II. NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY (NPT)

Negotiations: 1957-1968
Signature: 1 July 1969
Entry into force: 5 March 1970.

Under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons the international community may be divided into three categories: firstly those powers which are officially nuclear, notably France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia and China which produced and set off a nuclear weapon before 1 January 1967; then those countries, such as India, Pakistan and Israel, which unofficially possess a nuclear weapon and are not members of the NPT, and finally all the other states, some of which are parties to the Treaty and others are not.

The objective of the Treaty is to limit as far as possible the number of nuclear powers, by prohibiting any state possessing nuclear weapons from transferring nuclear weapons or other explosive nuclear devices and from helping, encouraging or inciting in any way a state which does not possess nuclear weapons to manufacture or acquire then. Every non-nuclear state also undertakes not to accept the transfer of nuclear arms from any source whatever, nor to manufacture or acquire them.

North Korea is the only country which has denounced the Treaty, in March 1993. Following an agreement with the USA, it eventually remained a member, but will not permit the full inspection of its nuclear equipment until certain conditions have been fulfilled. Iran and Iraq are also still giving some cause for concern.

Under the terms of the Treaty, the parties were to decide after 25 years whether the N.P.T. was to be prolonged indefinitely, for a fixed period or for several fixed periods. On 11 May 1995, following a conference which lasted almost four weeks at the seat of the United Nations in New York, the delegates of more than 180 countries decided that the N.P.T. would remain in force indefinitely. This result was obtained under pressure from the USA, the EU, the other nuclear powers and the other industrialized countries, which eventually overcame opposition from states such as India, Venezuela and Iraq. These countries considered it essential that the N.P.T. should be accompanied by the implementation of a continual, total and global disarmament process. Nuclear weapons therefore needed to be eliminated gradually(1).

Those who opposed this view, however, particularly the developing countries, had some success. In exchange for unlimited extension of the Treaty, the nuclear powers agreed that three documents should accompany the decision:

• a text concerning the stepping up of mechanisms to examine the operation of the N.P.T., with the next conference for this purpose to be held in the year 2000;
• a text on the principles and objectives of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, incorporating an action programme aimed at achieving nuclear disarmament, in particular the conclusion by the Geneva conference of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT);
• a third document on the Middle East. This text created most problems during the last 24 hours of the conference; the initial draft by a group of Arab countries, led by Algeria and Egypt, called upon Israel expressly to renounce nuclear weapons and join the N.P.T. The final text, which was also supported by the USA, Russia and the United Kingdom, and did not expressly mention Israel but countries of the Middle East having nuclear installations whose security is not guaranteed, called on states which had not yet joined the N.P.T. to do so.

It should be stressed, as Russia and China both did, that the indefinite prolongation of the N.P.T. should not be a mandate for the nuclear powers to possess nuclear arsenals indefinitely. It must be regarded as the first stage in eliminating these weapons.

The N.P.T. will probably remain a controversial international system, on the consequences of which the Member States are still deeply divided.