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Is the NPT an Effective International Instrument to Stop Nuclear Proliferation

Without the Establishment of an International Organisation to Supervise the
Implementation of its Pro...

Article in Public Organization Review · June 2014

DOI: 10.1007/s11115-013-0269-0

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 August 2012
________________________________________________________________________________________

Is the NPT an effective international instrument to

stop nuclear proliferation without the
establishment of an international organisation to
supervise the implementation of its provision?

Keywords: NPT; IAEA; nuclear non-proliferation; nuclear disarmament; nuclear-weapon States;

non-nuclear weapon States.

Abstract:

The NPT is the cornerstone of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, which includes a group of
regional and international agreements that have been used, with some success, to slowdown the
spread of nuclear weapons, but it has been incapable of stopping the proliferation of such weapons.
This dangerous situation is affecting international peace, security and stability.
The paper presents several proposals that could change this situation, if are adopted by the
international community.

Introduction higher than the one launched against the

The Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945. Out of
Weapons (NPT1) is the cornerstone of the these 6,000 nuclear warheads, in 2009 there
nuclear non-proliferation regime, which were around 2,000 warheads in immediate
includes a group of others regional and alert status that is to say, ready to be launched
international agreements adopted by the in only fifteen minutes. US submarines were
international community with the purpose of circling around the edges of Russia, able to hit
stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. Moscow within fifteen minutes. At the same
The production of this type of weaponry time, Russia has hundreds of warheads in a
increased dramatically during the 1960s, similar state of readiness and ready to be
1970s and 1980s. The number of nuclear launched in short notice.
warheads built since 1945 worldwide is
approximately 128,000. The USA and the Table 1: Nuclear weapons
former URSS, now Russia, are responsible for Country Nuclear Nuclear Nuclear Nuclear
weapons weapons in weapons weapons
the production of 98% of these nuclear produced active or inactive or dismantled
warheads (USA: 55%, and the former URSS, operational non-
status operational
now Russia: 43%). Morales Pedraza (2009) status
However, what has been achieved so far -
USA 70,0001 5,736 60,0002
in the field of disarmament is not enough.
According to the United Nations sources, Russia 55,0003 8,6004 10,000 36,400
France 1,2605 350 - 910
between 18 000 and 19 000 nuclear warheads
China 6006 400 - 200
are still in the military arsenals of the main UK 1,2007 160 1,040
nuclear-weapon States. The USA has deployed Israel 2008 - - -
some 6,000 strategic nuclear warheads, each India 45-959 30-35 - -
one with a destructive power twenty times Pakistan 30-5210 24-48 - -
DPRK Unknown - - -
1-3,5-10: Approximated figure.
4
1 : Estimate figure.
The NPT was open to signature on July 1, 1968 and Source: Morales Pedraza, 2009
entered into force in March 5, 1970.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 1
Jorge Morales Pedraza
________________________________________________________________________________________
However, the NPT has proved to be in the
past forty years an instrument partially
effective in the objective of stopping the
proliferation of nuclear weapons. Why? This
is the answer: Until 1970s, only five States
had nuclear weapons in their military arsenals.
In the 1990s, the number of nuclear-weapon
States increased to thirteen, an increase of
160%. In 2011, the number of nuclear-weapon
dropped to nine2 and this number has not
diminished since them.
Independently of the position adopted by
different States respect to the NPT, it is the
only binding multilateral agreement in which
all five of the officially recognised nuclear-
weapon States have committed themselves to
move forward on disarmament (Elbaradei,
2004).
Groups of States within the NPT
The NPT provisionally divides its State
parties in two groups. In one group all nuclear-
weapon States recognised as such by the
international community, that is to say, China,
France, Russia, United States and United
Kingdom, are included.
For this group of States the Treaty do not
establish any limitation regarding the quantity
of nuclear weapons that can be produced by
them or the maximum number of nuclear
warheads that they can possess in their
military arsenals to guarantee its own security
or any other binding obligations.
The only article of the NPT that talk about
nuclear disarmament is Article VI. According
to this article, “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”. The Treaty has no implementation
mechanism that forces nuclear-weapon State
parties to fulfill their commitments and
obligations assumed under this Article.
2
Four States (South Africa, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan
and Ukraine) destroyed or transferred to Russia all their
nuclear weapons in the 1990s
_______________________________________________________________________________
Jorge Morales Pedraza
January 2011
To the second group belong all other State
parties. The NPT prohibits to these States the
production and possession of any type of
nuclear weapons, and oblige them to put under
international supervision their entire nuclear
programs, which should be used with
