace has reminded Governments that in 2000 at the NPT Review Conference they agreed to the 13 steps on disarmament and non-proliferation (2). Four years on, there has been no progress. The global ban on nuclear testing is in limbo and further threatened by a possible U.S. resumption of testing. In a number of states, nuclear weapons modernization is being planned instead of disarmament. Meanwhile, proliferation of civilian nuclear technology and materials has continued, and negotiations of a treaty banning nuclear materials that are essential to making nuclear bombs have not even begun.

The majority of NPT states rightly want to see nuclear disarmament, but also support the principle of access to nuclear technology and materials. The nuclear weapon states, particularly the United States and the UK are likely to focus almost exclusively on specific non-proliferation issues, to divert attention away from their own nuclear weapons modernization in defiance of their legal obligations under the NPT to disarm.

"The commitments under the NPT intended to be applied universally and without discrimination have not succeeded. More than fifty years ago at the start of the nuclear age it was known that promoting nuclear technology and fissile materials would lead to more states with nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapon states that have modernized instead of disarming bear a large responsibility for this failure, but so do those states that continue to support the proliferation of civil nuclear technology," said Clements.

Notes to editors: (1). Copy of the letter to foreign ministers at: http://www.greenpeace.org/multimedia/download/1/459018/0/NPT_letter.pdf

(2). Available at http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/2000FD.pdf - see pages 14-15

Business as Usual and No Progress Made
Carol Naughton, Consultant
New York, 26 April - 7 May 2004
(also available at: http://www.basicint.org/nuclear/NPT/2004pc/rep1.htm)

The first few days of the conference were taken up with the opening statements by many of the nations and with one afternoon devoted to the Non Governmental Organisations (NGO) presentations to the conference. By Wednesday afternoon the conference had moved on to the 'Clusters' whereby different areas relating to the Treaty are discussed in groups. Normally these are closed sessions and NGOs are denied access both to the sessions and to the papers submitted. NGOs have argued the case for some years that these sessions should be open to scrutiny by 'civil society' and this year, after some discussions between delegates and NGOs, and with the intervention by South Africa, the 'Clusters' were opened to the NGO community on Friday.

The opening statements had common themes of congratulating the chair Mr Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat from Indonesia as well as welcoming Cuba and Timor Leste as new member to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Thus bringing the total number of states to 189, with only Israel, India and Pakistan outside the Treaty. The case of North Korea's declaration that it is withdrawing from the Treaty is still in dispute. Many states also welcomed Libya's renunciation of weapons of mass destruction.

Compliance with Treaty obligations
Many nations used their opening remarks to restate the principles of the Treaty. The most common phrase was that used by Ireland, on behalf of the EU, that the NPT was the "cornerstone of the global non-proliferation regime". Most states stressed the three elements of the treaty obligations of nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Mexico on behalf of the New Agenda coalition reminded the conference that, "The achievement of nuclear disarmament is not an option, but a legal obligation established in the NPT. Equally, the indefinite extension of the Treaty in 1995 did not equate to indefinite ownership of nuclear weapons."

Indeed Algeria stated, "Nuclear Disarmament is the sole way to preserve humanity from annihilation." And Archbishop Migliore for the Holy Sea voiced many states' concerns that the nuclear weapons states (NWS) were failing to honour their obligations under Article VI asking that the NWS "should be pressed to reveal under what security conditions and assurances they could eliminate their nuclear arsenals."

Under Secretary of State, John Bolton, speaking for the US, appeared to have a different interpretation of the Treaty from the majority of delegates when he stated that, "The central bargain of the NPT is that if non-nuclear weapons states renounce the pursuit of nuclear weapons, they may gain assistance in developing civilian nuclear power." Mr Bolton's concluded the US statement with, "After all, the Treaty can only be as strong as our will to insist that states comply with it."

Many nations welcomed the Moscow treaty but expressed concern that it is neither irreversible nor verifiable and called for transparency in nuclear weapons reductions.

Universality
There were repeated calls for India and Pakistan to accede to the NPT, and to place all their nuclear facilities under the comprehensive safeguards of the IAEA. This was an issue that was hotly debated in a lunchtime session hosted by Physicians for Social Responsibility. All agreed that India, Pakistan and also Israel needed to be brought under effective control of the IAEA and the NPT but with proposals that it should be in a separate agreement accepting them as NWS disputed. It was argued that this effectively would increase the NWS parties to the NPT to eight and therefore would be unacceptable to the non-NWS.

