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2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

15. Possible Means to Overcome Tendencies of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty to Erode the NPT

Author : Stefan Kadelbach

Published in: Nuclear Non-Proliferation in International Law - Volume V

Publisher: T.M.C. Asser Press

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Abstract

While the United Nations General Assembly has adopted the text of a ‘Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons’, chances for its implementation are slim. Almost all (declared or de facto) nuclear-weapon States are planning to enlarge or to modernise their arsenals, and both Russia and the United States have developed postures that revive Cold War scenarios. In such an environment, tendencies eroding the NPT regime must be countered. The most promising option appears to be to advocate for more dialogue and confidence building. Many non-nuclear-weapon States have a vital interest to promote this approach and ought to cooperate in facilitating such a process. The contribution discusses the options under international law of progressive improvement within and outside the new Ban Treaty which might contribute to the obligation to strive for a comprehensive prohibition of nuclear arms.

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previous chapter The Link Between Nuclear Disarmament and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals

next chapter Precarious Peace: Nuclear Deterrence and Defence Doctrines of Nuclear-Weapon States in the Post-Cold War Era

Article IX: 3 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, opened for signature 1 July 1968, entered into force 5 March 1970, 729 UNTS 168. The Treaty is binding upon all UN Member States, with the notable exceptions of the de facto NWS India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan, as well as South Sudan. The status of North Korea, which notified withdrawal from NPT, is controversial.

Kile and Kristensen 2018.

Kile and Kristensen 2018, 235.

US Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review, February 2018, https://www.dod.defense.gov/News/Special-Reports/0218_npr; Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, 1 March 2018, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/56957.

See Chinese Ministry of National Defense, China’s Military Strategy, 26 May 2015, English translation at the US Naval Institute website, https://news.usni.org/2015-05/26/document-chinas-military-strategy; Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, 1 March 2018, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/56957.

European Parliament Directorate-General for External Policies, Policy Department, Russia’s national strategy and military doctrine and their implications for the EU, PE 578.016 (January 2017), 16.

Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances of 5 December 1994, UN Doc A/49/765 of 19 December 1994, Annex I, pt. 1 and 2; the declaration concerning Ukraine expresses the commitment ‘to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine’ and ‘to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine’.

Richter 2018, 6.

Treaty between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles of 8 December 1987, 1657 UNTS 2; see Statement from the President regarding the INF Treaty of 1 February 2019, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-regarding-intermediate-range-nuclear-forces-inf-treaty/; see Richter 2019.

‘Russia Suspends INF Treaty in ‘mirror response’ to US halting the agreement’, Russia Today 2 February 2019, https://www.rt.com/news/450395-russia-suspends-inf-treaty/.

As noted by the UN Secretary-General, in UNODA, “Securing Our Common Future—An Agenda for Disarmament”, 2018, at 3 f., 17.

Cf. UN General Assembly, Report of the Open-ended Working Group taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations of 1 September 2016, A/71/371 (hereafter cited OEWG Rep. 2016), paras 21 and 65.

For the reasons, see Potter 2016.

For the exception of The Netherlands as one of the NATO states where US nuclear weapons are stationed, see infra, note 51.

Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted 7 July 2017, A/CONF.229/2017/8, reprinted 57 ILM 350 (2017), opened for signature 20 September 2017. By the end of January 2019, 70 states had signed and 21 ratified the Treaty, http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/tpnw. It is to enter into force 90 days after the 50th ratification (Article 15).

See Kmentt 2015; Minor 2015. The International Campaign for the Abolishment of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) which was given credit for having provided the civil society forum to promote and achieve this Treaty, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, see press release by The Norwegian Nobel Committee, The Nobel Peace Prize for 2017, 6 October 2017, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2017/summary/.

UN GA Res 70/48, Humanitarian pledge for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons (7 December 2015), A/RES/70/48, with a 139-29-17 record, 8 States not voting.

UN GA Res 71/258 (23 December 2016), A/RES/71/258, adopted by a 113-35-13 majority, 32 States not voting.

A/CONF.229/2017/L.3/Rev. 1.

