Non‐Nuclear Weapons States Must Lead in Shaping International Norms on Nuclear Weapons: A Practitioner Commentary
| Author | Maritza Chan |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12342 |
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
Non-Nuclear Weapons States Must Lead in
Shaping International Norms on Nuclear
Weapons: A Practitioner Commentary
Maritza Chan
Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to the United Nations, New York, USA
Abstract
Nuclear weapons States continue to defy their responsibilities for achieving nuclear, as well as general and complete, disarma-
ment while they simultaneously hold non-nuclear States to their non-proliferation commitments. Costa Rica is part of that
non-nuclear armed majority. We take a firm stand that the lack of legal prohibition of nuclear weapons constitutes a legal
anomaly among weapons of mass destruction. As such, Costa Rica is committed to encouraging negotiations towards a treaty
establishing new legal obligations to ban nuclear weapons once and for all. The time has come for a new era of nuclear
politics in which the non-nuclear majority of States can lead the way in charting the course towards a non-nuclear world.
Costa Rica has been at the forefront of advocacy efforts for
the complete prohibition and elimination of nuclear weap-
ons. In 1948, Costa Rica unilaterally disarmed and demilita-
rized, and 21 years later, upon the adoption of the Treaty
for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and
the Caribbean in 1967, pledged with 33 other states in Tla-
telolco, Mexico, ‘to keep their territories forever free from
nuclear weapons’and ‘to endeavor to banish from its home-
lands the scourge of a nuclear war’(Preamble). Believing, as
we do, that nuclear weapons violate every survival instinct
of our species, it is discouraging that the heavyweight
nuclear weapons states continue to defy their responsibili-
ties to achieving nuclear, as well as general and complete,
disarmament while they simultaneously hold non-nuclear
states to their non-proliferation commitments.
The 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review
Conference (RevCon) –the ninth RevCon since the NPT
entered into force in 1970 –‘took place in an atmosphere
of business-as-usual nuclear rhetoric, in which the world’s
nuclear powers jockeyed for ‘even vaguer language, and
more caveats, than they have in the past’(Norton-Taylor,
2015). The NPT exists as a baseline measure of nuclear non-
proliferation and nuclear security but also contains a legal
commitment in Article VI to start negotiations on a second-
ary treaties on nuclear and ‘general and complete disarma-
ment.’The draft text that was offered for negotiation at the
2015 RevCon, however, offered no progress towards a new
treaty on complete disarmament and instead focused
almost exclusively on efforts to create a nuclear-free zone in
the Middle East. Beyond that, the 2015 draft text offered
‘only minimal advancement of [the 2010] 64-point action
plan,’and devoted ‘little space to a review of its implemen-
tation’(Wan, 2015). Ultimately, the 2015 RevCon was unable
to reach an agreement on the substantive elements of the
draft outcome text and the conference concluded without
adopting it.
The 2015 RevCon should have been a real turning point –
a golden opportunity for nuclear states to regain momen-
tum and find a new direction. But that was not to be.
Instead, the predictability of the nuclear powers’political
agenda and the neutered mediocrity of the 2015 NPT draft
outcome document stood in stark contrast to the desires of
the vocal, non-nuclear armed majority, who have had
enough of nuclear powers’status quo grandstanding.
Costa Rica is part of that non-nuclear armed majority. We
believe wholeheartedly that the NPT process needs to be
strengthened, not diminished (as it has been), if the NPT is
to serve as a ready safeguard against nuclear insecurity. We
take a firm stand that the NPT’s lack of legal prohibition of
nuclear weapons constitutes a legal anomaly among weap-
ons of mass destruction (WMD). As such, Costa Rica is com-
mitted to encouraging negotiations towards a treaty –as
envisioned in Article VI –and to enforce new legal obliga-
tions to ban nuclear weapons once and for all. The time has
come for a new era of nuclear politics and Costa Rica is
determined, and assured, that the non-nuclear majority of
states can lead the way in charting the course towards a
non-nuclear world.
However, there are some who think that it is too difficult
a task to change the minds of nuclear states who still clutch
tightly to the theory of nuclear deterrence. As noted in this
Special Section’s introductory essay, neo-realist scholars of
international relations, like Kenneth Waltz, claim that ‘nu-
clear powers are less likely to fight one another’and ‘even
irrational or unintelligent leaders are likely to recognize the
exceedingly high cost of nuclear war’(Rauchhaus, 2009, pp.
262, 271). The theory of nuclear deterrence affirms, and
even elevates, the role of nuclear weapons. But this creates
©2016 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2016) 7:3 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12342
Global Policy Volume 7 . Issue 3 . September 2016
408
Special Section Article
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