Nuclear Weapon Free Zones (NWFZ)
Many nations called for implementation of the 1995 NPT resolution on implementing a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East. This was taken up by Iran who reminded the conference that it was Iran who first raised this idea and said that, with the exception of Israel, the countries in the Middle East had spared no effort in trying to make this come true through adherence to the NPT. Iran, in calling for the NPT Review Conference of 2005 to address this, said, "So long as the countries of this region face the Israeli nuclear threat, backed by a blanket endorsement of a single nuclear power, the issue must be addressed by the strengthened review process of the NPT."

On a happier note the existing NWFZs created by the treaties of Ttatelolco, Rarotonga, Bankok and Pelindaba were celebrated with the hope that the ongoing consultations for a South East Asian NWFZ and for a Central Asian NWFZ would bear fruit soon.

Iran
Iran was congratulated on signing the additional protocols to the IAEA safeguards by many nations but all expressed concern about Iran's nuclear programme, as expressed by Ireland for the EU, "-welcomes the commitments which Iran has made in the context of this investigation (by the IAEA) ----- At the same time, the EU notes with great concern that a number of questions remain unanswered."

The US took this further accusing Iran of lying and of continuing to develop a nuclear weapons programme. They alleged that there was evidence of Iran's non-compliance as early as June of last year, implying that the IAEA was failing in its duty, "The IAEA Board will at some point, however, need to fulfil its responsibility under the IAEA Statute to report the safeguards failures found in Iran to the Security Council."

Iran refuted this stating, "Today, we are happy that over a year of robust verification by the IAEA inspectors has shown no indication of diversion and we are confident that this process will attest the peaceful nature of our nuclear program." They also took the opportunity to remind the nuclear states of their obligations to disarm and to draw attention to Articles I, II, III and IV of the Treaty covering the rights of nations to develop, research, produce and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Terrorism
There was much discussion of terrorism and of ways to strengthen surveillance and control of exports of sensitive materials, particularly to non-state actors. Ireland on behalf of the EU gave a commitment to, "-focus on strengthening export control policies and practices, within the EU and beyond, in co-ordination with partners." The UK was promoting expanding the work of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and the UN Security Council Resolution on ways to enforce domestic laws to criminalize proliferation. The PSI has gained the support of over sixty countries and the UK expressed its hope that eventually it would involve all countries with "the will and capacity to co-operate."

Cuba raised concerns that the UN Security Council resolution was aimed at horizontal proliferation and not vertical proliferation. Ambassador Gual reflected the concerns of the NGO community when he raised the point that the adoption of the text of this resolution could, "easily facilitate its use by some power as a pre-authorization or justification for the unilateral and abusive use of force against some specific States, resulting from alleged suspicions of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or their components." He went on to say, "Currently the draft resolution is ambiguous enough so that some states may proclaim that with its adoption, the so-called Proliferation Security Initiative would be legitimised, created nearly one year ago by a group of States, without UN mandate or any other broadly accepted multilateral treaty."

NGO Presentations
The Tuesday afternoon of the first week was dedicated to 'Civil Society' presentations. Representatives of the NGO community presented a series of papers addressing issues such as vertical and horizontal proliferation, the Middle East, the Security Council resolution and PSI as well as terrorism and the failure by the nuclear weapons states to implement the 'Thirteen Point Plan' from the conclusion of 2000 Review conference. The Mayors for Peace programme was represented by different mayors from around the world and the Citizens Weapons Inspectors report from all NATO nuclear sites as well as nuclear sites in the US and UK was highlighted.

US New Developments
There much disquiet expressed about the US new developments in nuclear weapons. Ambassador Faessler of Switzerland in his opening speech stated, "Switzerland regrets the decision by the United States' Congress to abrogate the 1993 law blocking the allocation of scientific research funds in the area of low-yield nuclear weapons test sites." China's opening statement took this even further, in the context of threats to international security, when Ambassador Xiaodi said, "In this situation, such moves as adopting pre-emptive strike strategy, explicitly listing other states as targets and development of new types of easy-to-use nuclear weapons, and shortening the time of preparation for nuclear tests not only run counter to international trend, but also do harm to international non-proliferation efforts, which is in the interests of no state."

The US record of compliance on Article VI paper refuted any allegations saying, "The United States is not developing any new nuclear weapon, and the President has not directed the Department of Defense or Department of Energy to undertake such action. The study of new weapons designs that will be possible under current Congressional funding for advanced concepts will be entirely conceptual."

However in a separate paper the US stated that there was nothing in the NPT that prohibits the US from carrying out nuclear weapons research, developing or fielding new or modified nuclear warheads. The paper defended the repeal of the 1993 Prohibition on Low-Yield Warhead Development (PLYWD) by stating that this "is not blurring the line between the use of conventional and nuclear weapons, making nuclear use more likely" because, since the 1950's, "the US nuclear stockpile has contained warheads capable of producing very low nuclear yields".

