The first Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference is currently meeting in Vienna, Austria.
The first session of the committee, led by Ambassador Henk Cor Van der Kwast of the Netherlands, will meet until May 12; two more sessions will be convened after that, before the 2020 conference, to address substantive issues concerning the treaty. Member states will at the review conference discuss the implementation of the treaty, issues related to nonproliferation and disarmament, and recommendations to strengthen NPT provisions.
The NPT, in force since 1970, prohibits most of its 191 states parties from acquiring, possessing, or developing nuclear weapons, while forbidding the five recognized nuclear powers – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States – from helping any other treaty government acquire such a weapon. The accord is considered the basis for the global nonproliferation regime and eventual nuclear disarmament.
Robert Wood, U.S. permanent representative to the Conference on Disarmament, on Tuesday spoke in support of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s work in nuclear security and safeguards measures and highlighted worsening security conditions worldwide, “with renewed tensions and growing nuclear stockpiles in some regions.”
Wood pointed to North Korea’s nuclear enrichment and reprocessing operations, as well as its nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches, as the greatest security challenge in the world today. He also highlighted U.S. support for the IAEA, noting the nation will contribute another $50 million – on top of an initial $50 million pledge – to the U.N. agency’s Technical Cooperation Program. The IAEA through this program helps member states build capacity for the peaceful use of nuclear technology.
Wood also announced a U.S. pledge of 1 million euros in support of the IAEA’s renovation of its Nuclear Applications Laboratories, on top of 8.9 million euros already given for this purpose. The project is intended to upgrade IAEA equipment and infrastructure for its projects on peaceful uses of nuclear energy, at laboratories that support applications such as agriculture, health, and the environment.
The treaty comes under review every five years, with the last NPT Review Conference held in 2015. That event ended without consensus on a final document, primarily due to the question of creating a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in the Middle East.
Stephen Young, a senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said participants at the next Review Conference are unlikely to reach consensus – something that could then raise questions about nuclear weapon states’ willingness to fulfill their NPT requirements.
The “main problem is the weapon states aren’t willing to meet the desires of most of the world,” Young said, referring to the weapon states’ boycott of current United Nations negotiations toward a global nuclear weapons ban.
Nations also failed to reach consensus on a final document at the review conferences held in 1980, 1990, 1995, and 2005, which, according to the U.N., was due to disagreements over whether nuclear-weapon states had fulfilled nuclear disarmament requirements. Article VI of the NPT calls on treaty parties to make good faith efforts toward nuclear disarmament.
