Burying the Nuclear Sword (original) (raw)
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A New Nuclear Age: An Exclusionary Global Order
The global nuclear power play seems to be changing form and altering courses with each passing day. The world has realised the enormous destructive potential of nuclear weapons and has even made reasonable room for curbing and containing their use in the past. However, whether or not the world leaders today continue to share this wisdom is a matter of contention, as well as high concern. The recently concluded 72 nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) witnessed the world leaders discussing some of the most pertinent nuclear issues; however, there was no visible cohesion in their policy narratives, nor any international wisdom in their approach to these problems. The recently adopted Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, on the other hand, failed to see the participation of any nuclear weapon State, or even those States within their broad umbrellas; while the Middle East once again seems to be mired in a fresh crisis, with the Iran Nuclear Deal on the verge of being de-certified and the possibility of Iran no longer being bound by its mandates. This paper attempts to analyse in brief these issues and a few more, and to bring forth the glaring discrepancies in the way they are being dealt with by the global actors.
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The notion of 'nuclear non-proliferation' is twofold. It refers to: (a) reduction of the number of existing arsenals (disarm or vertical non-proliferation), and (b) containment of the number of States that possess nuclear weapons or the control of non-state actors who can use such weapons (horizontal non-proliferation). Different sources of the law exist at the international and regional level for addressing the issue. At the international law level, the main legal text for addressing the issue, both on the side of vertical and horizontal non-proliferation, is the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). For the implementation of the principles contained in the NPT, a 'nuclear safeguards' system has been created, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been assigned the role of the nuclear 'watchdog' for the NPT. At the regional level, with respect to horizontal non-proliferation, there are bilateral or multilateral agreements that ban weapons of mass destruction in certain areas (Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones, NWFZ, treaties), and denuclearization treaties. They contain norms about verification and compliance, and some of them institute a specific agency that complements the IAEA. Along with IAEA system of safeguards and NWFZ bodies, there are regional safeguards bodies: (a) the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) model is the cornerstone of no-proliferation of nuclear material in the EU, while (b) the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting for and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) has the function to control nuclear activities developed in Brazil and Argentina. Therefore, this study aims at critically and comparatively analysing the different safeguards systems adopted at the international and regional level.