1. Introduction
We strive for a world free of nuclear weapons because we know these weapons pose a unique and potentially existential threat to our planet. We know any use of nuclear weapons would be a humanitarian catastrophe.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, 20191
The next five-yearly review of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (the Non-Proliferation Treaty – NPT), originally scheduled for April–May 2020, has been postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.2 The Review Conference, when circumstances allow it to take place, will be the first since the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in July 2017. A number of NPT states parties, among them the nuclear weapon states and most members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with the exception of the Netherlands,3 chose not to participate in the UN conference that adopted the TPNW, rejecting or casting doubt on its likely efficacy as an ‘effective measure’ for nuclear disarmament in terms of the NPT.4
Although the TPNW has not yet entered into force,5 it will nonetheless loom large over the next NPT Review Conference. This is because the TPNW has served to underline various pressure points in the NPT that, although not new, have not previously been quite so clear cut. While NPT parties are sometimes described as the nuclear ‘haves’6 and ‘have nots’,7 a sizeable number of the latter are militarily aligned to and are protected by the nuclear weapons of the former under a so-called ‘nuclear umbrella’.8
Figure 1. Status of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
— * Including two UN non-member states/permanent observers, the Holy See and the State of Palestine.
Figure 1. Status of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
Perspectives of members of such alliances on the one hand, and proponents of the TPNW on the other, are contrasted in this paper. Perceptions of what underpins strategic stability are, in effect, competing with what some see as the humanitarian imperative for the elimination of nuclear arms.9 In any event, strong tribalism10 associated with these viewpoints has wreaked mistrust and misunderstanding in nuclear disarmament forums. The upcoming NPT Review Conference needs to lay the basic groundwork for identifying and recognizing the sources of this situation, and chart a course for addressing them in the next review cycle.
1 Guterres, A. (2019), ‘Remarks at Commemoration of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons’, 26 September 2019, https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2019-09-26/commemoration-of-int-day-for-elimination-of-nuclear-weapons-remarks (accessed 29 Oct. 2019).
2 The 10th NPT Review Conference was due to take place from 27 April to 22 May 2020, but has been postponed in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of May 2020 it had not been possible to confirm the new dates for the Review Conference: in late April the President-designate of the 2020 NPT Review Conference, Gustavo Zlauvinen, announced his intention to seek – on the eventual resumption of activities at UN headquarters, if the COVID-19 situation allows it and if no alternative dates can be confirmed – a formal decision from states parties to hold the Review Conference from 4–29 January 2021. For further details, see UNODA (2020), Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), https://www.un.org/en/conferences/npt2020 (accessed 11 May 2020).
3 The Netherlands was the only NATO member state to participate in the negotiations leading to the adoption of the TPNW. The Netherlands voted against the adoption of the Treaty. See also the North Atlantic Council’s Statement on the TPNW: NATO (2017), ‘North Atlantic Council Statement on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons’, 20 September 2017, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_146954.htm (accessed 4 Mar. 2020).
4 Article VI of the NPT stipulates that parties will ‘pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament’.
5 Article 15 of the TPNW stipulates that 50 instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession are required for the treaty to enter into force. As of May 2020, 37 states had deposited such instruments.
6 Numbering five states (the People’s Republic of China, France, Russia, the UK and the US), commonly referred to as nuclear weapon states. States outside the NPT that possess or are believed to possess nuclear weapons – sometimes differentiated from the NPT nuclear weapon states by the term nuclear-armed states – are the DPRK (which announced its withdrawal from the NPT in 2003), India, Pakistan and Israel.
7 185 non-nuclear weapon states.
8 Of NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme, Austria has signed and ratified the TPNW, and Ireland has signed but not yet ratified. PfP countries may choose individual partnership activities on which to cooperate with NATO outside the nuclear realm. For instance, Ireland partners with NATO as part of its PfP membership in areas including the protection of civilians, as well as the protection of children in armed conflict. See Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, ‘Ireland in the Partnership for Peace Programme’, https://www.dfa.ie/partnership-for-peace/ireland-in-the-partnership-for-peace-programme/ (accessed 4 Mar. 2020).
9 Afina, Y., Borrie, J., Caughley, T., Ritchie, N., Wan, W. (2017), Negotiation of a Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty: Nuts and Bolts of the Ban: The New Treaty: Taking Stock, UNIDIR, p. 10, https://www.unidir.org/sites/default/files/publication/pdfs/-en-687.pdf (accessed 7 Oct. 2019). As noted by one observer, the implicit prohibition in the TPNW would force ‘umbrella states to pick a side on an issue that they would have preferred stayed under the radar’. See Harries, M. (2017), ‘The ban treaty and the future of US extended nuclear deterrence arrangements’, in Shetty, S. and Raynova, D. (eds) (2017), Global Perspectives on the Nuclear Ban Treaty: Global Security Special Report, European Leadership Network, https://europeanleadershipnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/ELN-Global-Perspectives-on-the-Nuclear-Ban-Treaty-December-2017.pdf (accessed 11 Oct 2019).
10 For a discussion on tribalism in the context of the nuclear arms race, see Thompson, J. A. (1988), ‘Tribalism and the arms race trap’, Medicine and War, 4(1), pp. 37–47, doi: 10.1080/07488008808408785 (accessed 29 Oct. 2019).