The Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons

How it was Achieved and Why it Matters

Alexander Kmentt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000393484
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Arms Control
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book chronicles the genesis of the negotiations that led to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which challenged the established nuclear order.

The work provides readers with an authoritative account of the complex evolution of the 'Humanitarian Initiative' (HI) and the negotiation history of the TPNW. It includes a close analysis of internal strategy documents and communications in the author's possession which trace the tactical and political decisions of a small group of state actors. By demonstrating the unacceptable humanitarian consequences and uncontrollable risks that these weapons pose to everyone's security, the HI convinced many states to ban nuclear weapons and reject the policy of nuclear deterrence as unsustainable and illegitimate. As such, this book is a case-study of multilateral diplomacy and cooperation between state and civil society actors. It also contains a full discussion of both sides of the nuclear argument and assesses the extent to which the HI and the TPNW have moved the dial and present opportunities for transformational change.

This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation, diplomacy, global governance, and International Relations in general.

Part I
The Humanitarian Initiative

2010–2017: building momentum

1
The origins of the “Humanitarian Initiative”

“We cannot leave it to the nuclear weapon states alone to decide when it is time for them to do away with these weapons. Their destructive power would affect us all, if put to use – and their threat continues to affect us all – therefore they are everyone’s business”.¹

Nuclear disarmament: a bleak picture

The final years of the Cold War and its immediate aftermath are sometimes referred to as the “golden age of nuclear arms control”.² This period commenced with a nuclear détente between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev at the 1986 Reykjavík Summit and their joint statement in 1987 that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”.³ The following years saw the conclusion of landmark nuclear weapons related agreements, both bi-lateral between the US and the Soviet Union/Russian Federation and multilateral.⁴ In these years, it was hoped that the previous four decades of initiatives and efforts on the part of the international community, driven largely by non-aligned⁵ States and activist campaigns to rid the world of nuclear weapons, would become a reality. By 2000, however, this golden age had already ended, and the new millennium ushered in a very challenging period for multilateral disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation efforts. Seemingly unbridgeable differences between those States that possess nuclear weapons emerged and multilateral nuclear disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation efforts came to a halt. From 1997 onwards, the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament,⁶ whose mandate is to negotiate multilateral treaties, was unable to agree on a programme of work.

In the spring of 2000, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference appeared to inject some much-needed energy. The State parties agreed on a Final Document containing “thirteen practical steps for the systematic and progressive efforts to implement the disarmament obligation of Article VI of the NPT”.⁷ These steps included strong multilateral commitments to achieve the early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a commitment to negotiations of a Treaty prohibiting the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons (FMCT) and a commitment to establish a forum in the Conference on Disarmament to deal with nuclear disarmament. The nuclear weapon States agreed to a number of specific commitments and steps towards nuclear disarmament and, importantly, to an “unequivocal undertaking … to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament, to which all States parties are committed under article VI”.⁸

As part of a package to extend the NPT indefinitely beyond its original 25-year lifespan,⁹ general nuclear disarmament principles were agreed upon at the NPT 1995 Review and Extension Conference. The NPT Review Conference in 2000 concretised them. Shortly afterwards, the Russian Federation ratified the CTBT and during the First Committee of the United National (UN) General Assembly in Autumn 2000 and in the Conference on Disarmament, many States expressed a hope that significant progress on nuclear disarmament would follow.

This optimism was short-lived. George W. Bush came into office in January 2001 and his neoconservative administration soon signalled a unilateralist approach to arms control: they viewed arms control as a concept, particularly in multilateral settings, with scepticism and often with open disdain. For neoconservatives, it was, in the words of John Bolton who served in the administration as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, a “refuge for those who are uncomfortable with American Power or who are seeking to restrain U.S. power”¹⁰ and not an effective means to address security issues but, “a tired, threadbare, legacy of the Cold War”.¹¹ The inclusion of “rogue states”¹² in the negotiations of multilateral agreements “made them weak, or flawed or ineffectual”.¹³ In short, arms control was considered as “impossible when it would be important, but unimportant when it is possible”.¹⁴

The new US administration announced that it would not submit the CTBT to the Senate for ratification, as it epitomized the ineffective and outdated approach of the “wider congregation of arms control True Believers” and “CTBT candlelighters”.¹⁵ It would not support negotiations on an FMCT and would not be bound by the thirteen practical steps.¹⁶ In December 2001, the US withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty), in clear contravention of the 2000 NPT Review Conference Final Document.¹⁷ In the same month, in a move that further demonstrated its approach to multilateral disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation efforts, the US forced the end of a seven-year negotiation process for a verification regime to the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC).

