Security Concerns: Informal Intersessional Work

Intersessional Progress on the TPNW

Article 4

Articles 6 and 7

Article 12

Scientific Advisory Group

Gender and Nuclear Weapons

Complementarity

» Security Concerns

The Second Meeting of States Parties established an intersessional consultative process, coordinated by Austria (Decision 5), to consult between the second and third Meetings of States Parties and submit a report to the third Meeting of States Parties containing a comprehensive set of arguments and recommendations:

To better promote and articulate the legitimate security concerns, threat and risk perceptions enshrined in the Treaty that result from the existence of nuclear weapons and the concept of nuclear deterrence;
To challenge the security paradigm based on nuclear deterrence by highlighting and promoting new scientific evidence about the humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons and juxtaposing this with the risks and assumptions that are inherent in nuclear deterrence.

This was established as an internal discussion for the TPNW community, including States Parties and Signatories, the Scientific Advisory Group, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and other stakeholders and experts.

The TPNW references a number of security concerns related to the humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons (PP2, PP4); nuclear risk (PP3), and threat perceptions (PP6). At the First and Second Meetings of States Parties, the agreed political declarations reaffirmed these concerns, and elaborated that the “continued existence of nuclear weapons and lack of meaningful progress on disarmament [...] heighten the risk of nuclear catastrophe and pose an existential threat to humanity as a whole” (2MSP, Para 13) and “that attempts to justify nuclear deterrence as a legitimate security doctrine gives false credence to the value of nuclear weapons for national security and dangerously increases the risk of horizontal and vertical nuclear proliferation.” [2MSP, Para 17]

At the third Meeting of States Parties, a report of the consultative process on security concerns of States under the Treaty was submitted by the Coordinator. The recommendations contained in the report will be taken into account in the expanded mandate of the informal working group on universalisation and any potential products that will emanate from its work, as well as serve as a reference point for all States Parties in raising legitimate security concerns about the negative impact to their security by the retention of nuclear weapons and the practice of nuclear deterrence.