exclusively peaceful purposes. Sanctions can
be imposed to any non-nuclear weapon State
party, if they do not compliance with the
commitments and obligations assumed under
the Treaty.
The different obligations between these two
groups of States are very clear and by no
means can be qualified as “balanced and non-
discriminatory”.
Article VI call nuclear-weapon State parties
to begin negotiations with the purpose of
pursuing nuclear disarmament but regrettably
without specifying when these negotiations
should start and conclude and the period
during which the destruction of all nuclear
weapons and the closure of all nuclear weapon
production facilities should be carried out.
Based on the wording of Article VI,
nuclear-weapon State parties consider that
they are not oblige to show now the necessary
political will to begin, as soon as possible,
negotiations of specific nuclear disarmament
measures at multilateral level and under strict
international supervision, as requested many
times by the international community. These
countries have the opinion that they can fulfil
their obligations under Article VI through
bilateral agreements and unilateral actions.
It is evident that this group of States
enjoys, under the current NPT’s provisions,
certain privileges considered by many
countries as completely discriminatory and
unacceptable in the light of international law
and the equality of States. On this unique
situation, the Canberra Commission in its
report (1995) stressed the following: “Nuclear
weapons are held by a handful of States which
insist that these weapons provide unique
security benefits, and yet reserve uniquely to
themselves the right to own them. This
situation is highly discriminatory and thus
unstable; it cannot be sustained. The
possession of nuclear weapons by any State is
Page 2 of 8
Jorge Morales Pedraza
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a constant stimulus to other States to acquire
them”.
Without any doubt, the discriminatory
character of the NPT is one of the main causes
of the difficulties that this Treaty is now facing
and are impeding the strengthening of the
nuclear non-proliferation regime, difficulties
that is putting in danger not only the existence
of such regime, but also international peace,
security and stability.
In addition, there is no international
organisation with the mandate of supervising
the implementation of all Treaty’s provisions
by its State parties, impeding an impartial
verification on how State parties are fulfilling
its obligations and commitments. The
responsibility of supervising the exclusively
peaceful uses of all nuclear programs in all
NPT State parties has been assigned to the
IAEA, organisation that was created in 1957,
several years before the entered into force of
the NPT, with a very specific mandate: the
promotion of the peaceful uses of nuclear
energy under strict international control in
order to avoid the military use of these
materials.
Summing up the following can be stated:
Non-nuclear weapon State parties of the NPT
has formally renounce to the possession,
production, acquisition or storage of nuclear
weapons, as well of any other nuclear
explosive device, in the understanding that all
nuclear-weapon State parties of the NPT will
fulfil all of their international commitments
and obligation, particularly the destruction of
all nuclear weapons in their possession as
early as possible.
The time has demonstrated, without any
doubt, that this understanding has not been
honoured by any of the nuclear-weapon State
parties. For this group of States nuclear
weapons in the hands of some pose no threat,
while in the hands of others place the world in
mortal jeopardy. This statement should be
rejected by all non-nuclear weapon States.
Why? The answer is very simple:
“Government possessing nuclear weapons can
act responsibly or recklessly” and nobody can
assure that a particular government will act
responsible or recklessly under specific
_______________________________________________________________________________
Jorge Morales Pedraza
January 2011
circumstances and, what is also very
important, “may also change over time”
(WMD Commission’s report, 2006). For this
reason, no State should have the right to have
nuclear weapons in their military arsenals.
The NPT and the spread of nuclear
weapons
The non-proliferation of nuclear weapons is
vital to ensure international peace, security
and stability but it is not enough. The NPT is a
legally binding agreement, which relies on a
fine balance between the commitments
assumed by the five nuclear-weapon State
parties recognised as such by the international
community on one hand, and by the non-
nuclear-weapon State parties on the other. In
other words, non-nuclear weapon States will
not develop nuclear weapons. In return
nuclear-weapon States will systematically
reduce and eventually eliminate all of their
nuclear weapons and the closure of all nuclear
weapon production facilities located in their
territories or under their jurisdiction or control,
or their conversion to be used exclusively for
peaceful purposes in the future.
Without any doubt, both groups of
countries have failed to fully respect their
commitments and obligations under the NPT.
Some non-nuclear weapon State parties have
been accused of having a clandestine nuclear
military program, while all nuclear-weapon
States have not yet fully honoured Article VI.
But what is more worrisome is that there is no
clear signal that nuclear-weapon State parties
are going to honour their commitment and
obligations with the Treaty anytime soon,
encouraging non-nuclear weapons States to