With the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and its justification to prevent Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, the US focus had shifted to “counter proliferation”. In the same year, North Korea withdrew from the NPT and an undeclared nuclear program in Iran was revealed, putting further pressure on the NPT. Not surprisingly, the 2005 NPT Review Conference ended in acrimony and without consensus or any semblance of agreement on nuclear disarmament or the continued support of the thirteen practical steps. The US (and to a less visible degree, France) refused to accept them as a basis for the proceedings during the Conference.¹⁸

The “inalienable right for nuclear energy for peaceful purposes”, enshrined in Article IV of the NPT¹⁹ has always been considered a key element of the NPT’s “grand bargain”, whereby non-nuclear weapon States forgo a nuclear weapons capability in exchange for access to nuclear energy for civilian applications and the promise of nuclear disarmament by the nuclear weapon States. In July 2005, the US dealt another major blow to the credibility of the NPT regime by negotiating a “US-India Nuclear Agreement”,²⁰ subsequently pushing through an exemption for India from the stringent nuclear export controls guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.²¹ The exemption gave India access to civil nuclear cooperation, despite the fact that it was not a member of the NPT. In the eyes of many of the NPT non-nuclear weapons States, the US had de facto recognized India as a nuclear weapon State and rewarded India for having stayed outside the NPT.

For supporters of nuclear disarmament, the bleak outlook continued. In October 2006, North Korea conducted their first nuclear test explosion. While this highlighted the urgency for a norm against nuclear testing, the road to CTBT entry into force remained blocked, mainly due to the continued negative US stance. The revelations about the Iranian nuclear program demonstrated that it is very difficult to differentiate between peaceful nuclear uses, allowed under Article IV of the NPT, and military applications of nuclear energy and technology, that are prohibited under Article II.²² From 2006 onwards, increasing pressure was brought to bear against Iran, through UN Security Council Resolutions and the imposition of severe sanctions,²³ to which Iran reacted with threats to withdraw from the NPT.²⁴ To this day, the Iranian nuclear issue continues to reveal the “double-standard” that is built into the NPT regime and the irony has not gone unnoticed that the E3/EU plus 3 States²⁵ who have led the non-proliferation efforts against Iran all “rely” on nuclear weapons for their own security, while insisting on their unacceptability for other States.²⁶ Iran has managed to use this “double standard” argument to obtain a degree of “protection” in multilateral meetings from fellow non-aligned States.²⁷

All through this period, the stalemate in the Conference on Disarmament continued unchanged with a ritualistic annual meeting schedule but without the necessary consensus on a programme of work to actually initiate any negotiations. Owing to the lack of political will on the part of the main protagonists, the different strategic interests of nuclear weapons possessors, and also to the stringent rules of procedure of this forum, requiring consensus on all decisions, no negotiations took place on any topic on the agenda.

By 2008, the state of health of multilateralism in the field of nuclear disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation was bleak. The NPT was challenged on all fronts: on proliferation by the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, on its “grand bargain” on peaceful uses of nuclear energy by the India exemption and, most evidently, on nuclear disarmament with the lack of implementation of Article VI and the “disowning” of the thirteen practical steps of the 2000 NPT Review Conference by some nuclear weapon States. The multilateral fora, most notably the Conference on Disarmament, were blocked and dysfunctional. The legitimacy and credibility of both the existing multilateral instruments and institutions was being dangerously undermined. The “end of arms control”,²⁸ which John Bolton declared a policy objective, seemed on the verge of becoming reality. For non-nuclear weapons states, eager to see multilateral progress in this field, the concern and the frustration about the status quo increased and, with it, discussions on how and when forward movement could be possible.

Initially, the focus of these discussions was on the Conference on Disarmament itself and on finding ways to overcome the stalemate. Various attempts,²⁹ all ultimately futile, were made to balance the different political priorities of its member States on the “four core issues”³⁰ on the Conference on Disarmament agenda, to enable the adoption of a programme of work.

At the First Committee of the UN General Assembly in 2005, six countries, Brazil, Canada, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, and Sweden, presented a proposal³¹ to establish four so-called “open-ended ad-hoc committees” on the “four core issues”.³² The Conference on Disarmament requires consensus; these committees would operate under the rules of procedure of the UN General Assembly and therefore not require consensus. There was some support for this circumven-tory move but also strong opposition from the nuclear weapon States³³ as well as from some non-aligned States, who opposed what they saw as a challenge to the established UN “disarmament machinery”.³⁴ Although the draft resolution was not tabled for adoption by the First Committee, it “caused a stir and demonstrated creative problem solving to address the deadlock in the CD”.³⁵ This innovative method of circumventing “veto-dynamics” through the more flexible UN General Assembly rules of procedure would be taken up again in 2011, playing a crucial role in the context of what became known as the “Humanitarian Initiative”³⁶ and the subsequent TPNW negotiations.

The humanitarian disarmament approach

Amidst this gloomy picture in the nuclear disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation fields, there were some successes. From the mid-1990s, in parallel with the emergence of the concept of human security,³⁷ the suffering caused by specific weapons systems received increased international attention.³⁸ The terrible impact of antipersonnel landmines on civilians and especially children, sometimes...