Monitoring the 2015 NPT Review Conference
(Article contributed June 2015)
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by Yasuhito Fukui, LL.D.
Associate Professor, Hiroshima Peace Institute,
Hiroshima City University
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In 2015, the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was held at the UN headquarters in New York.
Despite the fact that this is an important year, marking 70th anniversary since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of the Pacific War, unfortunately the Conference could not reach an agreement on the draft Final Document.
While the end of the Cold War between East and West brought a drastic change in the global political scene surrounding the NPT, limited progress has been made on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation despite our expectations.
I participated in the 2000 NPT Review Conference fifteen years ago as a member of the delegation of the Japanese government, but this time I participated in this Conference as a research fellow of the Hiroshima Peace Institute, Hiroshima City University with observer status for civil society.
I still remember vividly the Review Conference in 2000.
At that time it was difficult for the delegations to agree on the text of draft Final Document in the evening of the last day.
After resuming the night session without interpreters, at midnight the Chairperson declared that he would "stop the clock" and he also encouraged us to continue with a view to overcoming the divergence of views.
The delegations negotiated the language of the Final Document until the afternoon of the following day, Saturday, and thus we finally reached on an agreement.
On the contrary, when I witnessed the final stage of the 2015 NPT Review Conference without any fruitful result in the evening of the last day, May 22, in the UN General Assembly hall, to be honest, I was extremely disappointed.
There are a large variety of people among our readers, from nuclear disarmament specialists who have long been involved in campaigns to abolish nuclear weapons, to the general public.
Therefore I would first like to describe a brief explanation on how the NPT Review Conference is held, and then look at the outcome of the NPT Review Conference, as well as its future perspective.
I recently read an interview with an American scientist who was involved in the development of nuclear weapons who testified
"I sincerely prayed that nuclear weapons would not be used."
This testimony provides evidence of the ferocity of the actual atomic bombing experienced by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, given that merely witnessing a nuclear explosion is horrific in itself.
In the midst of the fierce race to develop nuclear weapons during the Cold War, there was a strong awareness among the global community that nuclear weapons possess an inhumane aspect that is incomparable to other weapons.
For this reason, in 1961 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
This resolution was the first step with a view to negotiations towards a treaty for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and on June 12, 1967 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons.
The aim of the NPT is to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and as such it is an important treaty that constitutes the basis of the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime,
prohibiting the transfer of nuclear weapons by nuclear-weapons States (NWS),
the receipt of nuclear weapons by non-nuclear-weapons States (NNWS) from NWS,
and the manufacture of nuclear weapons,
as well as stipulating IAEA safeguards, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and the obligation of States Parties to
"pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at early date..."
The NPT Review Conference is held once every five years to review the operation of this Treaty with a view towards assuring that the purposes of the Preamble and the provisions of the Treaty are being realized.
Looking back at previous NPT Review Conferences, the conferences that adopted the Final Document successfully were those held in 1975, 1985, 2000, and 2010.
That is to say the so-called "13 Practical Steps" (2000) and "the 2010 Action Plan", which showed us important policy guidance for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
Although the 1995 Review Conference could not adopt a Final Document, important decisions were taken on three items
－ the strengthening of the NPT review process, the principles and objectives for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and the indefinite extension of the NPT.
Additionally, an important resolution was adopted to convene a conference on establishing a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction.
In order to analyze the failure of the 2015 NPT Review Conference and considers future challenges, we cannot ignore the question of whether this NPT review Conference could respond to the core issues in relation to the progress of those decisions made since the 1995 Review Conference in the past twenty years:
namely, the principles and objectives of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and the Middle East resolution, with the indefinite extension of the NPT.
Prior to the NPT Review Conference three Preparatory Committees are scheduled to be held and based on the discussions in the Preparatory Committees the NPT Review Conference is held every five years in a four weeks' session.
In the first week, a general debate as a sort of the high level segment by the heads of national delegations is held at the UN General Assembly hall.
From the second week, the three Main Committees try to discuss the elements of the report to the drafting committee within their mandate of each Main Committee (nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy),
as well as subsidiary bodies that have been established where necessary.
Then the final reports reflecting the discussions of each of the Main Committees are submitted to the Drafting Committee and in the fourth i.e. final week this Drafting Committee tries to produce the procedural and substantial report of the Conference including the draft Final Document, and the final decision to adopt these documents is taken in the plenary session.
As is usual with negotiations for many difficult to agree upon issues, a large part of the meetings are conducted in the form of closed sessions.
Due to the fact that there is a high level of public interest in the abolition of nuclear weapons there are various side events and NGO sessions held, in particular in the first two weeks, and many people gather from all over the world to the NPT Review Conference.
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2015 NPT Review Conference at UN General Assembly hall
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The President of the 2015 NPT Review Conference was Ambassador Feroukhi, advisor to the Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
It was the second time that an Algerian has presided over the NPT Review Conference, after Ambassador Baali, permanent representative of Algeria to the United Nations, at the conference in 2000.
I had the opportunity to speak briefly with Ms. Feroukhi, when she was the Ambassador of Algeria in Vienna, at meetings such as the Conference to promote the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
I remember her as a very lively, tenacious and tough diplomat.
The success of the NPT Review Conference this time was heavily dependent on the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) and Arab League, and Ms. Feroukhi was the right person for the position of President of the Conference.
However, even with Ms. Feroukhi's efforts, the conference was obliged to face the divergence of views in each of these three Main Committees, in particular the Main Committee I which was in charge of nuclear disarmament.