assume the same position regarding their
obligations with the Treaty.
Despite of the above statement it is fair to
say the following: Since the entry into force of
the NPT, the following objectives have been
achieved:
a) A significant reduction in the number of
nuclear weapons in the military arsenals
of the current nuclear-weapon States,
particularly in the case of the USA and
Russia;
Page 3 of 8
Jorge Morales Pedraza
________________________________________________________________________________________
b) A reduction of the possible use of nuclear
weapons by the current nuclear-weapon
State parties in a military conflict;
c) Nuclear weapons is now more difficult to
be disseminated to non-nuclear weapon
States.
During the 1960s it was thought that in the
next ten years between fifteen and twenty five
countries would have nuclear weapons in their
military arsenals, while other forty would have
the capacity to produce them. However, at
least one of these projections has not become a
reality and today only nine countries have
nuclear weapons in their military arsenals, if
the DPRK is included in this group. In any
given time, the maximum number of countries
possessing nuclear weapons was thirteen,
much less than the minimum foreseen in the
1960s.
Some proposals that could be considered to
strengthen the non-proliferation regime
and to achieve nuclear disarmament
How to eliminate this unnecessary and
dangerous situation? The only real option is
the destruction of all nuclear weapons and the
closure of all nuclear weapon production
facilities located in the territory of all nuclear-
weapon States or under their jurisdiction or
control.
However, if nuclear weapons cannot be
destroyed immediately, and this is the case
now, then there are some steps that can be
implemented in order to reduce as much as
possible the danger of a nuclear war. One of
these steps is the elimination of the combat
readiness of all nuclear weapons deployed in
nuclear submarines and the removal of all
nuclear warheads from all land-based
intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear
bombers.
The purpose of this proposal is not the
elimination of nuclear weapons or even their
reduction but to increase the time that it takes
to launch a nuclear attack making more
difficult that such attack can be originated by
an accident, a misunderstanding, or a mistake.
This proposal should be implemented in
parallel to the adoption of other measures to
increase trust among all nuclear-weapon
_______________________________________________________________________________
Jorge Morales Pedraza
January 2011
States, in order to reduce and eventual
eliminate all nuclear weapons in the future.
It is unrealistic to expect, without a strong
international pressure, that nuclear-weapon
State parties of the NPT will give up the
unique and rare privilege to possess nuclear
weapons. For this reason, non-nuclear
weapons State parties should promotes the
adoption of additional measures with the
purpose of increasing the international
pressure on all nuclear weapon States to oblige
them to fulfil their commitments and
obligations with the Treaty.
In addition, an implementation mechanism
to guide the destruction of all nuclear weapons
and the closure of all nuclear weapon
production facilities, or the conversion of
these facilities for their exclusively peaceful
uses in the future, should be one of the most
important measures that need to be adopted in
the framework of the expansion of the NPT.
As alternative, a new international instrument
to complement the Treaty but with an
implementation mechanism included as part of
the text to be adopted, should be strongly
promoted by non-nuclear weapon Sates.
Finally, an international organisation in
charge of the supervision of the
implementation of the NPT’s provisions
should be established as part of the measures
to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation
regime and to achieve nuclear disarmament
proposed in this paper.
Unilateral actions and bilateral agreements
adopted in the field of nuclear disarmament
Since the entry into force of the NPT, the
USA and Russia have reduced their nuclear
weapon arsenals mainly through bilateral
disarmament agreements and unilateral
actions. The international community should
welcome these actions
The main results reached in the
implementation of bilateral disarmament
agreements are the following:
Page 4 of 8
Jorge Morales Pedraza
________________________________________________________________________________________
1) Complete implementation of the START I
and SALT I Treaties and the adoption of
the SALT II Treaty3.
2) The adoption of the START II and Start
III Treaties4.
3) The adoption of the SORT Agreement
(Moscow Treaty).
4) The elimination of a complete class of
intermediate ballistic missiles, thought the
implementation of the INF’s Treaty.
5) The reduction of ballistic missiles in
submarines.
6) The reduction of land-based
intercontinental ballistic missiles.
In addition to what have been said above,
the USA and Russia, have negotiated and
adopted several bilateral agreements, with the
purpose of reducing their immense strategic
nuclear weapon arsenals, as well as to
eliminate other specific types of nuclear
weapons. Through the implementation of these
bilateral agreements thousands of nuclear
weapons have been destroyed by these two
countries in the last thirty years.
Clear examples of unilateral actions
adopted by a group of countries to eliminate
their nuclear weapons are the following:
a) South Africa, in the 1990s destroyed,
under strong international pressure, its
entire nuclear weapons arsenal;
