4. NATO: the NPT and the TPNW
The historical experience from the use and testing of nuclear weapons has demonstrated their devastating immediate and long-term humanitarian, social, economic and environmental impacts. These effects, whether resulting from a deliberate or accidental detonation, are unlikely to be constrained by national borders: as with climate change, every human being has a stake in the avoidance of nuclear war. Following the deep concern expressed by NPT parties in 2010 about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, a series of Conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons was convened. The first of these took place in Oslo in March 2013, and was attended by all non-nuclear NATO Alliance member states. The three nuclear weapon NATO states boycotted the first and second meetings (the latter held in Nayarit, Mexico, in February 2014), as did China and Russia, although the UK and the US did attend the final one of the series, which took place in Vienna in December 2014.
Tracing the development of and reasons for the opposition that later developed among NATO members towards the impetus for a binding nuclear weapons prohibition as a tangible product of the ‘humanitarian initiative’70 is not the purpose of this paper: suffice it to say that the only NATO nation that chose to participate in the UN conference that negotiated the TPNW was the Netherlands. When the new treaty was adopted, the Netherlands voted against it, explaining its inability to ‘sign up to any instrument that is incompatible with our NATO obligations, that contains inadequate verification provisions or that undermines the Non-Proliferation Treaty’.71 At the beginning of the negotiations, the Netherlands also made it clear that any prohibition must be compatible with the NATO principles of the Deterrence and Defence Posture Review, including the notion that NATO will remain a nuclear alliance as long as nuclear weapons exist.72
Historically, there have been instances where individual NATO states have adopted independent national positions on nuclear weapons and on treaties relating to them.
Historically, there have been instances where individual NATO states have adopted independent national positions on nuclear weapons and on treaties relating to them. Five members decided not to allow deployment of nuclear weapons on their territory in peacetime (Denmark, Iceland, Lithuania, Norway and Spain), and, as already noted, France chose to remain outside the NPG. Nor in the case of binding international agreements such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) have NATO members acted in concert; the US, for instance, has not ratified the CTBT, while France and the UK have been vocal in championing the entry into force of the treaty. But for the meantime at least, all NATO states are acting in lockstep in opposing the TPNW for the same or similar reasons to those of the Netherlands.
That opposition, discussed below, first needs to be placed in broader context. Paul Meyer has argued that the nuclear-reliant non-nuclear weapon states members of NATO had to contest the stigmatization of nuclear weapons inherent in the notion of a prohibition of those arms ‘as otherwise they would be perceived as supporters of an illegitimate weapon’.73 He notes the dilemma facing that group of states given their traditional stance in support of international law, including international humanitarian law: ‘These factors’, he argues, ‘underscored the inherent ambiguity of [NATO’s] declaratory policy in favour of nuclear weapons abolition.’74
In other words, do arguments of the kind put forward by the Netherlands during the negotiation of the TPNW point to a more deep-seated concern about the treaty? And if so, does that concern arise from fear among NATO members that the mere existence of a prohibition treaty – even one from which they have withheld their signature – may help delegitimize nuclear weapons and thus erode the doctrine of nuclear deterrence on which they see their security as dependent?75 If, in reality, their criticisms of the TPNW were interpreted as a thinly veiled defence of the nuclear deterrence doctrine, then would that in turn be tantamount to a defence of nuclear weapons? If so, it would be unsurprising during debates at the NPT Review Conference if such a defence were to be challenged as being inconsistent with the NPT, at least in terms of the ‘spirit’ of that treaty.
These questions deliberately oversimplify the situation. They are couched in this manner not to call into question the sincerity of NATO’s ambitions both for strategic stability and a world free of nuclear weapons when conditions allow, but to lay bare a perspective that will need sensitive handling particularly during the forthcoming Review Conference. In this regard, there are a number of angles that warrant attention.
Temporality
NATO members depend on the rationalization that this state of affairs is a temporary one.76 This case is justified only for as long as the current tumultuous global security climate lasts. It has not to date proved persuasive, given the fundamental disagreement over whether nuclear weapons are security enhancing or destabilizing. It should be noted, however, that a number of members of NATO77 and other nuclear alliances78 cooperate in the NPT in a cross-regional group, the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative (NPDI). The NPDI was formed in 2010 to jointly advance the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation agendas as mutually reinforcing processes. One of the group’s core objectives is to encourage greater transparency surrounding nuclear disarmament efforts, and they have tabled a number of proposals to this and other ends.79 Using their influence with nuclear weapon states to engender true momentum for such goals will be essential to assuage sceptics about the commitment to nuclear disarmament of alliance states that are reliant on extended nuclear deterrence at least for the time being.
