Nuclear Weapons Convention
A Treaty to Prohibit and Eliminate Nuclear Weapons
Merav Datan 
In the wake of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the very first resolution of the newly formed United Nations unanimously called for "the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction." Today's nuclear arsenals make a mockery of this aspiration.
Despite the end of the Cold War, the global threat posed by nuclear weapons is more acute, more immediate, and more entrenched than it was half a century ago. The number of weapons in the world's arsenals stands at approximately 30,000 – equivalent in force to 200,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. The declared nuclear weapon states, as recognized under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, are the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China. The "de facto" nuclear states are India, Pakistan, and Israel. More than forty states possess nuclear technology.
In defiance of a universal legal obligation to negotiate and conclude nuclear disarmament, several states claim a right to possess nuclear weapons, now and for the indefinite future, even though they routinely make political and diplomatic statements in support of nuclear disarmament. There has been incremental progress on key elements of nuclear disarmament such as bilateral (U.S.-Russian) reductions, a ban on some forms of nuclear weapons testing, selective export control regimes on nuclear technology, and the promise of negotiations on a cutoff of fissile material. Halting and reversing proliferation, however, will require greater coordination and confidence that states intend to destroy the capability to produce, maintain, or use nuclear weapons.
Besides being a legal obligation, universal nuclear disarmament is the only solution to current proliferation threats. The knowledge necessary to make nuclear weapons is available. The major obstacle to non-state actors achieving a nuclear weapons capability is access to material rather than information. Therefore, current policies and practices regarding nuclear weapons knowledge and material are not adequate to meet the consequent risks. What is still missing in the policies of the nuclear weapon states is a genuine commitment to complete nuclear disarmament, some attempt to envision this goal, and any effort at a plan, however rough.
A coordinated effort across states and institutions, in the framework of voluntary governmental and non-governmental participation, is necessary if there is to be a reversal of the nuclear threat. One element of such coordination will be a multilateral agreement to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons – a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
Model Nuclear Weapons Convention
With these ideas in mind, an international team of scientists, lawyers, and disarmament specialists drafted and released a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) in April 1997. This team included members of INESAP, the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy, and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
The Model NWC was submitted by Costa Rica to the United Nations as a discussion draft in November 1997. The responses and developments that have followed since then led to the collaborative publication of a revised version of the Model NWC, together with comments and discussion on critical political, legal, and technical questions essential to complete nuclear disarmament. [1]
The International Security Context
The Model NWC is intended as a tool to stimulate discussion and consideration of the requirements for complete nuclear disarmament. By exploring these requirements, the Model NWC can help policy makers and disarmament advocates identify preconditions and potential obstacles to verified elimination of nuclear weapons. The Model NWC draws on the experience and builds on the role of many international bodies, including:
- United Nations General Assembly and Security Council;
- United Nations Conference on Disarmament;
- International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA);
- Nuclear weapons-free zone implementation agencies;
- Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) Organisation;
- United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC);
- US and Russian disarmament and non-proliferation bodies, including:
- Verification mechanisms for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START) and Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty;
- Cooperative Threat Reduction;
- Material Protection Control and Accounting;
- Nuclear Cities Initiative.
Recent developments in the areas of multilateralism, disarmament, and international security appear to pose a challenge to the foundations of a future NWC. For example, the abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty by the United States, followed by US-Russian abandonment of the START process, US refusal to ratify the CTBT, the US-led war on Iraq in the name of disarmament (undermining the efforts of UNMOVIC and the IAEA), the stated nuclear ambitions of North Korea, all point to new challenges to security through multilateralism and cooperation. Against this background, however, the viability and importance of multilateral approaches to global security challenges requires active support and continued consideration. The specific elements of a future NWC, as proposed in the Model NWC, are summarized below.
Elements of the Model NWC
General Obligations
The Model NWC proposes prohibiting the development, testing, production, stockpiling, transfer, use, and threat of use of nuclear weapons. States possessing nuclear weapons would be required to destroy their arsenals according to a series of phases. The Model NWC would also prohibit the production of directly weapons-usable fissionable and fusionable material and require delivery vehicles to be destroyed or converted to make them non-nuclear capable.
Phases for Elimination
The Model NWC outlines a series of five phases for the elimination of nuclear weapons beginning with taking nuclear weapons off alert, removing weapons from deployment, removing nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles, disabling the warheads, removing and disfiguring the 'pits', and placing the nuclear weapons material under international control.
Rights and Obligations of Persons (Societal Verification)
The Model NWC applies rights and obligations to individuals and legal entities as well as states. Individuals would have an obligation to report violations of the Convention and the right to protection if they do so. Procedures for the apprehension and fair trial of individuals accused of committing crimes under the treaty are provided. An emphasis on education and scientific responsibility is included to address the dangers of nuclear proliferation through the availability of nuclear weapons knowledge.
Agency
An agency would be established to implement the Convention. It would be responsible for verification, ensuring compliance, and decision making and would comprise a Conference of States Parties, an Executive Council, and a Technical Secretariat.
Cooperation, Compliance, and Dispute Settlement
The Model NWC includes provisions for consultation, cooperation, and fact-finding to clarify and resolve questions of interpretation with respect to compliance and other matters. A legal dispute could be referred to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by mutual consent of States Parties. The agency would also be empowered to request an advisory opinion from the ICJ on a legal dispute. The Model NWC provides a series of graduated responses to non-compliance consistent with the UN Charter.
Optional Protocol Concerning Energy Assistance
The Convention does not prohibit the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. However, it includes an optional protocol which would establish a program of energy assistance for States Parties choosing not to develop nuclear energy or to phase out existing nuclear energy programs.
Verification of a Nuclear Weapons Convention
Verification of a future NWC will require a combination of political arrangements and technological mechanisms. Verification is a dynamic, iterative process which includes declaration, monitoring, and inspection being repeated successively and in parallel:
Declaration and registration provides the necessary information of the initial situation as a starting point for verification to allow comparison with future changes, either agreed or prohibited. All treaty-limited items are tagged, identified, and registered.
Monitoring aims at detecting prohibited objects or activities. Continuous monitoring requires information gathering over larger units of time. Remote sensors on satellites and aircraft provide monitoring of large areas. Regular cartographic mapping provides a basis to compare with remote sensing and detect irregularities/inconsistencies between official mapping information and actual remote sensing data. Monitoring also includes on-site sensors and environmental sampling.
Routine and short-notice on-site inspections at nuclear facilities by international teams serve to confirm or challenge states' declarations. During inspections, the inspectors could request all the necessary detailed information from the inspected party, including the opening of rooms, access to computer codes, and interviews with personnel and neighbors. In addition, a wide range of non-destructive on-site monitoring devices (like portal perimeter controls) could be applied to understand the structure and function of equipment.
Conclusion
The NWC as both a tool and a goal can help keep the debate over global solutions to global security problems alive during this time. Maintaining this debate is crucial to inspiring creativity and generating approaches that can sustain multilateralism despite overt challenges, as well as paving the way for a different international security environment by demonstrating its viability and offering concrete proposals that might facilitate change. In addition it is important to consider the elements of a different international security regime and develop those elements conceptually in order to be ready to identify and seize potential opportunities.
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