The United Nations General Assembly on Monday released the first draft of a legally binding global prohibition on nuclear weapons, which details bans on the use, production, transfer, and testing of such arms.
In October, 123 U.N. member states voted to begin negotiations on the treaty; 38 voted against the process, including nuclear powers France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The General Assembly in March began negotiations, which roughly 40 nations boycotted, including the official nuclear-weapon states.
Both the Trump and Obama administrations have maintained the treaty would be impractical and destabilizing.
States parties to the treaty would agree never to develop, produce, possess, or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; transfer or receive transfers of such weapons; use nuclear weapons; carry out nuclear test explosions; help or seek assistance in any activity prohibited by the text; and station, deploy, or test nuclear weapons on their territories, according to the draft text.
Each member nation would also be required to submit to the U.N. secretary general within 30 days of the treaty’s entry into force a declaration of “whether it has manufactured, possessed or otherwise acquired nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices after 5 December 2001,” the document says. For verification, the treaty would require states to give the International Atomic Energy Agency full access to facilities associated with a nuclear weapons program.
States parties would also be required to provide medical, rehabilitation, and psychological support to individuals in their territories affected by the use or testing of nuclear weapons. These nations could also request international assistance in environmental remediation of areas contaminated by those activities.
The draft notes that the agreement does not affect the rights of states parties under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which prohibits member governments from acquiring and building nuclear weapons, while recognizing five nuclear-weapon states and prohibiting them from assisting other treaty nations in obtaining nuclear weapons.
The convention would enter into force 90 days after the 40th instrument of ratification is deposited, and would be unlimited in duration. It calls for regular meetings of states parties to discuss implementation of the agreement. The first meeting would be convened by the U.N. secretary general within one year of the treaty’s entry into force, and on a biennial basis after that.
Jon Wolfsthal, previously senior director for arms control and nonproliferation for the Obama administration’s National Security Council, noted in a blog post this week that the draft text would prohibit NATO countries from permitting the stationing of nuclear weapons on their territory – a practice currently part of U.S. extended nuclear deterrence – which would place those states at “an immediately disadvantage” in light of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons capability.
The draft text also duplicates language in the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Wolfsthal said, which “creates an uncertain relationship between the two obligations, raising the possibility that the ban treaty will do harm to CTBT.” Moreover, he said the threshold for entry into force – ratification by 40 states – means nations “relatively unaffected by global security or nuclear security considerations could be in a position to set a new normative legal standard that would apply to all states.”
The U.N. will resume treaty negotiations from June 15 to July 7. The conference will then submit a report to the General Assembly’s 72nd session in September.