At the plenary session on May 20, Ms. Feroukhi explained that as of the 19th, all the main committees had not been able to reach consensus, and that there was an especially large disagreement on the three points such as the inhumane impact of the use of nuclear weapons, effective measures for nuclear disarmament (Article 6), and NWS's obligation to report the progress of the nuclear disarmament including the status quo of nuclear arsenals.
Continuously, a series of informal consultations was conducted overnight until early in the morning on May 21, the day before the final day, because of the divergences of views remaining still difficult to agree upon, the draft Final Document (NPT/CONF.2015/R.3), developed under the responsibility of Ms. Feroukhi, was distributed to the delegations.
Regarding this draft, informal consultations mainly involving the NAM were held intermittently on May 22, and at the same time each country's delegation was requesting official instructions from their capital whether they could accept this draft or not.
Finally, the plenary of the Conference resumed at around 5pm, and Ms. Feroukhi officially introduced this draft, encouraging each delegation to accept her proposal in the spirit of compromise.
Subsequently, Tunisia expressed the view that it could accept this proposal, however the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada then stated that they could not participate in the consensus.
In particular the United States explained the reason why they could not accept it.
This was because of the issue of convening a conference on establishing a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction.
They express the reason why it is unacceptable as follows:
"Unfortunately the proposed language for a final document did not allow for consensus discussions among the countries of the Middle East for an agreement on the agenda and the modalities of the conference and set an arbitrary deadline for holding the conference."
This was the decisive factor that led to the failure of the 2015 NPT Review Conference.
During this Review Conference, the Austrian Director for Disarmament, Ambassador Kmentt, was the focus of attention because of his proposals of the Austrian Pledge based on the result of the Vienna Conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons.
He might have known already that the conference would result in failure.
Before the resumption of the plenary meeting, he appeared in the gallery reserved for observers such as members of the civil society and media to monitor the conference.
I witnessed that he expressed gratitude to the civil society people for monitoring the four weeks' long meetings with patience and he also gave interviews to the media in a friendly manner.
The next NPT Review Conference is scheduled for 2020.
Delegations to the 2015 NPT review Conference were unable to set forth a policy guidance on how to promote nuclear disarmament for the next five years.
In this situation, what would be the future perspective for the successful outcome of the next Review Conference?
We have to consider how to minimize the negative impact of the failure of this Review Conference.
One of the root causes for this failure is the lack of significant progress in the field of nuclear disarmament and the increasingly prominent antagonism between the NNWS dissatisfied with the current situation and the NWS that were fiercely trying to protect their vested interests.
With this situation in mind, it is imperative for us to develop "an exit strategy" from this stalemate of nuclear disarmament in view of what can be done within the framework of the NPT regime, including how to resolve the regional issues such as the Middle East and the DPRK (North Korea).
In particular for the issues in the Middle East, there is a new horizon following the comprehensive agreement on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy by Iran that has been successfully concluded in July 2015.
It is necessary to make use of this opportunity to find a solution for the Middle East issues.
After eliminating as much as possible any factors that may lead to the failure of the conference, we need to prepare for the Review Conference during the next five years.
Regarding Japan's nuclear disarmament policy, even with the recent trends to abolish nuclear weapons focusing on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, unfortunately its position is now being questioned although Japan is the sole country to have experienced atomic bombing in the World War II.
It is therefore important to proceed with concrete and visible disarmament and nonproliferation diplomacy, including efforts to start negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention.
Prior to going to New York I saw the home page of an NGO where an atomic bomb survivor who had participated in the NPT side event at an atomic bombing exhibition had written,
"I have health issues and will probably not be able to participate in the next NPT Review Conference in 2020."
I found this very troubling.
We need to respond to the current issue of the aging atomic bomb survivors that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are facing now.
In addition to this, more than fifteen years have passed without substantial negotiations on the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty in the Conference on Disarmament, which is regarded as the next challenge after CTBT negotiations.
Under such circumstances, the Japanese government should go beyond their statement that "a step-by-step approach is important."
The time has now come to seriously examine how to negotiate on nuclear disarmament, setting a concrete deadline and targets.
Furthermore, negotiations in the final week of the Review Conference are conducted in the form of informal consultations and the meetings are generally closed, so transparency should be more important in the negotiating process.
Documents issued in this Conference were made available thanks to NGOs such as "Reaching Critical Will" who uploaded Conference documents immediately to the Internet.
They were then used not only by the media but also by many civil society participants.
In this connection, Japanese accredited media were briefed by the Japanese delegation, but observers (including myself) from Japanese civil society ware obliged to listen to briefings from other countries' kind delegates and civil society participants.
Twenty years ago, I participated in the World Conference on Women in Beijing as a member of the delegation of Japan.
At that time, we arranged briefings not only for the media but also for civil society participants upon request.
Just as the Austrian Director for Disarmament Ambassador Kmentt demonstrated, I would like to expect the delegation of Japan to give due consideration to civil society participants who attend the conference.
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Profile
[Yasuhito Fukui]
He was born in 1964 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan.
He received the academic title LL.D. (Docteur en droit) from Universite Paris 1 (Pantheon-Sorbonne).
He specializes in International law, especially disarmament law, international human rights law and international humanitarian law and so on.
He retired from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in March 2015, and assumed his current post at the Hiroshima Peace Institute, Hiroshima City University.
His major publication is, among others, Gunshuku Kokusaiho no Kyoka (Strengthening the International Disarmament Law) published by Shinzansha Publisher Co., Ltd. in February 2015.
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