Ways Forward - Security Assurances
There were many papers from states proposing the way forward for the Review Conference of 2005. The New Agenda Coalition put forward forty-four recommendations, many of which re-iterated the Thirteen Point Plan of 2000. Many states concentrated on Security Assurances and reminded delegates that the 2000 Review conference called for the PrepCom to make recommendations on "legally binding security assurances by the five nuclear-weapon-states" to the 2005 conference. However the UK, in particular, spoke out against such codified assurances stating that, in the context of NWFZ, "We believe that these commitments already give Non-Nuclear Weapons States the assurances they seek." The only nuclear weapon state to agree on this was China.

The UK also spoke out strongly against the proposal by Canada for the replacement of the "Preparatory Committees with Annual General conferences of States Parties to consider and decide on any issues covered by the Treaty." The UK disagreed and warned against "tinkering with core elements of the Treaty." Canada also reiterated the call for regular reporting as called for in the Thirteen Point Plan. More states had put forward reports this year, but still only nine.

One other area of contention for the PrepCom was calls for a subsidiary body on nuclear disarmament at the 2005 Review Conference being promoted by the New Agenda Coalition and the Non Aligned Movement, as well as South Africa. This is an area likely to be contested by the NWS.

Conclusion
In a separate Forum, held by the Middle Powers Initiative, seven proposals to strengthen the NPT were put forward by Tariq Raul of the IAEA. Mr Raul went on to say, "Similarly we must abandon the traditional approach of defining security in terms of boundaries - city walls, border patrols, racial and religious groupings. The global community has become irreversibly interdependent, with the constant movement of people, ideas, goods and resources. In such a world, we must combat terrorism with a security culture that transcends national and political borders - an inclusive approach to security based on solidarity and the value of human life. In such a world, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction would have no place."

He concluded his statement by repeating the challenge laid down by IAEA Director General Dr. ElBaradei - that, in all of human history, no civilisation has ever voluntarily laid down its most powerful weapons: it remains to be seen whether ours can be the first.

It is to be hoped that this PrepCom has laid the foundation for a successful NPT Review conference in 2005 where the nuclear weapon states begin to live up to Mr ElBaradei's challenge.

Nonproliferation Treaty Meeting Collapses Without Decisions
Jim Wurst, UN Wire
Monday, May 10, 2004

UNITED NATIONS — A meeting of parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) collapsed Friday night after the delegates failed to resolve differences on numerous political and procedural issues, notably how to refer to their own consensus decisions of 2000.

This was the final preparatory meeting before next year's review conference and delegates hoped that the meeting would produce recommendations for the conference, as preparatory meetings have in the past. Hours after the meeting was supposed to have ended, the meeting was simply adjourned with a final report containing minimum details. Breaking its own rules of procedure, the meeting did not even resume in open session to formally close it proceedings. Most of the meetings in the last week were held behind closed doors.

The political debate at the heart of all the procedural wrangling was the relative weight that should be given to disarmament and nonproliferation, specifically if the treaty's priority should be disarmament by the nuclear powers or addressing proliferation threats by countries such as North Korea and Iran.

The chairman of the meeting, Ambassador Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat of Indonesia, issued his own summary of the meeting on Thursday night, which was an attempt to reflect all the divergent positions expressed during the two-week meeting. As such, there are ideas in it to please and annoy everyone. There was never a chance that all the states would accept the summary as a consensus document, but it had been expected that the paper would be annexed to the final report under the chairman's own authority and sent to the review conference.

But Sudjadnan's paper was strongly criticized in an all-day closed meeting Friday by most of the nuclear weapon states, led by the United States, that insisted the paper could only be referred to in the list of documents and not annexed to the report.

A key sticking point was whether to acknowledge the final document of the 2000 review conference. This seemingly procedural question was a lightning rod for the political divisions among the delegates since the 2000 decision includes what has become known as "the 13 steps" — specific actions the nuclear powers agreed to as part of their disarmament commitments under the NPT. The 13 steps include "an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals." That undertaking includes signing and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, reduction in tactical nuclear weapons and halting the production of weapons-grade nuclear materials. The United States now opposes many of these steps, most notably its rejection of the test ban treaty.

Because of this stalemate, the meeting could not even agree to seemingly routine items such as an agenda for the 2005 conference.

Ambassador Sergio Duarte of Brazil will be the president of the review conference, which will be held in New York May 2-27, 2005.

