Cynthia Urquizo - NPSGlobal, 2 May 2010. 

From 3 May to the 28 May, the eyes of the international community will be on New York. The 2010 NPT RevCon will meet at the United Nations Headquarters. As the 2005 Conference was a failure, there are a lot of expectations for this session to achieve a certain kind of success, at a time when the subject has gained a significant momentum.

Conferences to review the operation of the Treaty have been held at five-year intervals since it went into force in 1970. Today, the 189 signatory states have many challenges to address. The President-elect of this edition, Ambassador Libran N. Cabactulan from the Philippines, is under pressure to get a final declaration able to strengthen the Treaty and to deal with its imbalances. Unlike last time, luckily, a Provisional Agenda has been approved by the Preparatory Committee. It is a significant good start up.

It is important to bear in mind that non-parties to the treaty, India and Pakistan, have openly declared their possession of nuclear weapons, while Israel holds a policy of deliberate ambiguity. However, the focus right now is on North Korea, who withdrew from the Treaty in 2003, and conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and, it is said -yet not confirmed- that it is preparing another one this year. The North Korean case is one of the top priorities to be tackled, in terms of measures to address potential withdrawals. On the other hand, Iran's nuclear program will be a point of debate when referring to the multilateralization of the nuclear fuel cycle and the extension of the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspection powers. Yet, experts are not enthusiastic, and believe this ideas will not get past the discussion stage. 

Other key issues expected to be considered are: universality of the Treaty; nuclear disarmament and application of the Article VI (which commits the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, China, and France to end the arms race, stop nuclear testing, and progressively disarm); non-proliferation, including the promotion and strengthening of safeguards; procedures to advance the peaceful use of nuclear energy, safety and security. In this sense on April 12-13, the United States hosted a Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC, aimed at enhancing the international cooperation to prevent nuclear terrorism. Therefore, the 2010 Review Conference could be an excellent arena to test that the agreements made could be translated into effective measures to secure nuclear material and to prevent its smuggling.

An equally relevant matter is the implementation of the 1995 resolution on the Middle East, which calls upon all States of the region to take practical steps in appropriate forums aimed at making progress towards the establishment of an effectively verifiable Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction. It would be a rational suggestion, "if you really could verify that no one in that region, including Iran and Israel, had nuclear weapons. That would be good for all (...) but given the difficulties of getting from here to there anytime soon -getting Israel´s buy-in, building an unprecedentedly intrusive inspection system, etc.- this idea is not being viewed as a serious near-term proposal", expert Robert Wright says.   

Finally, the Summit will reflect upon measures to further strengthen the review process. The fact that it requires unanimity makes it difficult to update. Also, the RevCon will try to envision ways to promote engagement of civil society in strengthening NPT norms, and in promoting disarmament education.

What makes this particular edition of the Review Conference so auspicious in the eyes of many? The window of opportunity created by the momentum emerging due to the strategic shifts in the world powers and their executive leaders. The START follow-on Treaty recently signed by Russia and the US, possessors of 95% of the nuclear arsenals of the world, is a step forward in the right direction. So is the Nuclear Posture Review launched April 6, 2010 by the latter country. In words of Ploughshares Fund President Joe Cirincione, "this is the new nuclear security consensus that the military is completely behind. The Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are now solidly behind the ratification of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. General Cartwright, Staff's Vice-Chairman was clear: "No new testing, no new warheads… no new missions or capabilities." Evidently, with this diplomatic wink, the symmetry has been broken and a once-in-a-lifetime milestone has occurred.

The creation of the ICNND (International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament) in 2008, a joint initiative of the Australian and Japanese Governments which aims to reinvigorate global efforts on these issues, is also a good example of what can be done to push them up the international agenda. Seems as if the matter has taken over high politics. Articles have been written -such as the yearly Op-ed by George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn-; high level declarations have been made by statesmen from UK, Germany, France, Italy; speeches as the one President Obama gave in Prague and many other significant statements took place in the last 5 years. The logic of the process as we know it is starting to change. It is time to see these rhetorical activism concretize in specific action plans and tangible, legally binding commitments.

There is promise, but there is pressure. The Director of the Acronym Institute, Rebecca Johnson explains: "Since the 2005 Review Conference failed, the May 2000 NPT Review Conference was the last to achieve a substantive success. Its final document incorporated the famous "thirteen practical steps on disarmament" that were negotiated and agreed, following proposals from the New Agenda Coalition of seven non-nuclear-weapon states (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden). This disarmament action plan has not been completely fulfilled and it needs now to be reformulated to take into account recent developments.”

The inherent double standard of the NPT as a whole is a critic most nuclear "have-nots" commonly share. For example, a large number of countries from the Movement of Non-Aligned States (NAM) have expressed concerns about Resolution 1887 -adopted from the special session of the UN Security Council chaired by Obama on September 2009- stating that it is unbalanced because its operative paragraphs reinforce obligations and controls on the non-nuclear states, without entailing any more concrete steps on disarmament. This argument is broadly adopted by countries with significant nuclear activity, such as Brazil and Argentina, to justify their refusal to sign the Additional Protocol. The belief is that they have done enough and now, they expect initiatives from the "haves". What kind of conditions would satisfy sufficiently to sign the Additional Protocol, they do not define. Hence, it is hard to imagine there is going to be some resolution on this base, and it will still be of voluntary adherence for much longer.

Nonetheless, some of the proposed elements for an action plan on disarmament are:

• Support the US-Russian negotiations and agreements on bilateral deep reductions to follow-on from START.
• Encourage all nuclear-armed states to undertake unilateral reductions in their respective arsenals.
• Reaffirm the principles of irreversibility, transparency, verification and accountability in fulfilling NPT obligations.
• Support the establishment of a comprehensive, UN-based accounting system covering size of nuclear arsenals, nuclear weapon delivery systems, fissile material stockpiles, and spending on nuclear forces.
• Commitment to initiating a preparatory work leading to negotiations on a universal convention for the sustainable, verifiable and enforceable abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide.

Regardless its many defects and faults in implementation, the Treaty has been very effective for 42 years. As Ambassador Sergio Duarte, President of the 2005 NPT Review Conference stated: "It's not really a failure. Compliance is sporadic, slow and without verification." Therefore, this is a better chance as any to plead for the evolution and modernization of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

To download the 2010 Review Conference Calendar of Official Meetings click here . Source: Reaching Critical Will.

Sources:

Acronym Institute:  http://www.acronym.org.uk/  

Reaching Critical Will: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/

United Nations: http://www.un.org/en/

New York Times - "Deep Thoughts Before Armageddon" by Robert Wright: http://nyti.ms/a1AQe7

NPSGlobal Foundation- "The keys of the nuclear debate and the future of the NPT" (in Spanish) by Irma Arguello: www.npsglobal.org

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