Sweden Explanation of vote, 7 July 2017, in: Swedish Chancellery of Government—Department for the Exterior, Utredning av konsekvenserna av ett svenskt tillträde till konventionen om förbud mot kärnvapen, at 231; Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the Conference of Disarmament, UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Explanation of Vote, 7 July 2017.

Dunworth 2017.

For the first time in the very first UN GA resolution, Res. 1 (I) of 24 January 1946, para 5(c) and (d).

Joyner 2011, 30–32, 76–78; but see Ford 2018; for earlier statements in that sense cf. reference by Rühle and Rühle 2017, 4; accordingly, horizontal non-proliferation would be the core of the NPT regime from which the other elements depend.

Cf. the statement by Henry Kissinger in: EastWest Institute, Eliminating the Nuclear Threat—Forcing a New East-West Consensus on Weapons of Mass Destruction, September 2009, 4.

Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, ICJ Rep. 1996 (I), p. 226, para 97.

North Sea Continental Shelf Cases, ICJ Rep. 1969, p. 4, para 85.

Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (supra note 25), para 99.

Id., para 100.

Secretary-General’s message to the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, 8 December 2014, delivered by Angela Kane, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2014-12-08/secretary-generals-message-vienna-conference-humanitarian-impact.

The ICJ saw no ‘dispute’ between the Parties in the sense of Article 36 of the Court’s Statute, after having changed its criteria for establishing such a dispute, in Obligations Concerning Negotiations Relating to Cessation of the Nuclear Arms Race and of Nuclear Disarmament (Marshall Islands v. India), Jurisdiction and Admissibility, ICJ Rep. 2016, p. 255; similarly, in Marshall Islands v. Pakistan, Jurisdiction and Admissibility, and in Marshall Islands v. United Kingdom, Preliminary Objections, ICJ Rep. 2016, pp. 552 and 833, respectively. For critique, see Sorel 2017.

Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bolivia v. Chile), judgment of 1 October, https://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/153/153-20181001-JUD-01-00-EN.pdf, para 87, with reference to Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (supra note 25), obiter.

See references by Tuzmukhamedov 2015, 347–349.

See also Magi 2018.

1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Final Document, NPT/CONF.1995/32 (part I), annex, decision 2, pt. 4 c (‘the determined pursuit by the nuclear-weapon States of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of eliminating those weapons …’); 2000 Review Conference Final Document Vol. I, NPT/CONF.2000/28 (parts I and II), at 14–15 (thirteen steps ‘for the systematic and progressive efforts to implement Article VI’ NPT); 2010 Review Conference Final Document Vol. I, NPT/CONF/2010/50 (part I), at 20, Action 3 (NWS ‘commit to undertake further efforts to reduce and ultimately eliminate all types of nuclear weapons …’).

Article VI of the Treaty on Nuclear Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: Working paper submitted by Ireland on behalf of the New Agenda Coalition (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa), NPT/CONF.2015/PC.III/WP.18, 2 April 2014, para 29 and annexes I to IV; cf. also OEWG Rep. 2016 (supra note 12), paras 36–40; for a further discussion of these options, see Dunworth 2015.

The Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, April 2007, submitted to the UN SG 18 January 2008, A/62/650, is an updated version of the Model Convention circulated in November 1997, A/C.1/52/7; for a summary evaluation, see Weiss 2010, 166–172.

Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction of 3 September 1992, 1975 UNTS 45.

Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects (with Protocols I, II and III) of 10 October 1980, 1342 UNTS 137.

Dunworth 2015, 614 f.

For CWC supra, note 37; Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and their Destruction of 18 September 1997, 2056 UNTS, 211; Oslo Convention on Cluster Munitions of 30 May 2008, 2688 UNTS 39.

See Swedish and Swiss explanations of vote (supra n 20).

Fleck 2019.

Mukhatzhanova 2017, 5.

The different legal positions are reflected in the voting record of UN GA Res. 72/59 of 4 December 2017, A/RES/72/59, calling for a convention prohibiting the use or threat of use, which was adopted only by a 123-50-10 majority.

See preambular para 10: ‘Considering that any use of nuclear weapons would be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, in particular the principles and rule of international humanitarian law.’

Bothe, Partsch and Solf 1982, 312.

See Dunworth 2017; Sossai 2018, 191 and 195.

Sossai 2018, 198 f.