Sequence, timeframes
Incorporation of timelines for taking steps from transparency measures to weapons reductions has long been resisted by nuclear weapon states; there has long been disagreement, too, over the appropriate sequencing of moving towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. These are chronic sources of tension in the five-yearly review cycles, and the emergence of the TPNW is perhaps emblematic of these failings. While there is widespread recognition that a prohibition treaty is a necessary step in the process of securing a world free of nuclear weapons, for nuclear weapon states and their allies taking such a step now is premature. Ultimately, once the possessors of nuclear weapons have negotiated the destruction of all nuclear arsenals, the purpose of a prohibition will be to prevent the manufacture of new ones. This is not a case of putting the ‘nuclear genie’ back in the bottle. Rather, it will constitute a renunciation of nuclear weapons by the possessing states comparable to that already made by the non-nuclear weapon states under the NPT – a fundamental obligation that the TPNW reinforces.80
A prohibition is not a case of putting the ‘nuclear genie’ back in the bottle. Rather, it will constitute a renunciation of nuclear weapons by the possessing states comparable to that already made by the non-nuclear weapon states under the NPT – a fundamental obligation that the TPNW reinforces.
As an aside, the argument that the negotiation of a prohibition instrument was premature represents a lost opportunity: it could have been made at the start of the negotiation process by the proponents of that view had they chosen to participate. But in another sense, Article 4 of the TPNW, on the steps to advance the elimination of nuclear weapons, is a careful and deliberate elaboration by the negotiators of a means – supplemented by judicious decisions of meetings of states parties (Article 8) – to extend the prohibition treaty in a manner that meets this criticism of untimeliness.
Priorities
The test of a constructive NPT Review Conference will be the extent to which broad engagement can be achieved on how and where to find common ground on practical ways forward for nuclear disarmament during the next review cycle. This is unlikely to be found in denigrating the TPNW (criticisms of which will be addressed briefly below). It may be found in building on the efforts of the CEND working group, if concerns can be allayed that the US is in effect raising the bar on disarmament progress by ‘linking it to transformations in the international security landscape far removed from NPT-specified obligations’.81
The test of a constructive NPT Review Conference will be the extent to which broad engagement can be achieved on how and where to find common ground on practical ways forward for nuclear disarmament during the next review cycle.
Common ground may also be found through a range of other initiatives in which NATO allies are actively involved, a small sample of which is listed here; reference is also made to initiatives of members of NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP), and to major non-NATO allies (designated as such by the US government) that have strategic working relationships with the US Armed Forces:
- Canada has long played a leadership role in promoting the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) as the next step towards nuclear disarmament. Such a treaty would halt the production of the material that gives nuclear weapons their explosive power, and thus eventually halt the production of those armaments.82
- Germany convened a conference in Berlin in March 2019 entitled Capturing Technology. Rethinking Arms Control, the aim of which was to provide a ‘forum to help better understand the challenges posed to global arms control by the military applications of new technologies, and to help discuss solutions in response to these challenges’.83 The meeting’s areas of focus included missile control regimes and new technologies, as well as new trends in missile technologies.84 At the start of the conference, the foreign ministers of Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden issued a political declaration emphasizing the need for strengthening existing nuclear arms control arrangements ‘in a multilateral endeavour to maintain and reinforce the rules-based international order for a new technological age’.85
- Norway’s current priority is the development of a verification regime that is trusted by nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states alike as crucial for achieving further reductions in nuclear arsenals. Norway recently chaired a UN-mandated Group of Government Experts on this issue. Verification is also the priority of a number of NATO and other states (including nuclear weapon states) that are active in the International Partnership for Nuclear Disarmament Verification (IPNDV), identifying challenges associated with nuclear disarmament verification and developing potential procedures and technologies to address those challenges.
- The Stockholm Ministerial Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament and the Non-Proliferation Treaty, convened by the foreign minister of Sweden86 in June 2019, expressed the goal that the forthcoming Review Conference should identify stepping stones for the implementation of Article VI of the NPT,87 building on commitments made particularly during the Review Conferences of 1995, 2000 and 2010.88
- In 2017 the then minister of foreign affairs of Japan89 initiated a Group of Eminent Persons for Substantive Advancement of Nuclear Disarmament, which submitted several papers during the current NPT review cycle.90
Also indicative of the seriousness of the context in which such initiatives are being undertaken are the April 2019 UN Security Council’s debate on the NPT, chaired by German foreign minister Heiko Maas in anticipation of the forthcoming Review Conference,91 and, also in April 2019, the Statement on Non-Proliferation and Disarmament issued by the G7 under the French presidency.92 And at their ninth annual meeting, in London in February 2020, the P5 – China, France, Russia, the UK and the US (i.e. the five permanent members of the UN Security Council; also, as the NPT nuclear weapon states, termed the ‘N5’) – agreed that their work on nuclear doctrines and strategic risk reduction should continue beyond the 10th NPT Review Conference.93
70 See however Kmentt, A. (2016), ‘The development of the international initiative on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and its effect on the nuclear weapons debate’, International Review of the Red Cross, 97(899), pp. 681–709, doi: 10.1017/S1816383116000059 (accessed 2 Apr. 2020).
71 The Netherlands (2017), ‘Explanation of vote of the Netherlands on text of Nuclear Ban Treaty’, 7 July 2017, https://s3.amazonaws.com/unoda-web/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Netherlands-EoV-Nuclear-Ban-Treaty.pdf (accessed 11 Oct. 2019).
