ABSTRACT

The global non-proliferation regime has withstood major challenges over the decades and remains an essential pillar of international security. The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) has faced many criticisms, but the fact remains that the treaty has prevented the cascade of proliferation feared in the 1960s and 1970s, when it was commonplace to predict that

some two dozen countries would possess nuclear explosives by 2000. Only four countries have joined the group of nuclear-

weapons states since the treaty was concluded. The assessment of the NPT can be framed in hypotheti-

cal terms: what might have happened if it had not been in existence? The treaty played a role in stopping proliferation activities that were under way in the late 1960s and crystallised

decisions in key states – especially Germany, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland – not to manufacture nuclear weapons. On

the other hand, several committed outsiders – India, Israel

and Pakistan – never contemplated joining the treaty and proceeded to develop the bomb. Others hedged their nuclear

bets by joining the Treaty while continuing in secret to develop a nuclear weapons capability. The direct impact of the treaty

is therefore mixed, according to former US ambassador to the NPT Review Conference Lewis Dunn. Many would-be nucleararmed states, he says, decided to give up the nuclear-weapons option, but others continued to exercise it under the nose of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Treaty

nonetheless reinforced the emerging non-nuclear norm and gave the international community a stronger legal mandate to inspect potential violations and apply corrective and punitive measures.1