A Cloak for Proliferators? The Suspicions that Impede a Nuclear Weapons Convention

Tanya Ogilvie-White is a lecturer in political science at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

The idea of a nuclear weapons convention (NWC)—a global prohibition treaty banning the development, testing, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons—enjoys legal support in the form of a July 1996 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice. Entitled the “Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons”, the advisory opinion declares that states are obligated “to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control”. This, together with other aspects of the advisory opinion, provides strong international legal and normative foundations for an NWC.

Not surprisingly, support for a future NWC—to stand alongside the two prohibition regimes covering biological and chemical weapons—is strong among non-governmental organisations (NGOs) concerned with international disarmament, which present it as persuasive, both morally and practically. The merits of such a convention are also recognised by numerous states party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), particularly members of the Non-Aligned Movement—a large group of developing nations that rejected Cold War security alliances and that now claims to represent the political, economic and cultural interests of the developing world. Many such states regard the concept of an NWC as the most appropriate alternative to the NPT, which is widely viewed as inequitable and discriminatory, and thus ultimately unsustainable.

A significant number of states outside the Non-Aligned Movement share the goal of universal abolition and are sympathetic to many of the criticisms of the NPT, but nevertheless are reluctant to throw their weight behind the movement’s calls for an NWC. Given their growing concern that international—and particularly US—preoccupation with the threat of global terrorism is eclipsing disarmament initiatives and creating new proliferation pressures, such reluctance among those states in favour of complete and irreversible nuclear disarmament might appear odd. First, the NWC concept represents one of the few well-developed alternatives to the NPT, so why not unite behind it? Second, the non-nuclear-weapon states that favour rapid universal nuclear disarmament would have far greater impact on the nuclear-weapon states if they presented a united front, so why have they failed to do so?¹

Some of the answers to these questions can be found if the complex diplomatic manoeuvrings that lie behind NWC advocacy are elucidated. This article attempts such elucidation, explaining the roots of the divisions among the states that promote nuclear abolition and the reasons why they are unwilling to unite behind proposals which, in principle, are morally irreproachable. Its main contention is that this reluctance stems from concerns over the origins of the NWC proposals, and suspicions that India, as an NPT holdout, and NPT state parties that are not in good standing with their treaty obligations, are hiding behind ambitious disarmament proposals in an attempt to legitimise their actions and claim the moral high ground.

The significance of these developments cannot be overstated, as they are exacerbating fractures in the global disarmament agenda when its cohesion is arguably more crucial than at any time since the end of the Cold War. While all eyes are turned to the dangers posed by the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons with new roles and the potential for a new round of nuclear proliferation, a quieter but equally significant crisis is occurring in disarmament diplomacy, which merits far more attention than it has received in the academic and more general international relations literature.

My argument is developed in four parts: the first briefly explores competing approaches to nuclear disarmament, from the cautious (and some would argue, insincere) approach of the nuclear-weapon states, to the ambitious vision of some members of the Non-Aligned Movement; the second and third parts identify the origins of the NWC concept, in particular its strong connections to India and the latter’s questionable disarmament diplomacy; and the final section explains the current status of NWC proposals, exposing the divisions between the principal caucus groups that promote nuclear disarmament in international forums.

Rival Approaches to Disarmament

Author-activists Michael Christ, John Loretz, and Peter Weiss identify three approaches to nuclear disarmament: comprehensive, incremental, and incremental–comprehensive.² This tripartite framework provides a useful starting point for any discussion of the NWC concept and the different attitudes towards it of the nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-weapon states.

The Comprehensive Route

Many advocates of a comprehensive approach to nuclear disarmament argue that the concept of nuclear deterrence is inherently unstable and bound to fail, and that complete nuclear disarmament within an agreed timeframe is therefore crucial from a practical standpoint. Others, particularly members of the Non-Aligned Movement, have adopted a more moralistic and ideological position, arguing that any approach to disarmament that is not comprehensive is discriminatory, plays into the hands of the nuclear-weapon states, and reinforces the status quo. The “Abolition 2000” statement, drafted and signed in 1995 by NGOs and activists from around the world, united adherents of these two positions, galvanising international opinion on the need for a verifiable NWC that would require the elimination of nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework.³ Advocates argue that an NWC provides a comprehensive road down which full, final and verifiable global nuclear disarmament can be accomplished in an equitable, non-discriminatory manner, providing security for all.

