More than 170 states that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are meeting to discuss whether the treaty should be renewed. The NPT came into force in 1970. Anti-nuclear groups and some of the more powerful newly industrialising countries are arguing that the NPT divides the world into those with nuclear weapons and those without, and are calling for a limited extension of the treaty and for certain conditions to apply to this extension. The nuclear states, led by the US, are calling for an indefinite extension. CAROLYN COURT spoke to ALYN WARE, director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy based in New York, about his organisation's views on the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Ware: The nuclear states are launching a global campaign to have the Non-Proliferation Treaty renewed unconditionally and indefinitely. What that means is that it gives them a free hand to continue to possess nuclear weapons and threaten to use nuclear weapons in the future while denying that to what they call the "rogue" states.
Non-nuclear countries are not going to take this because they feel threatened by the continued possession by the nuclear states of nuclear weapons. They are calling for a conditional and limited extension of the NPT — conditional upon the nuclear states moving to implement what they agreed to under Article 6 of the NPT, to work towards the elimination of nuclear weapons.
They want the nuclear states to say that they will eliminate them within a certain time frame and have a convention on elimination of nuclear weapons like we have on chemical and biological weapons.
If the NPT is indefinitely extended, do you think that it does really hold any hope for a future with fewer nuclear weapons?
No. The nuclear states will continue to possess and threaten to use nuclear weapons indefinitely. A number of states who will feel upset about this will feel maybe it's time to leave the NPT and develop their own nuclear weapons to protect them from the nuclear states. We saw the possibility of that with North Korea.
At the moment there are a number of states that don't even belong to the NPT because they are concerned about the discriminatory part of it. So if it is extended unconditionally and indefinitely, it won't stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
Do you think there's much awareness of that perspective? From the title "Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty", it does sound like a good thing.
It is a good thing that that agreement was made by the nuclear states to eliminate nuclear weapons, along with the non-nuclear states who said they would not develop them. But the problem is the nuclear states have never kept their side of the bargain, and unless there is a mechanism for ensuring that they keep their side of the bargain, then it's not going to keep working.
The peace movement didn't really look closely at the NPT until about a year and a half ago. Now that it has, there is a strong movement against indefinite extension. A number of the other peace movement groups in Australia are now coming out against indefinite extension of the NPT, and I know a number of the South Pacific Island states are rethinking their position.
[This interview — here abridged — was broadcast on One World, an environmental awareness program for the Pacific, produced by Carolyn Court for Radio Australia.]