72 The Netherlands (2017), ‘United Nations Conference to negotiate a legally-binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination: agenda item 8 (b): Statement by The Netherlands’, 28 March 2017, http://statements.unmeetings.org/media2/14683480/netherlands.pdf (accessed 16 Oct. 2019).
73 Meyer, P. (2018), Folding the Umbrella: Nuclear Allies, the NPT and the Ban Treaty.
74 Ibid. See also Dall, E. (2017), ‘A Balancing Act: NATO States and the Nuclear Ban Treaty’, in Shetty and Raynova (eds) (2017), Breakthrough or Breakpoint? Global Perspectives on the Nuclear Ban Treaty.
75 See for example Kimball, D. G. (2017), ‘The United States and the Nuclear Ban Treaty’, in Shetty and Raynova (eds) (2017), Breakthrough or Breakpoint? Global Perspectives on the Nuclear Ban Treaty.
76 During the TPNW negotiations, the Netherlands floated the notion of a ‘temporality clause’: see the Netherlands (2017), ‘Explanation of vote of the Netherlands on text of Nuclear Ban Treaty’.
77 Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Turkey.
78 Australia, Japan and the Philippines.
79 See inter alia Preparatory Committee for the Tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons ‘Proposals by the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative to enhance transparency for strengthening the review process for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons’, Working Paper NPT/CONF.2020/PC.III/WP.24; Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (2018), NPT/CONF.2020/PC.II/WP.29, ‘Nuclear safeguards standards under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons’, Working Paper, https://undocs.org/NPT/CONF.2020/PC.II/WP.29 (accessed 1 Nov. 2019); Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (2018), NPT/CONF.2020/PC.II/WP.36, ‘Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’, Working Paper, https://undocs.org/NPT/CONF.2020/PC.II/WP.36 (accessed 1 Nov. 2019).
80 Regarding reinforcement, see the Swiss report on the TPNW: Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (2018), Report of the Working Group to analyse the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, https://www.eda.admin.ch/dam/eda/en/documents/aussenpolitik/sicherheitspolitik/
2018-bericht-arbeitsgruppe-uno-TPNW_en.pdf (accessed 11 Oct. 2019).
81 Meyer, P. (2019) ‘Creating an Environment for Nuclear Disarmament: Striding Forward or Stepping Back?’, Arms Control Today, April 2019, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-04/features/creating-environment-nuclear-disarmament-striding-forward-stepping-back (accessed 11 Oct. 2019).
82 For background, see Government of Canada (2018), ‘Banning fissile material production for nuclear weapons’, https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/peace_security-paix_securite/banning_materials-interdire_materiaux.aspx?lang=eng (accessed 29 Apr. 2020).
83 2019. Capturing Technology. Rethinking Arms Control (2019), ‘About’, https://rethinkingarmscontrol.de/about/ (accessed 10 Dec. 2019).
84 SIPRI (2019), ‘SIPRI partners with the German Federal Foreign Office for conference on technology and arms control’, https://www.sipri.org/news/2019/sipri-partners-german-federal-foreign-office-conference-technology-and-arms-control (accessed 20 May 2020).
85 Foreign Ministers of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Sweden (2019), ‘Political Declaration: Conference “2019. Capturing Technology. Rethinking Arms Control”, Berlin, 15 March 2019’, https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/
blob/2199824/798daa3007fd8fc2dddd04db13633353/190315-erkl-konf-rethinking-arms-control-data.pdf (accessed 20 May 2020).
86 Sweden is a NATO PfP member state.
87 See working paper submitted by Sweden, NPT/CONF.2020/PC.III/WP.33, ‘Unlocking disarmament diplomacy through a “stepping stone” approach’.
88 Government Offices of Sweden (2019), ‘The Stockholm Ministerial Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament and the Non-Proliferation Treaty’, https://www.government.se/statements/2019/06/the-stockholm-ministerial-meeting-on-nuclear-disarmament-and-the-non-proliferation-
treaty/ (accessed 11 Oct. 2019).
89 Japan is a major non-NATO ally.
90 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (2019), ‘Group of Eminent Persons for Substantive Advancement of Nuclear Disarmament’, https://www.mofa.go.jp/dns/ac_d/page25e_000178.html (accessed 11 Oct. 2019).
91 United Nations (2019), ‘New Approach Crucial for Eliminating Atomic Bombs, Speakers Tell Security Council, Warning Dangerous Rhetoric about Nuclear Weapons Use Is Eroding Disarmament Gains’, 2 April 2019, https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/sc13761.doc.htm (accessed 11 Oct. 2019).
92 G7 (2019), ‘2019 G7 Statement on Non-Proliferation and Disarmament’, 6 April 2019, https://www.elysee.fr/admin/upload/default/0001/
05/2ffa826926cd72354b90a05f7de765bfcc9908b6.pdf (accessed 11 Oct. 2019).
93 See Liddle, A. (2020), ‘Disarmament blog: the P5 meet in London’, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, 21 February 2020, https://blogs.fco.gov.uk/aidanliddle/2020/02/21/disarmament-blog-the-p5-meet-in-london/ (accessed 2 Apr. 2020).