The Incremental Route

An alternative route to nuclear disarmament is incrementalist and favoured by the nuclear-weapon states. The United States, Britain, France and Russia have generally resisted moves to negotiate a “singular” disarmament instrument along the lines of an NWC, arguing that it is hopelessly idealistic and unattainable.⁴ They argue in favour of a slow, step-by-step approach, allowing progress towards nuclear disarmament to occur at a pace and via methods that do not challenge their strategic pre-eminence, but that nevertheless allow them to argue they are upholding their obligations under Article VI of the NPT. (Article VI calls for action towards the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament but does not specify a timeframe or provide guidance on how this is to be achieved.) This approach to nuclear disarmament has inevitably been slow and protracted, and has been characterised by arms-control efforts that take so long to negotiate that by the time any step has been achieved, the nuclear-weapon states have generally developed their technology to a stage where they no longer need whatever it was they were negotiating away.

The Incremental–Comprehensive Route

Until 1998, incrementalist and comprehensive approaches to disarmament could be presented as dichotomous opposites, with little room for compromise. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the negotiations of which were derailed by India in 1996, was in part a casualty of this division. However, in 1998 the New Agenda Coalition, a group of eight states including Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa, and Sweden, came together to work out a compromise position, also known as the incremental–comprehensive approach. The main difference from the incrementalist approach, and a major strength of the incremental–comprehensive approach, is that it ensures that negotiations continue beyond the achievement of small steps. The understanding of all involved actors is that the goal is not the small step, but the grand aim of complete nuclear disarmament. Crucially, the New Agenda Coalition drew its membership from a combination of Western and non-aligned countries, providing a practical as well as an ideological bridge between states promoting divergent approaches to nuclear disarmament. Thus, it formed a significant caucus in international disarmament forums, acting as a diplomatic go-between. It was largely thanks to the activities of this group that the 2000 NPT review conference achieved the substantive outcome known as the “Thirteen Steps”, which committed the nuclear-weapon states to a series of measures in accordance with an incremental–comprehensive approach to nuclear disarmament.

Origins of the NWC Concept

The NWC concept can be traced back to India, which is a long-standing critic of the NPT. India has consistently complained that the incrementalist approach to nuclear disarmament is inherently biased in favour of the nuclear-weapon states, describing it as pernicious and not truly representative of the ethical principles underpinning the concept of nuclear disarmament. Instead, India has advocated a comprehensive approach to nuclear disarmament, a central theme of which since the late 1980s has been a global prohibition treaty. The problem, however, is that while New Delhi’s diplomacy has been couched in the language of morality in calling for complete, non-discriminatory disarmament, India has remained a determined NPT holdout, has weaponised its nuclear capability, and is currently engaged in a nuclear arms race with Pakistan. India’s rhetorical commitment to comprehensive disarmament is therefore often portrayed in a negative light as being detrimental to the wider disarmament agenda, and particularly to proposals for an NWC.

India and NWC Proposals

Ideologically at least, Indian objections to nuclear weapons are based on the central pillars of the secular Indian state. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was the first to propose, in 1954, a comprehensive, binding international treaty that would ban nuclear testing. This diplomatic posture has been maintained almost uninterrupted until the present day, with India proposing a string of equitable disarmament initiatives outside the NPT framework. These include India’s 1978 proposal to the United Nations General Assembly that negotiations be opened on an international convention prohibiting the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons; a 1982 initiative calling for a freeze on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons; and the “Action Plan for Ushering in a Nuclear-Weapon-Free and Non-Violent World Order”, tabled by India at the Third Special Session on Disarmament of the UN General Assembly in 1988.

The 1988 Action Plan is especially significant in tracing the origins of NWC proposals, as a central part of the plan was the idea of a global treaty criminalising every aspect of nuclear weapons, constituting a non-discriminatory grand bargain on which a new disarmament process would rest. According to the Action Plan, threshold states would agree not to go nuclear on condition that the nuclear-weapon states committed themselves to negotiate a phased, step-by-step programme for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. As and when such negotiations were concluded, the nuclear-weapon states would be committed to a global prohibition treaty, and India’s path towards weaponisation would be halted and reversed.

