The Non-Proliferation Treaty
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was opened for signature on 1 July 1968 and entered into force in 1970. It has more parties than any other arms control agreement. Its structure is a bargain among three sets of obligations. States that had tested a device before 1 January 1967 — the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China — are recognised as nuclear-weapon states and undertake not to transfer weapons to anyone. All other parties undertake not to acquire them and to accept IAEA safeguards on their nuclear material. In exchange, all parties have the right to civil nuclear technology, and the weapon states undertake in Article VI to pursue negotiations in good faith towards nuclear disarmament. The date of 1967 is arbitrary and deliberate, and the two-tier structure it creates is the treaty's permanent grievance. The immediate impetus was the fear that a dozen or more states would go nuclear within a generation. Kennedy had predicted fifteen to twenty-five by the 1970s. That did not happen, which is the strongest argument for the treaty's effectiveness. Several states abandoned programmes — South Africa dismantled six warheads, and Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan gave up inherited Soviet arsenals in the 1990s. India, Pakistan and Israel never joined. North Korea joined and withdrew in 2003, the only party ever to do so. The treaty was extended indefinitely in 1995, and Article VI remains substantially unfulfilled. Review conferences have repeatedly failed to agree a final document, and the non-weapon states' patience with the bargain is visibly thinner than it was. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered force in 2021, was drafted by states that had lost that patience.
- Year: 1968 CE
- Category: Political
