Treaties
Treaties are binding legal agreements achieved through negotiations among states. While there are many treaties focused on or including nuclear issues, the main multilateral treaties are:
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
Text of the Treaty
Members of the Treaty: 189 states have signed and ratified the NPT. This total does not include Taiwan. It does include North Korea, which announced its withdrawal from the NPT in 2003.
Summary: The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed in 1968 and entered into force (became international law) in 1970.
The treaty defines "Nuclear Weapon States" as those who tested a nuclear weapon prior to 1 January 1967, which are the following states: the USA, Russia, UK, France and China.
Article VI of the NPT provides the only legally binding commitment by those states to disarm.
In 2000 these states gave an 'unequivocal undertaking for the total elimination of their nuclear arsenal'.
There are Review Conferences to the NPT every five years - with the next one due in 2010. For the three years preceeding the review conferences are Preparatory Conferences or PrepComms.
At the 2007 meeting of the NPT Costa Rica and Malaysia submitted the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention and support was voiced for the development of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which was mentioned in the final document.
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
Text of the Treaty
Members of the Treaty: 44 countries that have research reactors or nuclear power reactors (listed as reactor states on the ICAN nuclear map) are required to ratify this treaty before it enters into force. Nine of these countries have yet to do so (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation).
Summary: The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was finally negotiated in 1996. This treaty had been sought after for decades as an essential disarmament measure because a total ban of any nuclear weapon test explosion will constrain the development and qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons and end the development of advanced new types of these weapons.
Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ) Treaties
These treaties aim to rid entire regions of nuclear weapons and shrink the geographical space in which they can play a role. These zones of safety and security also build cooperation and trust amongst peoples and nations.
Antarctic Treaty of 1959 declared Antarctica a demilitarised zone free of nuclear weapons.
Treaty of Tlatelolco of 1969 prohibited nuclear weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Rarotonga Treaty of 1983 prohibited nuclear weapons in the South Pacific.
Bangkok Treaty of 1995 prohibited nuclear weapons in South East Asia.
Pelindaba Treaty of 1996 will prohibit nuclear weapons in Africa when it enters into force.
Mongolia in 2000 became a single state nuclear weapons free zone.
Semipalatinsk Treaty in September 2006 five Central Asian States - Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan signed a NWFZ treaty.
The treaties that do not yet exist, but are under discussion are:
Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT)
When it is negotiated, this treaty will ban the production of materials that can be used in nuclear weapons.
Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS)
When it is negotiated, this treaty will prohibit the weaponisation of space.
Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC):
A NWC will be an international treaty similar to others, such as the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention and the Mine Ban Treaty, which ban entire categories of weapons.
No such treaty exists yet for nuclear weapons, but demands for one have increased in recent years, as have more general demands for complete nuclear disarmament. 125 of 181 governments voting in the 2006 UN General Assembly wanted negotiations to commence immediately. Vast majorities in public opinion polls want a nuclear weapon free future, and for their country to become part of a nuclear weapon free zone.
In a wider sense, the Nuclear Weapons Convention would be the implementation of the universal societal condemnation of nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction.
It would delegitimize nuclear weapons and support their prohibition. Its impact will therefore be deeper and more far-reaching than the treaty language itself.
Such a treaty would reflect a broader social and political movement away from reliance on weapons of mass destruction and military solutions to conflicts, and would incorporate the desires and responsibilities of global civil society for a less militarized world.
