Implementation and Verification of the Nuclear Weapons Convention

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Implementation and Verification
of the Nuclear Weapons Convention

Editor’s Introduction

The contributions to this section look at some of the challenges to implementation and verification of a Nuclear Weapons Convention. Among the most frequent questions about the NWC are whether it is enforceable and whether it is verifiable. To address these questions, it is necessary to think beyond the limited approach to enforcement that prevails today to appreciate that the risks inherent in implementing a Nuclear Weapons Convention — and there will be risks — pale in comparison to the risks posed by maintaining the status quo. The contributions to this section are a step in this direction, addressing the particular challenges to a Nuclear Weapons Convention.

As discussed in Security and Survival: The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention (Section 3-3), a Nuclear Weapons Convention should emphasize compliance over enforcement, offering incentives that would make compliance more attractive than non-compliance. In today’s world, the concept of enforcement brings to mind the capacity to overpower, to force compliance, or to deter based on this capacity. Enforcement might also include suspension of technical assistance in certain areas, or targeted sanctions, tailored to affect the offending parties and not a civilian population. Verification mechanisms would provide means of assessing compliance and building confidence in the NWC. Towards this end, the Model NWC proposes "preventive controls," building on International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, and suggests mechanisms for societal verification. (See Security and Survival, Section 4.)

Questions about implementation and verification are very context specific, and the context here is a future security regime, impossible to predict but possible to shape. The general premise behind calls for abolition is that it can happen, with a range of opinions on whether it will happen. It is not difficult to imagine a world even more militarized, conflict ridden, and dangerous than today’s. One need only take a cursory look at the current plans and policies of the world militaries, the industries that support them, and the non-state actors that react to them with extremist or terrorist tendencies. But it is also possible to imagine a nuclear weapons free world, as a way of identifying the necessary changes that would make realizing this goal more likely.

Terrorism is sometimes offered as a reason why nuclear weapons are necessary — to overpower or deter the terrorist. But nuclear weapons would not prevent a determined terrorist, while a Nuclear Weapons Convention could in fact lessen the threat of nuclear terrorism, as Rebecca Johnson explains. Trevor Findlay addresses the breakout problem — another often-heard argument — and verification of the NWC. Building on the lessons of the Chemical Weapons Convention, Treasa Dunworth examines the challenges of national implementation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, and Kathleen Lawand discusses confidentiality. Michael Kraig’s analysis of command, control, communication, and intelligence facilities touches on key questions about the overall future security system. Anabel Dwyer looks at the role of societal verification in ensuring compliance with the Nuclear Weapons Convention.