Disarming Conflict

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s call is for “the Security Council's permanent members…[to]  unambiguously assure non-nuclear-weapon states that they will not be the subject of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.”

Such “negative security assurances,” as they are known, have twice made it onto the Security Council agenda. Both instances illustrate the skill of nuclear weapon states (NWS) – which are of course also the five permanent (P5) members of the Security Council – in avoiding concrete commitments and in keeping accountability off the table.

In 1968, when the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) was being negotiated, it was clear that agreement on the Treaty would fail unless the non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) received some assurance that the NWS would not use or threaten to use their nuclear weapons against them. In other words, the non-nuclear weapon states would not permanently forgo nuclear weapons if the NWS could threaten and intimidate them without any limit of censure.

Egypt’s Permanent Representative to the UN recalled in 1996 that the NNWS were not simply looking for individual declarations from each of the NWS; rather they wanted the collective assurance of the international community “and to have assurances that if they were threatened or attacked by nuclear weapons, the Security Council would react.”[i] To that end, the pursuit of security assurances was also linked to the emergence of nuclear weapon-free zones—both measures being efforts to limit the geographical scope of the political pressures/influence that nuclear weapons exert.

The NWS refused to allow text on security assurances into the NPT itself; instead, the Security Council undertook to set out these assurances in a separate resolution (UNSC Res 255, 19 June 1968). In fact, the resolution did not offer any security assurances; it simply said that in the event of an attack or threat of it the N/P5 were obligated to act in accordance with the UN Charter: “The Security Council…recognizes that aggression with nuclear weapons or the threat of such aggression against a non-nuclear-weapon State would create a situation in which the Security Council, and above all its nuclear-weapon State members, would have to act immediately in accordance with their obligations under the United Nations Charter.” The resolution also welcomed “the intention expressed by certain States that they will provide or support immediate assistance, in accordance with the Charter, to any non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the [NPT] that is a victim of an act or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.”

So the NWS essentially offered after-the-fact fidelity to the Charter and assistance to the victims of attack, but no assurance that there would be no nuclear attack or, more saliently, no threat of attack against NNWS signatories to the NPT. Furthermore, France, then not a party to the NPT, abstained, and the Chinese vote was cast by Taiwan which then occupied China’s chair on the Security Council.

It took another 27 years for the Security Council to make another attempt to meet the ongoing request of NNWS. In this case, the resolution (UNSC Res 984, 11 April 1995) once again recognizes the requirements of the Charter to bring security crises to the Security Council and “takes note with appreciation of the statements made by each of the nuclear-weapon States, in which they give security assurances against the use of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear-weapon States that are Parties to the [NPT].” The individual statements by France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States all reaffirm that they “will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon States Parties to the [NPT] except in the case of an invasion or any other attack on [the NWS], its territories, its armed forces or other troops, its allies, or on a State towards which it has a security commitment, carried out or sustained by such a non-nuclear-weapon State in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.”[ii] The Chinese statement (S/1995/265) excludes the exception added by the other four states and declares that “China undertakes not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon States or nuclear-weapon-free zones at any time or under any circumstances.” China’s statement also includes a pledge not to be the first to use nuclear weapons.

The Council itself does not undertake any action, demand any firm commitment, or impose any obligation on the NWS. So Resolution 984 once again reflected the fundamental aversion of the NWS to collective commitments that make them accountable to others. Their interests are better served by a general collective statement that avoids commitment but references individual national statements that offer political commitments through unilateral declarations without incurring particular legal obligations.

The international community – and now the Secretary-General as well – has called for these unilaterally declared commitments to become mutual and to be girded by a legally binding international instrument to convert these national political commitments into legal obligations under international law, but such an agreement is not forthcoming. Indeed, since making these 1995 statements, France, Russia, and the United States have all cast doubts on them by saying they would not rule out the use of nuclear weapons, including preemptive use, against states that threatened them with chemical weapons or major conventional attack.[iii]

New, credible, and binding assurances are certainly required. A refusal to revisit the issue will continue to undermine the spirit of cooperation that is central to any hope that the 2010 NPT Review Conference can avoid a repeat of the abject failure of the 2005 review.