Mukhatzhanova 2017, 8.

Perkovich 2017, 9–11.

The Netherlands was then the only State to vote against the Treaty text as recommended for signature in UN GA, see supra note 19. One may well raise the question whether the refusal of the other NWS and umbrella states even to participate in deliberations was compatible with the obligation to negotiate in Article VI NPT, see Thakur 2017, 80. At least to exert pressure on non-NWS not to adopt the treaty, in the opinion of the present writer, would have been such a violation, see the report by Ruff 2018, 235 f.

See for more detail Venturini 2014.

Fleck 2019.

IAEA, The Structure and Content of Agreements between the Agency and States required in connection with the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, INFCIRC/153 (corrected), 1972.

Model Protocol Additional to the Agreement(s) between State(s) and the International Atomic Agency for the Application of Safeguards, INFCIRC/540, 1997.

Cf. Drobysz and Persbo 2016.

Dunworth 2015, 606, 610 and 613, who points at the CW and BW regimes which also had a ban predecessor in the 1925 Geneva Protocol.

Preambular paras 18 to 20 (NPT, CTBT, nuclear weapon-free zones), Article 4(3) (IAEA), Article 18 (‘existing international agreements […], where those obligations are consistent with the Treaty’).

Joint Press Statement from the Permanent Representatives to the United Nations of the United States, United Kingdom, and France Following the Adoption of a Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons, 7 July 2017, https://usun.state.gov/remarks/7892.

Mukhatzhanova 2017, 9 f.

Supra note 35, Annex II, para 5.

Mukhatzhanova 2017, 3.

Thakur 2017, 82.

Dunworth 2017; Joyner 2017; Sossai 2018, 203 f.

For a similar conclusion, see Swedish Chancellery of Government (supra note 20), 48–50.

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982, 1833 UNTS 3.

Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 28 July 1994, 1836 UNTS 3.

Cf. OEWG Rep. 2016 (supra note 12), paras 38 f.

See the series of articles by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn in the Wall Street Journal between 2007 and 2011, www.nti.org/media/pdfs/NSP_op-eds_final_pdf=1360883065; the address by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in: EastWest Institute (supra note 24), at 1–3; Goldblat 2009. For lists of measures, see OEWG Rep. 2016 (supra note 12), paras 58, 65, and Annex I.

See Swiss statement of vote, supra note 20.

North Korea, the only State which insisted on testing, encountered massive reactions, including sanctions, see UN SC Res. 2321 of 30 November 2016; Res. 2375 of 11 September 2017.

China is the only NWS which has renounced any first use, see supra note 5.

Patton 2018, 195.

See the various forms of inspection discerned in P5 Working Group on the Glossary of Key Nuclear Terms, P5 Glossary of Key Nuclear Terms, prepared for the 2015 NPT Review Conference and distributed by China Atomic Energy Press, April 2015, at 131–154; Dalton et al. 2017; Scheffran 2017; Patton 2018, 198–200.

Treaty on Open Skies (24 March 1992), https://www.osce.org/library/14127.

Mazza 2016.

For civil society reporting under these treaties, see Rietiker 2018, 75–92.

UN GA Res. 48/75L of 16 December 1993.

See point 20 of the 2010 Action Plan (supra note 34).

Cura Saunders, Rowberry and Fearey 2014.

Tuzmukhamedov 2015, 399 f.

Creating the Conditions for Nuclear Disarmament (CCND), Working paper submitted by the United States of America, 18 April 2018, NPT/CONF.2020/PC.II/WP.30, para 1.

Plesch and Miletic 2016, 91.

Cf. P. 5 Glossary (supra note 74).

Kristensen and McKinzie 2012.

For a still existing, traditional format, see US Department of State, Media Note: Thirty-First Session of the Special Verification Commission under the INF Treaty, 14 December 2017, https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2017/12/276613.htm.

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Title: Possible Means to Overcome Tendencies of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty to Erode the NPT
Author: Stefan Kadelbach
Publisher: T.M.C. Asser Press
Book: Nuclear Non-Proliferation in International Law - Volume V
Print ISBN: 978-94-6265-346-7

Electronic ISBN: 978-94-6265-347-4

Copyright Year: 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-347-4_15