For something very few people will ever see with their own eyes, nuclear weapons are remarkably ever-present in our lives. Currently, nine countries possess around 12,700 nuclear weapons (including over 3,200 retired warheads awaiting dismantlement) and many experts fear the risk of a nuclear war is higher now than it has been in decades.
Since entering into force in 1970, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) has been a legally binding instrument intended to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, advance peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and oblige nuclear-armed nations to achieve complete disarmament.
Every five years, the 191 state parties convene for the NPT review conference to discuss how to fulfill the obligations of the treaty. And while nuclear proliferation has been far less widespread than many had feared and stockpiles have been reduced dramatically since the global peak in the mid-1980s, arguably the most important part of the NPT, Article VI, remains elusive. Article VI of the NPT reads:
“Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
In particular, the five officially recognized nuclear weapon states (Russia, the United States, China, France, and the United Kingdom) continue to hold onto their nuclear weapons tightly, expanding, modernizing, and developing new weapons and delivery systems, even as some have reduced their overall numbers. None of the five demonstrate any sign of ending the nuclear arms race or complete nuclear disarmament “at an early date.”
The nuclear weapon states have all steered clear of TPNW even as previously resistant nations begin to show the first signs of greater openness to the treaty.
Cold War-era fears of all-out nuclear war and a catastrophic nuclear winter, until recently considered a thing of the past, have risen to the fore as tensions escalate and arms control treaties wither. Just last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to use “all available means” to protect Russia (or Russian-held territory), adding “it’s not a bluff.”
Last month, during the tenth review conference in New York, Andrew Facini tweeted a list of some of the more troubling developments since the last conference in 2015, including abandoned and collapsed arms treaties, intensified nuclear modernization, a rapid acceleration of new weapons technology, and heightened tensions and border clashes between nuclear-armed states. These events occurred during the same period when former President Donald Trump was making multiple — explicit and implicit — threats to use nuclear weapons.
This dark turn in the global security environment was even before Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine when Putin threatened anyone trying to stop Russia with “consequences that you have never faced in your history.” Since then, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant (based in Ukraine) has been transformed into a potentially catastrophic battle zone and in August 2022, Russia suspended on-site inspection under the New START Treaty.
Earlier this month, Ukraine’s top military commander warned that Russia might use tactical nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, other longstanding flashpoints on the borders of Pakistan, India, and China, as well as the Taiwan Straits and the Korean Peninsula remain volatile. In the last few weeks, the United States conducted two inter-continental ballistic missile test launches to demonstrate the readiness and lethality of its nuclear weapons. Speculation that North Korea may be preparing for a new explosive nuclear test is ongoing as Kim Jong-un vowed his country would never give up its nuclear weapons.
RUNNING OUT OF PATIENCE
Among the majority of the world’s countries that do not have nuclear weapons, there is a growing sense of frustration for what is seen as backsliding, foot-dragging, and a general unwillingness to make sufficient progress by nuclear weapon states on fulfilling their obligations under the NPT.
Inspired by international treaties banning biological and chemical weapons, landmines, and cluster munitions, a years-long movement by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and others culminated in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which calls for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons and was adopted by a vote of 122 UN member states in 2017.
The TPNW entered into force in January 2021. Currently, 68 nations, more than seven times the number of countries that possess nuclear weapons, have ratified the TPNW, informally called the “ban treaty.” Unlike the NPT, the ban treaty prohibits all state parties from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, possessing, stockpiling, transferring, receiving, or threatening to use nuclear weapons.
TPNW states parties include countries as diverse as Fiji, Mongolia, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Gambia, and Thailand, all of whom have vowed they will not possess or pursue nuclear weapons. They want all nine nuclear-armed countries to join them but those nations reject the ban treaty, calling it ineffective and incompatible with the NPT.
MEETING OF STATES PARTIES
In June, the first Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW convened in Vienna. The meeting was overseen by Ambassador Alexander Kmentt, director for disarmament, arms control, and nonproliferation for Austria’s Ministry for Europe and international affairs.
While nuclear-armed states and some allies argue that the current global security environment is too fraught to make disarmament progress, the majority of other states say that the current global nuclear risk environment demands progress on nuclear disarmament be made sooner than later.
Kmentt argues that staking the livability of our planet on luck and hope is not a tenable long-term strategy as international security hovers near the breaking point. In the recent words of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, humanity is “just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”
“Is it necessary that something absolutely hideous happens? Do we have to see the use of a tactical nuclear weapon somewhere in order to get people talking about it again? I hope not,” said Kmentt.
In addition to the non-nuclear nations who attended the Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW, a number of countries that are skeptical of the ban treaty, including NATO members Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, as well as Finland and Sweden (who have applied to NATO), and also Switzerland and Australia, participated as observers.
The ministry of foreign affairs of another NATO observer, Norway, said in a statement: “Norway stands fully behind NATO’s nuclear posture. However, we acknowledge that the TPNW has entered into force, and we recognize that 86 countries have signed it. We seek a constructive dialogue between all states to advance nuclear disarmament and counter polarization in this area, even though we may have chosen different paths and tools to move towards zero.”
The nuclear weapon states have all steered clear of TPNW even as previously resistant nations begin to show the first signs of greater openness to the treaty.
In response to the nuclear weapon states’ aversion to the TPNW, Kmentt said, “Not engaging with a large number of states that are doing something in good faith is actually not a serious position.” That stubborn resistance by persistent objector nations like the United States and the United Kingdom, he said, demonstrates a fear that TPNW will create a customary international law norm against nuclear weapons.
HUMANITARIAN IMPACTS
One important aspect of the Meeting of States Parties, Kmentt said, was coupling policy talks with a conference on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons. He added that by broadening the disarmament discussion from expert-level nuclear deterrence doctrine and international legal arguments to the more relatable and undeniable humanitarian stakes of using nuclear weapons gives agency to non-nuclear weapon states who are usually disenfranchised in this debate.
“Normally these issues are discussed in expert security policy circles who have very sophisticated terminology on nuclear deterrence doctrine and things like that,” Kmentt said. He suggested that when the discussion is broadened to include humanitarian consequences and environmental impacts, it introduces new, typically unheard voices from civil society and citizens of non-nuclear states who can offer powerful testimony and arguments on the urgent need to eliminate nuclear weapons.