ABSTRACT

The architects of the Humanitarian Initiative continued to discuss possible ways forward in a number of informal meetings in the early months of 2015. At the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee meeting in April/May 2014, the “New Agenda Coalition” presented a comprehensive working paper on Article VI of the NPT. The working paper calls on “all parties to the Treaty pursue and elaborate ‘effective measures’ for the achievement of the Treaty’s irreducible disarmament imperatives”. The “Austrian Pledge”, later renamed the “Humanitarian Pledge”, was introduced at the closing ceremony of the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons on 8 December 2014 as a strictly national commitment by Austria. As no consensus in Main Committee One was in sight at the beginning of the fourth and final week, the President of the Review Conference convened an informal “Focus Group” of 19 delegations. The specific purpose of this group was to try to find consensus language on nuclear disarmament.