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Saving the Non-Proliferation Treaty Today there are 34,145 nuclear weapons in existence, 96 percent of them in the hands of the United States and Russia. The United Kingdom, France and China have nuclear stocks in the low hundreds, with lesser numbers held by Israel, India and Pakistan. North Korea claims the ability to make a nuclear bomb and Iran is suspected of trying to convert nuclear fuels to bomb-making ability. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that at least 40 countries have the capability to produce nuclear weapons, and criticizes the inadequacy of export control systems of nuclear materials which are unable to prevent the existence of an extensive illicit market for the supply of nuclear items. The disappearance, by theft or otherwise, of nuclear materials from Russia, is well established. The threat of nuclear terrorism is on the mind of every official I know. Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the IAEA, says the margin of security today is “thin and worrisome.” Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts goes further: “If al Qaeda can obtain or assemble a nuclear weapon, they will certainly use it--on New York or Washington, or any other major American city. The greatest danger we face in the days and weeks and months ahead is a nuclear 9/11, and we hope and pray that it is not already too late to prevent.” The international community has awakened to the dangers posed by the proliferation of nuclear weapons either to more States or sub-State actors who could be terrorists. Thus, the U.N. Security Council earlier this year adopted Resolution 1540 requiring all States to take measures to prevent non-State actors from acquiring or developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and to prevent the spread of these weapons. The Proliferation Security Initiative of the United States seeks to interdict on the high seas the transfer of sensitive nuclear materials. And the G-8 (leading industrialized countries) have allocated $20 billion over ten years to eliminate some stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Russia. These steps are by no means sufficient to ward off looming catastrophes. The fact of the matter is that the proliferation of nuclear weapons cannot be stopped as long as the most powerful nations in the world maintain that nuclear weapons are essential for their own security. How can it be satisfactorily explained to would-be nuclear States that the five permanent members of the Security Council, the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China, charged with maintaining security in the world, are the very same five declared nuclear powers who tell the rest of the world to abstain while they modernize their own nuclear arsenals? It is the continued possession of nuclear weapons by the powerful that undermines the rule of law and acts as an incentive to those who would like to be powerful too. Of course, North Korea and Iran and any other such state must be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons, and the inspection and verification processes of the IAEA must be stepped up with more funding and personnel. But attempting to stop proliferation as a sort of one-dimensional activity will never work unless meaningful disarmament steps are combined with it. In 1998, a new grouping of seven middle power States, Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden, called the New Agenda Coalition (NAC), came into existence. It was dedicated to the elimination of nuclear weapons through implementing the legal obligations of the NPT Since then, NAC has become a formidable rallying point for what might be called the “moderate middle” of the nuclear weapons debate--between the recalcitrant nuclear weapons States on the one hand, and the Non-Aligned Movement calling for the immediate implementation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention on the other. The New Agenda’s annual resolutions at the U.N. First Committee have been gathering strength. Last year’s resolution, based essentially on implementation of the 13 Practical Steps, was adopted by a vote of 121 in favor, 6 opposed and 38 abstentions. (The six no’s were cast by the United States Britain, France, India, Pakistan and Israel.) The abstentions are the most interesting category, for here were found all the non-nuclear States of NATO except one--Canada, which voted for the resolution. Efforts were made by the Middle Powers Initiative (www.middlepowers.org) and others to persuade the leading non-nuclear members of NATO to join Canada in supporting the resolution. But the adverse influence of the western nuclear States of NATO was too strong. This year, recognizing that the moderate middle of the nuclear weapons debate must be strengthened if the NPT is to survive the 2005 Review, the New Agenda has presented a leaner, more attractive resolution in an obvious effort to gain the support of all the NATO non-nuclear States. The resolution, “Towards a Nuclear-Weapons Free World: Accelerating the Implementation of Nuclear Disarmament Commitments,” is substantive but does not go beyond previous commitments. It identifies such priorities as: early entry-into-force of the CTBT; reduction of non-strategic nuclear weapons and non-development of new types of nuclear weapons; negotiation of an effectively verifiable fissile material cut off treaty; establishment of a subsidiary body to deal with nuclear disarmament at the Conference on Disarmament; and compliance with the principles of irreversibility and transparency and verification capability. Introducing their moderate approach in an op-ed article in the International Herald Tribune September 21, 2004, the seven foreign ministers of the New Agenda stated bluntly that “the primary tool for controlling nuclear weapons, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, risks falling apart, with further proliferation as a consequence.” They hammered home the point: “If the nuclear weapons States continue to treat nuclear weapons as a security enhancer, there is a real danger that other States will start pondering they should do the same: Recent developments show that this has already happened.” The whole international community, nuclear and non-nuclear alike, is concerned about proliferation, but the current attempt by the nuclear weapons States 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. A new coalition of States determined to save the NPT in 2005 must now be forged. Douglas Roche
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