When the phased, step-by-step approach to complete disarmament set out in the 1988 initiative failed to attract the support of the nuclear-weapon states, India united with more than twenty other non-aligned countries around the idea of an NWC. In 1996, these jointly submitted a proposal to the international community’s chief multilateral disarmament negotiating forum, the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament, for a “Programme of Action for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons”. In common with the earlier plan, the new initiative detailed a phased, verified and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons through a nuclear prohibition regime. Neither proposal specifically referred to an NWC as the instrument through which complete disarmament would be achieved, but India has nevertheless claimed to be the father of the NWC concept since the mid-1990s, when the term was adopted by an international coalition of disarmament NGOs and widely disseminated via the Abolition 2000 statement.

Doubts over India’s Motives

A number of states are concerned about the true motivations underlying India’s idealistic rhetoric, and question whether its verbal commitments to comprehensive nuclear disarmament are made in good faith. Some argue that New Delhi’s often strident “disarmament fundamentalism” represents a cynical diplomatic ploy to wrongfoot opponents of its nuclear ambitions, providing India with the room it needs to continue nuclear-weapons development without being constrained by too much international criticism. Doubts about the sincerity of India’s approach make it politically difficult for advocates of complete nuclear disarmament to be associated with New Delhi’s proposals, as these doubts give ammunition to the nuclear-weapon states and reinforce their arguments in favour of an incrementalist approach. Most significantly, the charge by some nuclear-weapon states and others that India has been using disarmament diplomacy to achieve nuclear-weapons status via the back door has led many Western advocates of nuclear disarmament to hold India at arm’s length, to oppose resolutions proposed by India in the Conference on Disarmament and in the UN First Committee (a General Assembly body concerned with disarmament and international security), and to reject both formal and informal diplomatic overtures from New Delhi calling for closer co-operation with the disarmament community.

Although these responses to India’s diplomacy are understandable, in many ways they perpetuate ideological divisions within the United Nations, discouraging the formation of a common front between Western and non-Western anti-nuclear advocates (the latter have tended to support India’s disarmament proposals). Furthermore, they strengthen the hand of the nuclear-weapon states, facilitating a strategy of divide and rule, as the latter question India’s motives and warn that non-aligned support for India’s proposals will directly undermine the NPT and legitimise the holdout status of the de facto nuclear-weapon states, making nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation efforts doubly difficult. Given the political sensitivity and complexity of this issue, it is not surprising that the disarmament community sometimes appears uncertain how to proceed and that discussion of an NWC is often confused, exposing divisions between and within different caucus groups.

India’s ‘Duplicitous’ Diplomacy

India does not seriously expect an NWC to be the instrument through which it will gain acceptance and acknowledgement of its nuclear-weapon status from the international community. More convincing arguments posit that India has gambled that the negotiations for an NWC will be so tortuous, or the resistance to such a convention so insurmountable, that it will have bought the time necessary to develop its own stockpile of nuclear weapons and sophisticated delivery systems so that parity with the nuclear-weapon states will be a fait accompli. Its diplomatic posturing on the nuclear issue allows India to maintain the moral high ground, deflecting criticism and possible sanctions, while supporting something that it believes, owing to opposition from the nuclear-weapon states, will remain an idealistic pipedream for many years to come.

The implications of this assessment, which can be deemed credible on the basis of empirical evidence, is that India is in breach of its good-faith obligation under the 1996 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice to achieve the goal of denuclearisation, not merely pay lip service to it. India’s own principled deposition to the court in 1995 unambiguously supports this interpretation. India argued that “the production and manufacture of nuclear weapons can only be with the objective of their use”, and that consequently “if the use of such weapons itself is illegal under international law, then their production and manufacture cannot under any circumstances be considered as permitted”.

