Effective measures for nuclear disarmament—an update

Readers of our regular posts on 'effective measures' will be aware that our aim is to explore the obligation on states that are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to 

'pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to ... nuclear disarmament'.  

The inability of the 5 year NPT Review Conference this May to achieve any agreed outcome has meant that the duty to conduct those negotiations amongst parties remains unfulfilled 45 years after the treaty entered into force.

This is an extract from the most recent posting on the joint UNIDIR/ILPI site entitled 'Where are we on effective measures, and where are we going?': -

"We have ... come to see the idea of a nuclear weapon ban treaty as one of the most promising potential avenues for effective measures for nuclear disarmament, although of course it is not without its risks and drawbacks. Over the coming months, we’ll reflect further on the pros and cons of such an approach, and we’ll be presenting our analysis later in 2015, both on [the Effective Measures] blog and in other products. How strong really are the arguments for such a treaty, and how serious are the counter-arguments against it given the range of realistic alternatives? For that matter, how realistic is such a treaty in the current international security environment—what would its value be? What could its legal architecture look like? And how would states get there?"

These are issue that we plan to tease out in depth after the northern summer break.

Tim Caughley