b) Byelorussia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine,
after the collapse of the USSR and under
international pressure, transferred to
Russia or destroyed, all nuclear weapons
in their possession.
These four countries ratified later on the
NPT as non-nuclear weapon States5.
3
The SALT II Treaty signed by the USA and the
former USSR in 1978 was abandoned because the
Treaty was not ratified by any of their legislatives
bodies.
4
The START III Treaty was signed in April 2010. The
US Congress approved the Treaty in 2010 and the
Russia’s DUMA in January 2011.
5 5
It is important to stress the following: Some Western
powers, notably the USA, appear increasingly
comfortable with the acquisition of nuclear-weapon
arsenals by Israel, India and Pakistan—at least provided
they remain allies in the war on terrorism and their
nuclear ambitions stay within certain qualitative and
quantitative limits. The rest of the world is less
_______________________________________________________________________________
Jorge Morales Pedraza
January 2011
Unilateral actions were adopted also by
China, France, Russia, the USA and the
United Kingdom, with the purpose of reducing
or eliminate certain types of nuclear weapons
during the past twenty years.
Unilateral actions facilitated the abandon of
various nuclear military programs in
Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, Sweden and
several other countries in the past forty years.
France, Russia, the UK and the USA have
each unilaterally limited its nuclear arsenals in
various ways and on the basis of these actions
hundreds of nuclear weapons were destroyed.
However, to be more effectives, these
unilateral actions and bilateral agreements
should be carried out taking into consideration
the following requirements:
a) Unilateral actions or bilateral agreements
should not ignore the obligations of the
nuclear-weapon State parties of the NPT
to begin negotiations, in good faith and at
multilateral level, for the destruction of all
of their nuclear weapons and the closure
of all nuclear weapon production
facilities, or the conversion of these
facilities to be used exclusively for
peaceful purposes in the future;
b) Bilateral agreements and unilateral actions
should be adopted in the framework of the
obligations and commitments assumed by
NPT’s nuclear-weapon State parties
respect to Article VI of the Treaty;
c) Bilateral agreements and unilateral actions
adopted by all nuclear-weapon States
must be transparent, irreversible and
subject to international or bilateral
verification, with the purpose of verifying
that the nuclear weapons covered by these
agreements and actions have been
definitively destroyed and that these
weapons, or any of their main
components, have not been transferred to
a third country or storage.
sanguine, concerned about regional instability and
porous boundaries. (Johnson, 2004)
Page 5 of 8
Jorge Morales Pedraza
________________________________________________________________________________________
Other proposals to be considered
To strengthen the international norm
banning the proliferation of nuclear weapons,
the NPT must be adapted to the present
national security requirements and the level of
technological requirements in the field of
nuclear energy (Goldblat, 2009).
There are two proposals that can be
considered. One of these proposals is the
modification of the NPT through the
introduction of an implementation mechanism
as a protocol of the Treaty and the
establishment of an international organisation
to supervise how Treaty’s provision is
implemented by its State parties. The second
proposal is the adoption of a new international
instrument with the purpose of replacing or
complementing the NPT.
First proposal
The main changes that need to be
introduced in the current text of the NPT to
implement this proposal are, according with
Goldblat (2009), the following:
a) Article 1 should be redrafted with the
purpose of prohibiting explicitly the
access to nuclear weapons by any non-
nuclear weapon State party through its
participation in a military Allianz with
one or more nuclear weapon States;
b) Article III should be redrafted with the
purpose of including an explicit reference
to the application of the so-called “IAEA
full scope safeguards” and the “Additional
Protocol” to all peaceful nuclear activities
in all recipient States of sensitive nuclear
technology from the proliferation
viewpoint, particularly in the case of
recipient States not parties of the Treaty;
c) Article V should be eliminated. No
peaceful nuclear explosion should be
authorised under any circumstance in the
future.
d) Article VI should be redrafted with the
purpose of defining when the negotiations
of the destruction of all nuclear weapons
and the closure of all nuclear weapon
production facilities, or the conversion of
these facilities to be used exclusively with
peaceful purposes in the future, must
_______________________________________________________________________________
Jorge Morales Pedraza
January 2011
begin and end; what States will
participate in each of the different phases
in which the destruction of all nuclear
weapons and the closure of all nuclear
weapon production facilities could be
divided; how the destruction of all nuclear
weapons and the closure of all nuclear
weapon production facilities is going to be
implemented, how this process is going to
be supervised, among others things;
e) Article X should be redrafted with the
purpose of including the requirements that
needs to be fulfilled by all States that
decide to withdraw from the Treaty and
the specific measures that could be