India and the CTBT

The imbroglio over the CTBT highlights doubts about India’s true commitment to achieving a world free of nuclear weapons, despite New Delhi’s frequent rhetoric during the 1990s. Analysts have argued that India’s early support for a comprehensive test ban was based on the premise that the successful conclusion of a treaty to that effect was highly unlikely given the opposition to it of nuclear-weapon states. However, with the end of the Cold War, New Delhi soon realised that it was supporting an agreement that would place potentially insurmountable constraints on its nuclear ambitions. Consequently, as a final agreed document appeared more likely, Indian negotiators scrambled to revise their position. In the end, the British delegation called India’s bluff by inserting an entry-into-force clause that made the CTBT contingent on ratification by India and forty-three other so-called nuclear-capable states. This caused consternation in the Indian camp, leading the Indian ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, Arundhati Ghose, to recommend that India withdraw from the negotiations. Among the casualties when India finally abandoned negotiations on 20 June 2024 was its credibility as a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement. Many non-aligned states began to understand that while India could talk the talk, it was evidently unwilling to walk the walk.

The NWC as Face-Saver

The diplomatic isolation endured by India in the wake of the CTBT conference had no precedent, and was exceeded only by that which followed the Hindu-nationalist, BJP-led government’s nuclear-weapon tests in May 1998. The diplomatic fallout from the decision to test may have spurred New Delhi to cast around anxiously for another irreproachable issue of principle with which to burnish its diminishing anti-nuclear credentials. It settled on the NWC concept, which in the wake of the 1996 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice was both current and had a proven track record of being actively resisted by the nuclear-weapon states. It is surmised that Indian strategic thinkers seized on the NWC because it is an idealistic measure that stood no chance whatsoever of gaining the requisite support to come into force, at least not until well after India’s weapons programme had acquired the technological maturity of, for instance, France or China’s. Moreover, India could convincingly claim to be a long-standing advocate of an NWC, pointing to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s aforementioned 1988 “time-bound” Action Plan for disarmament.

The suspicions of those who doubted the sincerity of India’s commitment to a global prohibition regime have since been vindicated. Although it was not widely known at the time, while Rajiv Gandhi was driving his staff and officials to prepare the Action Plan for a nuclear-weapon-free world in 1987–8, he was also directing P. K. Iyengar, a noted nuclear hardliner in India’s Atomic Energy Commission, and V. S. Arunachalam, a scientific adviser to the defence ministry, to weaponise expeditiously India’s nuclear capability. The Action Plan that Gandhi presented at the UN special session on disarmament in 1988 provided him with some diplomatic space in case it became necessary to acknowledge India’s possession of a nuclear arsenal.

Declaring Nuclear Status

Any credibility that India once had as an advocate of global nuclear disarmament vanished after it claimed nuclear-weapon status in 1998. Despite this, New Delhi continued to argue in favour of comprehensive nuclear disarmament in international forums, justifying its decision to undertake nuclear-weapon tests in terms of the international community’s failure to achieve a non-discriminatory disarmament process. If anything, following the tests, India pushed even harder for the negotiation of an NWC, attempting to align itself with the disarmament initiatives of both the New Agenda Coalition and the Non-Aligned Movement. Addressing the Indian Parliament on 27 May 1998, shortly after the nuclear tests, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee declared India a nuclear-weapon state, and at the same time called for the opening of negotiations on an NWC. A few days later, Ambassador Savitri Kunadi, India’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, reinforced this position. Addressing the Conference on Disarmament on 2 June, she urged the international community to join India “in opening early negotiations for a Nuclear-Weapons Convention so that these weapons can be dealt with in a global non-discriminatory framework as the other two weapons of mass destruction have been”.

India’s actions thus created an awkward situation for the disarmament community, particularly as New Delhi backed up its public calls for immediate negotiations on an NWC with diplomatic overtures to states that were advocating similar initiatives. Mrs Vasundhara Raje, minister of state for external affairs, wrote separate letters to the eight original members of the New Agenda Coalition in which she expressed India’s readiness to co-operate with the coalition in collective efforts to establish a nuclear-weapon-free world. This was followed up by a key speech on 6 August 2024 by Ambassador Kunadi pledging full support for the New Agenda Coalition’s founding document, the “Joint Declaration” of 1998. The very next sentence called for effective international arrangements to assure non-nuclear-weapon states against the use of nuclear weapons, making it clear that India intended to continue to champion the Non-Aligned Movement’s comprehensive disarmament agenda while simultaneously attempting to align itself with the New Agenda Coalition’s more moderate incremental–comprehensive approach.