Renuclearization or Disarmament: A Fateful Choice for Humanity
Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., Middle Powers Initiative (Executive Summary)

In light of the real possibility that terrorists could acquire and use nuclear weapons to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, never has the need to eliminate the threat posed by nuclear weapons been more urgent. Tragically, this sense of urgency was not shared by many delegates to the third and final meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the 2005 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The meeting at the U.N. in New York ended May 7, 2004 in disarray, the delegates unable to agree even on an agenda and background documentation for the Review Conference. Acrimony and weak leadership characterized the PrepComm. Issues of substance concerning the future of nuclear weapons were lost in the procedural wrangling that dominated the final two days of the two-week meeting.

The failure of the PrepComm, which was mandated to make recommendations to the Review Conference, augured ill for the 2005 conference (May 2-27 in New York). The Review Conference, which will be presided over by Ambassador Sergio Duarte of Brazil, will face a stark reality: the Nuclear Weapons States (NWS), led by the United States, are claiming that the NPT priorities should be directed to stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons and that the problem of their own compliance with Article VI, which calls for good faith negotiations toward the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, is non-existent. The leading non-nuclear weapons states claim the exact opposite: the proliferation of nuclear weapons cannot be stopped while the nuclear weapons states arrogate unto themselves the possession of nuclear weapons and refuse to enter into comprehensive negotiations toward elimination as directed by the International Court of Justice. The gulf between the two positions is so wide that even the diplomatic skills of Ambassador Duarte are unlikely to produce some sort of harmony between the two camps without a major change in attitude.

The present crisis is the worst in the 34-year history of the NPT. While the NPT meetings have never been free of conflict, the battles of the past were frequently patched over by an application of good will and a minimum show of trust. Now the good will and trust are gone largely because the NWS have tried to change the rules of the game. At least before, there was a recognition that the NPT was obtained through a bargain, with the NWS agreeing to negotiate the elimination of their nuclear weapons in return for the non-nuclear states shunning the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Adherence to that bargain enabled the indefinite extension of the Treaty in 1995 and the achievement of an “unequivocal undertaking” in 2000 toward elimination through a programme of 13 Practical Steps. Now the U.S. is rejecting the commitments of 2000 and premising its aggressive diplomacy on the assertion that the problem of the NPT lies not in the NWS’s own actions but in the lack of compliance by states such as North Korea and Iran. The United Kingdom, France and Russia are abetting the U.S. in the new tactics of shifting attention away from Article VI commitments and towards break-out states. Brazil bluntly warned:

“The fulfillment of the 13 steps on nuclear disarmament agreed during the 2000 Review Conference have been significantly – one could even say systematically – challenged by action and omission, and various reservations and selective interpretation by Nuclear Weapon States. Disregard for the provisions of Article VI may ultimately affect the nature of the fundamental bargain on which the Treaty’s legitimacy rests.”

The whole international community, nuclear and non-nuclear alike, is concerned about proliferation, but the new attempt by the NWS to gloss over the discriminatory aspects of the NPT, which are now becoming permanent, has caused the patience of the members of the Non-Aligned Movement to snap. They see a two-class world of nuclear haves and have-nots becoming a permanent feature of the global landscape. In such chaos, the NPT is eroding and the prospect of multiple nuclear weapons states, a fear that caused nations to produce the NPT in the first place, is looming once more.

That is the real point of the NPT crisis today. The crisis has been building through the two previous PrepComms, in 2002 and 2003, but a weak façade of harmony was maintained. Now the fuse has blown.

A new coalition of States determined to save the NPT in 2005 must now be forged. A working partnership of important non-nuclear States must occupy the centre of the nuclear weapons debate and exert its strength in 2005. The beginning of such a partnership exists in the New Agenda Coalition, which was largely responsible for the success of the 2000 Review Conference. The leading non-nuclear States of NATO, such as Canada, Germany, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy, must now work closely with the New Agenda to lead the international community toward a positive, if still modest, success in 2005.

Some of the 70 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that attended the PrepComm have already lost hope that the NPT can be saved and are looking beyond its collapse to some new instrument that can effect political action against nuclear dangers. But many, perhaps most, of the NGO observers, who are for the most part more knowledgeable on the issues than some diplomats, want the NPT to endure on the grounds that it is the only legal instrument to effect the elimination of nuclear weapons. They are looking to the 2005 exercise with a final glimmer of hope.

To read the entire MPI report, see their website: www.middlepowers.org

777 UN Plaza - 6th Floor - New York, NY - 10017 - Ph: 212.682.1265 - Fax: 212.286.8211 - info@reachingcriticalwill.org
This site was created by Kache Productions ©2008