The nuclear-weapons states have been coming in for a beating at the Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), in session at the UN headquarters in New York. The Non-aligned Movement said these states had made no progress on disarmament and urged them to stop modernising their arsenals. And a joint statement by 159 states called for the elimination of nuclear arms, with strong statements in support from Mexico, Kazakhstan and Brazil.
In response, the UK opening statement openly criticised those who would “force the speed” of disarmament—although article VI of the 1968 treaty committed it and the other nuclear-weapons powers to negotiate in “good faith” to that end. The NPT, cornerstone of global efforts to control nuclear proliferation, will not retain the confidence of the international community indefinitely if those states temporarily granted the largest privileges do not live up to their responsibilities, and continue to use their nuclear arsenals to maintain status in the international system.
A cynical lack of commitment to multilateral nuclear disarmament (MND) may be too crude an explanation. The fact that MND runs against historical experience—it has never yet been essayed—is a clue that it is actually really difficult. Advocates of MND as the only means to achieve nuclear disarmament could be more unrealistically idealistic than those advocating an international ban on such weapons.