Although Western states have been careful to avoid openly accusing India of hiding behind NWC and other disarmament proposals in an attempt to buy time for weaponisation, deflect international criticism, and ultimately acquire nuclear-weapon status outside the NPT framework, voting in the UN First Committee since 1998 has clearly signalled their suspicion and disapproval of India’s position. Whereas most non-aligned states have voted in favour of Indian-proposed disarmament resolutions, most Western states (including those outside NATO), and most significantly, the Western members of the New Agenda Coalition, have opposed them.

Two resolutions are particularly significant in this regard: the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use of Nuclear Weapons, and the Resolution on Reducing Nuclear Danger—both proposed by India in successive sessions of the UN First Committee since 1998. Voting on these proposals has been roughly divided along traditional non-aligned/Western lines (but even a few non-aligned states have considered the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use of Nuclear Weapons to be too unrealistic and polemical to command their support). In response to these critics, India has continued to argue that an NWC, and the related framework of disarmament instruments that it has been advocating, represent a legitimate alternative to the discriminatory, step-by-step approach embodied in the NPT. Furthermore, India has fiercely rejected any insinuation that its actions represent a cynical ploy to have nuclear-weapon status conferred upon it by the international community. However, it is clear that most Western and some non-aligned states remain unconvinced by these arguments, as the voting in the First Committee indicates.

NWC Proposals Today

While India has been claiming ownership of the NWC concept and urging other ambitious disarmament initiatives from the sidelines, NPT parties promoting nuclear disarmament have been sending mixed messages about their own agendas, signalling confusion and uncertainty within caucus groups and a growing gulf between states genuinely committed to disarmament and those simply using it as a convenient cloak for their nuclear ambitions. That none of the caucus groups wants to be associated with India and other NPT holdouts is clear; all—including the Non-Aligned Movement—openly denounce their activities in official statements and documents. On the other hand, some states have been less cautious than others in their attachment to NWC proposals, causing disagreements within and between caucuses and an increasingly fractured disarmament agenda. Most of the blame for the backtracking on disarmament can be laid at the doors of the nuclear-weapon states (and particularly the United States), but the pro-disarmament non-nuclear-weapon states must also bear their share of responsibility. They have failed to exert effective pressure on the nuclear-weapon states to uphold the political commitments they made at the 1995 and 2000 NPT review conferences. Equally significantly, they have failed to condemn strongly those non-nuclear-weapon states that are also guilty of pursuing their narrow self-interest at the expense of the non-proliferation regime.

The New Agenda Coalition

The New Agenda Coalition has been continuing its attempts to follow through on the call of the International Court of Justice in its 1996 advisory opinion for states to “pursue in good faith” and conclude negotiations leading to comprehensive nuclear disarmament. However, sensitive to the negative associations of the NWC concept, the coalition has avoided in the resolutions it forwards at the United Nations direct reference to the long-term objective of agreeing an NWC. Instead, it has promoted a step-by-step approach towards the ultimate goal of the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. This has enabled the New Agenda Coalition to engage in bridge-building between the divergent positions of those advocating a comprehensive approach to disarmament and those still wedded to an incremental approach. It has also allowed the coalition to distance itself from the agendas of NPT hold-out states and those alleged or known to be in non-compliance with their non-proliferation obligations under the NPT which are suspected of using disarmament issues as a cover for—or to legitimise—their actions or violations. Significantly, this includes Iran, which at the 2005 NPT review conference and the preparatory meetings leading up to it argued that it was in full compliance with its NPT obligations and, moreover, that it supports the complete elimination of nuclear weapons within a specified time limit and the agreeing of an NWC.

