Commentary: Limits of current NPT regime are revealed
May 29, 2015
by Michiko Tanaka, Staff Writer
The NPT Review Conference ended in disappointing failure on May 22 with the member states at loggerheads. As a result, the limits of the NPT regime, in which the expectations and interests of each country, particularly those of the nuclear powers, are complexly intertwined, were revealed. However, some non-nuclear nations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become impatient with the impasse over nuclear disarmament and are now forgoing the NPT regime. It is thought that their efforts will accelerate a movement for banning nuclear weapons outside the NPT framework.
Issues involving the Middle East, which prompted the collapse of the conference, have not genuinely been addressed for 20 years, since the 1995 NPT Review Conference. This is one of the factors discrediting the NPT regime. At this year’s Review Conference, the rifts and wrangling between the nuclear and non-nuclear nations were also seen in sharper relief.
The NPT, which permits only five nations--the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China--to possess nuclear weapons, has always been criticized as a one-sided treaty. In order to shake the status quo after the last Review Conference in 2010, some countries initiated discussions on the inhumanity of nuclear arms, and have since permeated the international community with the call to legally ban these weapons.
In the process of preparing the draft of the final document for this year’s Review Conference, Main Committee I (Disarmament) promoted discussion on establishing a legally binding framework for the abolition of nuclear arms, and listed a “nuclear weapons convention” as an example. Taking up the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons at the conference as a matter for debate was highly significant. However, this action drew strong opposition from the nuclear weapon states and eventually led to their pointblank refusal to support the final document.
Tim Wright, the Asia Pacific director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), is watching the so-called Austrian Pledge as a means of pursuing “effective measures” to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons. He lauds the increase in the number of nations advocating nuclear abolition as a positive outcome of the recent Review Conference. He said that, despite the failure of the conference, these advocate nations should remain optimistic because countries wishing to take part would soon start diplomatic negotiations toward outlawing nuclear weapons.
Following the Review Conference, we should now focus on developments in the global trend of the international community, still seeking the early elimination of nuclear arms. We should not allow the earnest wishes of the aging A-bomb survivors, who traveled all the way to New York to make direct appeals to stress the cruelty of nuclear weapons based on their own experiences, to have been pursued in vain. Japan, still clinging to the U.S. nuclear umbrella despite its identity as the only nation to be attacked by nuclear weapons, should face squarely this discussion on prohibiting and eliminating nuclear arms.
(Originally published on May 24, 2015)
The NPT Review Conference ended in disappointing failure on May 22 with the member states at loggerheads. As a result, the limits of the NPT regime, in which the expectations and interests of each country, particularly those of the nuclear powers, are complexly intertwined, were revealed. However, some non-nuclear nations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become impatient with the impasse over nuclear disarmament and are now forgoing the NPT regime. It is thought that their efforts will accelerate a movement for banning nuclear weapons outside the NPT framework.
Issues involving the Middle East, which prompted the collapse of the conference, have not genuinely been addressed for 20 years, since the 1995 NPT Review Conference. This is one of the factors discrediting the NPT regime. At this year’s Review Conference, the rifts and wrangling between the nuclear and non-nuclear nations were also seen in sharper relief.
The NPT, which permits only five nations--the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China--to possess nuclear weapons, has always been criticized as a one-sided treaty. In order to shake the status quo after the last Review Conference in 2010, some countries initiated discussions on the inhumanity of nuclear arms, and have since permeated the international community with the call to legally ban these weapons.
In the process of preparing the draft of the final document for this year’s Review Conference, Main Committee I (Disarmament) promoted discussion on establishing a legally binding framework for the abolition of nuclear arms, and listed a “nuclear weapons convention” as an example. Taking up the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons at the conference as a matter for debate was highly significant. However, this action drew strong opposition from the nuclear weapon states and eventually led to their pointblank refusal to support the final document.
Tim Wright, the Asia Pacific director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), is watching the so-called Austrian Pledge as a means of pursuing “effective measures” to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons. He lauds the increase in the number of nations advocating nuclear abolition as a positive outcome of the recent Review Conference. He said that, despite the failure of the conference, these advocate nations should remain optimistic because countries wishing to take part would soon start diplomatic negotiations toward outlawing nuclear weapons.
Following the Review Conference, we should now focus on developments in the global trend of the international community, still seeking the early elimination of nuclear arms. We should not allow the earnest wishes of the aging A-bomb survivors, who traveled all the way to New York to make direct appeals to stress the cruelty of nuclear weapons based on their own experiences, to have been pursued in vain. Japan, still clinging to the U.S. nuclear umbrella despite its identity as the only nation to be attacked by nuclear weapons, should face squarely this discussion on prohibiting and eliminating nuclear arms.
(Originally published on May 24, 2015)
