On May 22, Elayne Whyte Gomez, president of the United Nations conference negotiating a treaty to ban nuclear weapons, released a draft text of the convention based on the first session of the conference held from March 27 to 31. The conference will resume June 15 and conclude July 7.
The March conference was attended by 132 countries, accounting for two-thirds of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty membership. Signed in 1968, the NPT is the normative sheet anchor of global nuclear orders, from peaceful uses to nuclear safety and security, nonproliferation and disarmament. Article 6 obligates signatories to eliminate their nuclear weapons. In an advisory opinion in 1996, the World Court strengthened this by saying that the nuclear powers have the obligation not just to pursue good faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament, but to bring them to a conclusion.
Yet, 21 years after the World Court's opinion and 49 years since the NPT's signing, there are still around 15,000 nuclear weapons in the arsenals of nine countries: China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Four of these — India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan — represent a breach of the NPT's nonproliferation barrier. Moreover, four — China, India, North Korea and Pakistan — are still enlarging their nuclear stockpiles; North Korea is still testing nuclear weapons; and all nine are modernizing, upgrading or expanding nuclear-weapon delivery platforms.
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