An unusual counting game is underway as the NPT undergoes its periodic review at the United Nations in New York. Five nuclear-armed states – China, France, Russia, the UK and USA – are doing their best to dominate the NPT and uphold the nuclear status quo that enables them to modernize their nuclear arsenals, while an overwhelming 159 states parties to the NPT have issued a joint “humanitarian disarmament” statement demanding an end to nuclear business as usual.
Described as the cornerstone of the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regimes, the NPT enshrined a simple bargain at the height of the cold war: states that don’t have nuclear weapons agree not to acquire them in exchange for complete disarmament by those who had already (by 1968) acquired them.
Decades since that agreement was sealed, some NPT member states continue to argue about text, as if this is the main task for non-proliferation. By contrast, a more ambitious group of 96 states and counting have been propelled by deep concerns about the unacceptable humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons to sign up to an important international pledge to “fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”.