Rather than focusing attention on an NWC, the New Agenda Coalition has been pushing for concrete multilateral negotiations towards the ultimate goal of complete nuclear disarmament. It has consistently argued that the best forum for such negotiations is the Conference on Disarmament, in which a subsidiary body should be set up to deal with the issue. Although progress has been limited, the strategy has been to stay focused on achieving the achievable, rather than allowing the current disarmament agenda to be derailed by debate over the objective of concluding negotiations on an NWC within a specified timeframe. However, movement towards even the most limited of goals has been slow and tortuous since the 2000 NPT review conference and, if anything, developments in 2005 suggest that steps backward have been taken. This has been disappointing for those genuinely committed to nuclear abolition, but it should have come as no surprise given that the consensus reached in 2000—when the political climate was more conducive to achieving agreement on commencing multilateral disarmament talks—was hollow. Although Article VI of the official Final Document of the 2000 NPT review conference referred to “the necessity of establishing in the Conference on Disarmament an appropriate subsidiary body with a mandate to deal with nuclear disarmament”, this language masked significant disagreements among state parties to the NPT, and resistance by the nuclear-weapon states. Thus, the progress that some disarmament advocates hoped had been made through the adoption of consensus language on the need for a subsidiary body in the Conference on Disarmament was soon undermined by disputes over an appropriate programme of action, holding the establishment of an ad hoc working group on nuclear disarmament hostage to agreement on other contentious matters.

Partly as a result of these frustrating and demoralising experiences, the New Agenda Coalition appears to be losing faith in its ability to make a positive contribution to the disarmament agenda. This disillusionment was less evident in the lead-up to the 2005 NPT review conference, as the coalition attempted to keep the issue of nuclear disarmament alive in multilateral negotiating forums, including the UN First Committee and the Conference on Disarmament. It also threw its weight behind the “middle powers alliance”, comprising itself, Japan, South Korea, and eight NATO countries—Belgium, Canada, Germany, Holland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, and Turkey—that backed a disarmament resolution forwarded by the coalition at the UN General Assembly in 2004.

But events at the review conference exposed deepening divisions within the New Agenda Coalition, and signs of increasing despondency. While much of this can be attributed to a sense of futility in response to the inflexible language emanating from the US delegation, which labelled disarmament a “non-issue”, this does not entirely explain the extent of the coalition’s paralysis. As the conference got under way, it soon became clear that the New Agenda Coalition lacked the cohesion and energy that had driven its achievements of 2000 and, moreover, that it would be unable to prevent the conference from splitting irrevocably along traditional Western–Non-Aligned Movement lines. Ironically, it appears that the group’s composition of Western and non-aligned states, which had been its key strength in 2000, allowing it to engage successfully in bridge-building, could have become its Achilles’ heel in 2005, with disarmament fundamentalism and widening ideological differences over how to respond to non-compliance threatening to destroy it.

The Non-Aligned Movement

Whereas the New Agenda Coalition has avoided direct reference to an NWC in its resolutions, this has not been the case with the Non-Aligned Movement, which has traditionally advocated the rapid conclusion of an NWC within a specified timeframe. Non-aligned calls for such action have been adopted in the UN First Committee and General Assembly. Operative Paragraph 2 (OP2) of the relevant resolutions urges all states “immediately to fulfil [their disarmament obligations] by commencing multilateral negotiations leading to an early conclusion of a Nuclear Weapons Convention prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination”.⁵

Voting on this part of the resolutions has been more or less divided along non-aligned–Western lines, with the Non-Aligned Movement voting in favour, and Western states opposing or abstaining. The significant exception here has been the voting behaviour of the members of the New Agenda Coalition, which have consistently registered their support for the proposal in its entirety, despite avoiding reference to an NWC in their own resolutions. “No” voters, such as Japan and Belgium, have explained their opposition to the resolutions as based on a preference for steady incremental progress towards disarmament rather than the more ambitious approach outlined in OP2. This highlights significant differences within the “middle powers alliance” between the eight NATO states, Japan and South Korea on the one hand, and the New Agenda Coalition on the other, over the wisdom of supporting the non-aligned position on an NWC.

Prior to the 2005 NPT review conference, there were indications that Malaysia’s position—and that of a growing proportion of the Non-Aligned Movement—on the correct approach to disarmament, was changing. Malaysia’s working paper for the 2005 review conference, which built on an earlier one submitted by Malaysia and Costa Rica in 2000, clearly set out the incremental–comprehensive approach favoured by the New Agenda Coalition as the best route to nuclear disarmament, and promoted this over the traditional non-aligned insistence on a time-bound, comprehensive agreement. The paper asserted that “the further development of an incremental–comprehensive approach would assist in the implementation of the programme of action agreed at the 2000 NPT Review Conference, and lead more quickly to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons”. This brought Malaysia, and other more moderate members of the Non-Aligned Movement, further into line with the approach favoured by most of the New Agenda Coalition.

