Summary of the 10th Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
Failure is not a setback but a chance for progress―A lesson learned at the 10th Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
by Masamichi Kamiya, Senior Advisor, Religions for Peace–Asia
The Tenth Review Conference (RevCon) of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was convened at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York from 1-26 August 2022. The RevCon was originally scheduled to take place in April 2020, but it delayed until August 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As widely covered by the press reports worldwide, the RevCon has failed to adopt a final outcome document by consensus the same as the RevCon in 2015.
What is NPT?
Avoiding the emergence of additional nuclear weapon states, the NPT was signed in July 1968 and ratified in March 1970. The NPT allows China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States to possess nuclear weapons as nuclear weapon states and prohibits other Parties to the Treaty from possessing them. Although the NPT is sometimes labeled as a discriminatory treaty in view of this discriminatory nature, this international treaty for disarmament entertains the largest number of the ratifications by the states parties, next to the UN Charter and also obliges all the ratified states “to pursue negotiations in good faith” for nuclear disarmament under Article 6 of the NPT.
What is RevCon?
Article 8 (3) of the NPT states that through the submission of the proposal by a majority of the Parties, a review conference is convened every five years so that the parties to the Treaty can review the adherence to and the operation of NPT. In addition, Article 10 (2) of NPT defines: “25 years after the entry into force of the Treaty, a conference will be convened to decide whether the Treaty shall continue in force indefinitely or shall be extended for an additional fixed period or periods. Under this provision, the NPT Review and Extension Conference was held in 1995, and the indefinite extension of the Treaty was agreed. Since then, the RevCon takes place every five years.
How to evaluate the non-adoption of a final document?
The main factor of the non-adoption of the final outcome document of the RevCon 2020 was Russia’s persistent opposition to the consensus to be reached at final stage of the RevCon. Throughout the deliberations of the Conference, quite many states parties to the Treaty repeatedly criticised Russia’s aggression to Ukraine, claiming that its act was against international law, in particular the UN Charter, and that its oppressive maneuver to control the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was undoubtedly an unacceptable military action. Russia’s opposition was the strong reaction to those accusations.
Like the last RevCon, the RevCon 2020 was not able to adopt a final outcome document as has been pointed out in the preceding paragraphs. Some argue that it is failure. But some also state that the non-adoption of a final document may be the failure of ‘adopting a consensus document’ but not necessarily be the failure of the ‘RevCon itself.’ In fact, the representative of the US government said after the voting for/against the proposed final document: “We agreed more than we disagreed,” valuing the deliberations of the past four weeks. And the representative of Sri Lanka stated: “Failure is a success in progress.”
Positive outcomes in the RevCon
The 2020 RevCon held in 2022 was the first one since the adoption of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015 and the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in January 2021. As a result, it was witnessed during the Conference that a view that military expenditures ought to be diverted to the endeavors in achieving SDGs was repeatedly expressed by quite a few states and that many states emphasized the compatibility between NPT and TPNW, while asserting that the objectives of NPT would be achieved because of the entry into force of TPNW. These are some characteristics of the RevCon this year in comparison with the last nine RevCons.
Taking the conciseness of this blog into consideration, the positive outcomes of this RevCon are numerated as follows without detailed accounts. They are: the reaffirmation of the NPT as the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation regime; the re-assertion that the use and the threat of use of a nuclear weapons is against international law; the request of the fulfillment of what were agreed at the RevCon in 1995, in 2000 and in 2010; the acknowledgement of humanitarian impacts and the catastrophic consequences; the necessity in halting the modernisation of nuclear weapons; the reduction of nuclear risks; the misgiving about nuclear sharing; the promotion of multilateral arms control including China; the moral and ethical imperatives for nuclear disarmament; the importance of multilateral disarmament machineries; the importance of political will and dialogue; the guaranteeing of negative security assurances; the importance of gender perspective for nuclear disarmament and the non-proliferation; the further engagement of women and the youth in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation efforts, disarmament and non-proliferation education, etc. The RevCon discussed these critical issues one way or another during the four-week Conference.
Conclusion
The next RevCon will be convened in New York in 2026, and the first preparatory committee (PrepCom) will be held in Vienna in 2023, the second PrepCom be in Geneva in 2024 and the third be in New York in 2025. From now to the next RevCon, Religions for Peace International, its regional bodies and national chapters (Interreligious Councils) are urged to be engaged in pragmatic activities for the elimination of nuclear weapons not only at the RevCon itself and during the preparatory process until 2026.
The endeavors of Religions for Peace are required to be carried out through its partnerships with the likeminded governments, non-governmental organisations and civil society organisations, groups and individuals, who share the common objective for a world free of nuclear weapons. Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND), International Campaign to abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and Mayors for Peace and other key partners are the partners in the non-governmental sphere, upon whom Religions for Peace relies. Through these collaborated endeavors, Religions for Peace family ought to contribute in practical manners to the establishment of a world free of nuclear weapons.
It was stressed at the RevCon that to set a ‘platform of dialogue’ up is necessary for nurturing momentum for nuclear disarmament. The importance of dialogue is in fact one factor so that an environment for nuclear disarmament gives rise to. It is viewed in this context that the people of the faith communities are accustomed to be a driving force for providing a platform of dialogue. In this endeavor, the constituencies of Religions for Peace bear gender perspective and positive engagement of women and the youth in mind.
Disarmament, nuclear disarmament in particular, was really the central issue focused at the First World Assembly of Religions for Peace held at Kyoto Japan in 1970. It will never change for the years to come. Taking the historic significance of the Religions for Peace movement in view of nuclear disarmament into consideration, the faith communities, including those who are being associated with Religions for Peace, shall keep their moral and ethical imperatives in mind for realization of a world free of nuclear weapons.