applied in case of non-compliance or
violations of these requirements.
In addition, it is indispensable to clarify
how the multilateral approach related to the
nuclear fuel cycle is going to be applied by the
IAEA, with the purpose of avoiding the
division of the State parties in two groups:
those that could operate, under national
control, nuclear fuel cycle facilities and those
that cannot operate such facilities of this
manner. The international community should
not accept another discriminatory measure
related with the implementation of the NPT’s
provisions unless the measures are applied to
all State parties.
The introduction of an implementation
protocol to the main text of the NPT, with the
purpose to ensure full execution of Article VI
after being redrafted, is an important and
indispensable decision that needs to be
adopted by all State parties without further
delay.
Second proposal
With respect to the second proposal, the
structure and content of a new international
instrument with an implementation
mechanism included in the text in order to
ensure the destruction of all nuclear weapons
and the closure of all nuclear weapon
production facilities can be found in Morales
Pedraza (2009).
Finally, one question to be answered is the
following: What the international community
should do to implement any of these proposals
Page 6 of 8
Jorge Morales Pedraza
________________________________________________________________________________________
in order to save the NPT and the non-
proliferation regime?
The options that the international
community has are the following: First, it is
indispensable, for strengthening the nuclear
non-proliferation regime and for achieve
nuclear disarmament, the establishment of an
international organisation to supervise the
implementation of all Treaty’s provisions. The
IAEA, under its present structure and mandate,
is not the appropriate organisation to supervise
the destruction of all nuclear weapons and the
closure of all nuclear weapon production
facilities located in the territory of all nuclear-
weapon States or under their jurisdiction and
control.
If this proposal is rejected, then a Non-
Proliferation Committee to be established
inside or outside the IAEA could be
considered as a transitory arrangement 6.
Second, the NPT or any other international
instrument to be adopted to pursue nuclear
disarmament in the future, should include an
implementation mechanism with the purpose
of guiding the destruction of all nuclear
weapons and the closure of all nuclear weapon
production facilities, or the conversion of
these facilities for their use exclusively for
peaceful purposes in the future, according to a
plan that should be adopted by all nuclear-
weapon States.
A radical response
Taking into account the history of the
implementation of the Treaty’s provisions as
well as the execution of all agreements and
decisions adopted in all NPT Review
Conferences that were carried out until now,
the acceptance of the different proposals
contained in this paper could be an uneasy
task. If this is true, then what else the
international community can do to save the
NPT and to achieve nuclear disarmament? In
this case, there is only one action left to be
considered: the massive withdrawal from the
Treaty in 2020, if the current five nuclear
6
For additional information on the establishment of the
Non-Proliferation Committee see Morales Pedraza
(2009).
_______________________________________________________________________________
Jorge Morales Pedraza
January 2011
weapon State parties do not change their
position towards nuclear disarmament at
multilateral level. Why? Because they are
aware that other countries could produce
nuclear weapons in a relatively short period, if
these countries decide to do that and in this
case the aggressive policy of some of the
nuclear weapon States against their adversary
will be history.
However, if for whatever reason non-
nuclear weapon State parties of the NPT are
not ready to adopt such radical position, then
this group of States should be ready to accept
that the current status in which some States are
legally authorised to possess nuclear weapon
and a great number States are legally force not
to have this type of weapons will remain
unchanged for a long period.
Conclusion
The strengthening of the nuclear non-
proliferation regime and the achievement of
nuclear disarmament are two of the most
urgent tasks that in the field of nuclear non-
proliferation and disarmament should be
promoted and supported by all United Nations
Member States in order to preserve
international peace, security and stability in
the future.
Despite the high number of State parties
that still think that the NPT is an effectiveness
instrument to reach nuclear disarmament,
many others consider that the Treaty is not
anymore the appropriate international
instrument to achieve this goal at multilateral
level and under international supervision.
There should be no doubt that the nuclear
non-proliferation regime and the NPT are in a
very critical situation at this moment. In the
past fifteen years, several countries have been
involved, in one way or another, in secret
nuclear military programs ignoring their
international commitments and obligations
and four of them have been denounced for
having real or presumed secret nuclear
military programs7. Why this situation
occured? The answer is very simple; Nuclear-
weapon States have not taken appropriate
7
These countries are Iraq, Iran, the DPRK and Libya.
Page 7 of 8
 Jorge Morales Pedraza January 2011
________________________________________________________________________________________