In the context of these developments, the failure to build a strong consensus in 2005 in favour of an incremental–comprehensive approach to disarmament, and to present a united front in response to the backtracking by the nuclear-weapon states, appears all the more exasperating. The middle powers alliance was ideally placed to take advantage of the divisions in the Non-Aligned Movement, and to unite with its more moderate members. The New Agenda Coalition, with its unique composition of non-aligned and Western states, should also have been perfectly placed to lead a new bridge-building initiative among the disarmers and to forge a new grouping. However, reports suggest that the New Agenda Coalition was experiencing major internal fractures of its own, and thus lacked the cohesion and conviction to perform this task.

An Idea Worth Saving?

The next few years are likely to be crucial in the realignment of groupings in disarmament forums. We may witness the collapse of the New Agenda Coalition and a splintering of the Non-Aligned Movement along moderate and more fundamentalist lines. This may well be a positive development if the result is that new, cohesive alliances adopt credible disarmament agendas that have more sway over the nuclear-weapon states. As key disarmament advocate Rebecca Johnson has argued, issue-based coalitions, groups or alliances should not remain together when they have outlived their usefulness, particularly once their strategies have proved ineffective or their membership dysfunctional.⁶ The challenge will be for such groups to find disarmament initiatives around which they can effectively unite.

With this in mind, a dilemma faces the nuclear disarmament community over whether and how to rescue the NWC idea from the negative associations arising from its links to the questionable disarmament diplomacy of NPT and non-NPT parties. Unfortunately, India and Iran continue to associate themselves with the NWC concept, despite their loss of credibility as advocates of nuclear disarmament. Their support for an NWC might seem odd to some, perhaps comical to others, and is certainly frustrating to genuine advocates of nuclear disarmament, but the reasons for the continuity are simple: disarmament rhetoric provides such states with the room they need to develop their nuclear programmes, unconstrained by too much international criticism. Consequently, the concept of an NWC, which in principle is irreproachable and should be held up as a moral beacon, has become tainted by its association with states that have a reputation for diplomatic duplicity.

Unfortunately, if this situation continues, it will allow the nuclear-weapon states, and the United States in particular, to continue to claim that the NWC concept represents an outdated, Non-Aligned Movement–led, comprehensive approach to nuclear disarmament that is of dubious origin and founded on flawed assumptions. Thus, the questions that disarmament advocates must address in the interests of a more united position are these: have proposals for an NWC, so closely associated with India for the past decade, and now advocated by Iran, been irreparably damaged? If not, how can the NWC concept be salvaged so that states that genuinely support nuclear disarmament may promote an NWC without fear that their diplomatic efforts will backfire? And finally, if the NWC idea is no longer credible, what new disarmament initiatives can be proposed around which the disarmament community may unite? 

Endnotes

1. The non-nuclear-weapon states are those that have signed and ratified the NPT and have agreed to forgo the option to develop nuclear weapons. This includes all states bar China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States (known as the nuclear-weapon states), India, Israel and Pakistan (the NPT holdouts, often referred to as the de facto nuclear-weapon states), and North Korea (which withdrew from the NPT in 2003 and has since declared that it possesses nuclear weapons).

2. Michael Christ, John Loretz, and Peter Weiss, eds., Security and Survival: The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention (Cambridge, Mass.: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 1999).

3. The 1995 Abolition 2000 statement called for the conclusion of negotiations on an NWC by the year 2000. When that year passed, the date reference was dropped with the agreement of participating organisations.

4. China is the only nuclear-weapon state that advocates an NWC. Given developments in its nuclear-weapons programme, many doubt the sincerity of China’s official statements on the subject.

5. Resolutions to this effect have been adopted by the UN General Assembly in successive years since 1996 and bear the overall title, “Follow-up to the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons”.

6. Rebecca Johnson, “Day 26: Spineless NPT Conference Papers Over Cracks and Ends with a Whimper”, report on 2005 NPT review conference, 27 May 2024 [http://www.acronym.org.uk/npt/05rep12.htm].