Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty marks 55 years since coming into force
The treaty stipulates that a nuclear power is a country that produced and exploded a nuclear weapon or another nuclear explosive device by January 1, 1967
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons — NNPT, or Non-Proliferation Treaty — NPT) is an international treaty drafted by the UN Disarmament Committee whose objective is to prevent the growth in the number of nuclear powers and limit the possibility of an armed conflict with the use of such weapons. It was approved by the UN General Assembly on June 12, 1968 and opened for signing on July 1, 1968 in London, Moscow and Washington (depositaries are the UK, the USSR and the USA). It came into force on March 5, 1970 after ratification credentials from 40 countries were received.
General provisions
The treaty stipulates that a nuclear power is a country that produced and exploded a nuclear weapon or another nuclear explosive device by January 1, 1967. Thus, the official nuclear status belongs to the United States, Great Britain, France, China and the USSR and was inherited by Russia after the disintegration of the latter. Other parties to the treaty voluntarily reject their right to possess nuclear weapons.
Each nuclear power commits not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon state to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices. The deployment by nuclear powers of their nuclear weapons on the territories of other countries without ceding control is not banned. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitors compliance with the treaty. The treaty supports the right of the parties to develop nuclear power in peaceful purposes. Each party has the right to withdraw from the treaty if extraordinary events related to it jeopardize the supreme interests of the country. The party has to inform all other parties to the treaty and the UN Security Council three months in advance.
Parties to the treaty
At present, 191 countries are parties to the treaty. Great Britain joined it in 1968, followed by the USSR and the USA in 1970, France and China in 1992. In 1993-1994, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine joined the treaty as non-nuclear states after they handed over their Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia.
India, Pakistan, the DPRK, and Israel did not join the treaty. India tested the first nuclear device in 1974 and Pakistan in 1998. The DPRK initially joined the treaty in 1985, but withdrew in 2003 (officially it remains a party as the withdrawal violated envisaged procedures) and exploded a nuclear device in 2006. Israel does not confirm or deny the possession of nuclear weapons.
Conferences
Treaty participants hold review conferences once in five years to consider compliance. The 5th NPT conference in 1995 decided to extend it indefinitely (the initial term was 25 years).
At the 2000 conference, five nuclear powers declared a moratorium on any nuclear tests and pledged to continue reducing the stocks of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, as well as increase transparency. The final document of the conference included a list of multilateral measures to strengthen nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime (13 steps to nuclear disarmament).
In 2005, the parties failed to adopt the final document and said the 13-step program was not fulfilled.
An Action Plan was agreed in 2010 to strengthen the treaty. In order to make Israel reject its officially undeclared nuclear weapons, the resolution got an item calling to hold in 2012 an international conference and establish a zone free of nuclear and other mass destruction weapons in the Middle East. The conference was not held.
The 9th NPT conference in 2015 again discussed a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, but the USA, Great Britain and Canada refused to support the final document.
The 10th conference was moved to August 2022 because of COVID pandemic. It ended without the final communique. In particular, Russia opposed several provisions of "clearly political character." Western countries objected the inclusion into the document of such issues as the termination of the Intermediate and Shorter-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF came into force in 1988 and was terminated in 2019) and the development of close military-technical cooperation of non-nuclear states with their strategic nuclear partners.
The next review conference is to be held in New York in 2026.
Degrading NPT
Russia has noted "unprecedented in scope" renewal of US nuclear arsenal components, including tactical nuclear weapons deployed in other countries (Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey). The maintenance of the weapons was entrusted to citizens of the countries and other NATO members and they were trained to handle tactical nuclear weapons.
Russian experts believe other factors leading to NPT degradation include the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty in 2019 and Open Sky Treaty in 2020. The US ignored the Russian initiative on mutual and verifiable moratorium on the deployment of missiles banned by the INF (the proposal was made in 2019), as well as the provision of NATO with a status of nuclear military-political alliance (June 2022).
Some experts believe the transfer of sensitive technologies to Australia is a dangerous precedent and a de-facto violation of the NPT. The talk is about AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom, United States) military partnership, in which the US pledged to hand over three nuclear Virginia-class submarines to Australia after 2033, while the UK promised to build a new-class SSN-AUKUS submarine by early 2040s (the production will be moved to Australia by 2042).
In their turn, western countries accuse Russia of deploying nuclear weapons in Belarus. A corresponding agreement was signed in May 2023. It does not envisage the transfer of control over the nukes to Belarus. The control and decision to engage remain with Russia.