actions, at international level, to begin the

destruction of all of their nuclear weapons and
the closure of all of their nuclear weapon
production facilities, according to Article VI
of the NPT, ignoring their obligations and
commitments with the Treaty. Regrettably,
some non-nuclear-weapon States have
followed this example and are acting in the
same manner ignoring their obligations with
Article III.
References
1- Elbaradei, M. (2004); Speech pronounced by the
Director General of the IAEA in a meeting on
Nuclear Non-proliferation: Global Security in a
Rapidly Changing World, International Carnegie
Non-proliferation Conference, held on 21 June
2004 in Washington D.C., USA; 2004; p 1.
2- Goldblat, Jozed (2009); Amending the Non-
proliferation regime; Ideas for peace and security;
Disarmament forum; United Nations Institute for
Disarmament Research, UNIDIR; No 1 and 2;
2009; pp 37 and 38.
3- Johnson, Rebecca (2004); Is the NPT up to the
challenge of proliferation?; The 2005 NPT
Review Conference; Disarmament Forum;
UNIDIR, Geneva, Switzerland; 2004; p 10
4- Morales Pedraza, J. (2009); “Nuclear
Disarmament: Concepts, Principles and Actions
for Strengthening the Non-proliferation Regimes”,
Nova Science; New York, USA; 2009; pp 32 and
42.
5- Treaty on Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons-
Article VI (NPT)
6- The Canberra Commission on the Elimination of
Nuclear Weapons (1995); The Canberra
Commission's report, November 1995; pp 1.
7- Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear,
Biological, and Chemical Arms (2006); Weapons
of Mass Destruction Commission, final report;
Stockholm, Sweden, 1 June 2006; p 60.

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Jorge Morales Pedraza Page 8 of 8

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