REFLECTIONS ON THE FAILED NPT REVIEW

Overshadowed by war and geopolitical rivalries, an important month-long international meeting, held once every five years, ended without agreement on an outcome document. I am referring to the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the most subscribed-to international security agreement in existence that governs global nuclear affairs.

Disappointing as this nil outcome was, it was even more disconcerting as being the third consecutive conference to fail to produce an agreed outcome (2015 and 2022 were the earlier meetings). Although it is called the “cornerstone” of global nuclear governance, the conference president, in his closing remarks, noted that even cornerstones can erode and lead to a collapse of the edifice they support. Will it be a case of “three strikes and you’re out” for the NPT?

The internal tensions within the treaty were much in evidence during the proceedings, whereby the treaty’s Article VI obligation to nuclear disarmament clashes with the perceived security benefits of nuclear arms on the part of the five nuclear-weapon states and their dependent allies. The latter grouping successfully diluted or deleted any binding commitments proposed by the majority of the non-nuclear-weapon states.

Notably, calls for the nuclear-weapon states to adopt No First Use policies, which were included in initial drafts of the Review Conference outcome document, were deleted, as were calls on Russia and the United States to abide by the New START limits.

Similarly erased from the draft were references to the need to maintain or declare moratoriums on the production of fissile material, as well as mention of NATO’s nuclear-sharing arrangements. Other significant calls were watered down to the point of irrelevance. For example, a Conference “decision” that nuclear-weapon states should present national reports was reduced to a Conference “welcome” of the “voluntary commitment of the NWS” to do so. Similarly, the “right” of non-nuclear-weapon states to receive legally binding negative security assurances was reduced to acknowledging the “interest” of these states in obtaining such assurances.

Serious backsliding on prior obligations was also evident. The 2010 Review Conference text affirming the “catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons” was contested by U.S. and Polish delegates, who argued that while a nuclear war might generate such results, a mere detonation of a nuclear weapon would not, or that reaffirming this text would undermine nuclear deterrence.

Backbiting among Russia, China, and the United States did not contribute to an atmosphere of common purpose. The U.S. accusation that China had violated the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) with a low-yield nuclear test that the CTBTO International Monitoring System was unable to detect impugned the authority of the Treaty. At the same time, the U.S. refusal to ratify the agreement (along with eight others) meant that supplementary verification provisions (such as On-Site Inspections) were not operable.

Reflective of the NPT’s performance deficits is the fact that the CTBT has yet to enter into force 30 years after its conclusion, despite its being the top priority for States Parties, as agreed at the 1995 Review and Extension Conference, which resulted in the indefinite extension of the Treaty. Many non-nuclear-weapon states may well feel “buyers’ remorse” for agreeing to this step, given that it has provided them scant leverage over the conduct of the nuclear-weapon states.

The NPT-centered nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime has been fraying for decades. Will this third failure result in the unraveling of the regime as a whole?

Paul Meyer
Adjunct Professor of International Studies
Simon Fraser University

REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTION WITHIN THE UNITED NATIONS

There is a perpetual question—and discussion—around initiatives such as Uniting for Peace, Charter Article 27(3), and Article 109, to name three, that have delved into the question of UN General Assembly authority and the limits of its ability to “override” the UN Security Council where there is a P5 veto or, even more ambitiously, to amend the Charter itself.

I am skeptical of most of these efforts, not because I oppose eventual UN reform, but because the current Charter was written the way it is, intentionally to protect the P5 veto. Change will be incremental, and civil society pressure needs to be applied.

I think a July 2025 article by Erica Gaston, “Could the General Assembly Authorize Peacekeepers to Address Ongoing Crises?”, provides a good outline of options and UN history on these matters. Note the caveat:

“One important legal limit is that because the General Assembly does not have mandatory, coercive power (only the Security Council does), peace operations or other bodies mandated by the General Assembly can only deploy to the territory with the consent of the country involved.”

Robin Collins
Ottawa-based writer on peace and security issues