Despite their Cold War rivalry, the United States and the Soviet Union frequently engaged in joint efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Leaders in Washington and Moscow recognized that nuclear proliferation would serve neither country’s interests even when they did not see eye-to-eye in many other areas. They likewise understood why collaboration in mitigating this nuclear danger would serve both their own interests and those of the international community. This volume examines seven little known examples of US-Soviet cooperation for non-proliferation, including preventing South Africa from conducting a nuclear test, developing international safeguards and export control guidelines, and negotiating a draft convention banning radiological weapons. It uses declassified and recently-digitized archival material to explore in-depth the motivations for and modalities for cooperation under often adverse political circumstances. Given the current disintegration of Russian and US relations, including in the nuclear sphere, this history is especially worthy of review. Accordingly, the volume’s final chapter is devoted to discussing how non-proliferation lessons from the past can be applied today in areas most in need of US-Russian cooperation.

Nuclear proliferation poses a serious threat to international peace and security. The non-proliferation regime is the body of public international law that aims to counter this threat. It has been a cornerstone of global security for decades. This book analyses its main instruments. The book focuses on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, international trade controls and the International Atomic Energy Agency. It describes the internal mechanics of these mechanisms, their development, and their strengths and weaknesses. It shows how they together are the basis of a political-legal order that is more than the sum of its parts, offering new insights on the role of international law in an area dominated by security-driven politics.

This book suggests a new bargain between the NPT nuclear weapon states and the non-NPT nuclear weapons possessor states, mainly India and Pakistan, through a regional arrangement to help move towards universalization of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. The author analyses nuclear proliferation drivers to understand why states acquire and justify possession of nuclear weapons even though most nuclear weapon states no longer are faced with an existential threat to their national security. This study also identifies various challenges being faced by the NPT based nuclear nonproliferation regime, which if left unaddressed, could unravel the nonproliferation regime. It also offers the history of confidence building measures between India and Pakistan, which could be a useful reference for negotiating a Regional Nonproliferation Regime (RNR) in the future.

This book examines the state of the nuclear non-proliferation regime and the issues it faces in the early 21st century. Despite the fact that most countries in the world have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) there is growing concern that the NPT is in serious trouble and may not be able to stop the further spread of nuclear weapons. If so, international stability will be undermined, with potentially disastrous consequences, and the vision of a nuclear weapon-free world will become utterly unrealistic. More specifically, the NPT is exposed to four main challenges, explored in this book: challenges from outside, as three countries that have not signed the Treaty – Israel, India and Pakistan – are known to possess nuclear weapons; challenges from within, as some countries that have signed on to the Treaty as non-nuclear weapons states have nevertheless developed or are suspected to be trying to develop nuclear weapons (North Korea and Iran being cases in point); challenges from below in the shape of terrorists and other non-state actors who may want to acquire radioactive materials or even nuclear weapons; and, finally, challenges from above due to the perceived failure of the five legal nuclear weapons states to keep their part of the ‘double bargain’ made by the parties of the NPT and take serious steps towards nuclear disarmament. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, international security, war and conflict studies and IR in general.

This study looks at the interpretations and effects of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and offers readings of its possible future effects.

The 1995 conference on the review and extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty may well mark an important turning point. The treaty itself, but also the wider international regime built around it are at stake. The Future of the International Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime deals with various aspects of the problems of nuclear proliferation and the international struggle against it. Authors from Europe, the United States and Australia have contributed to this book, which was produced under the auspices of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations `Clingendael'. The reader is first offered regional case studies on North Korea, South Asia, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union, followed by chapters on nuclear safeguards and export controls systems and contributions on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and security guarantees. The two concluding chapters evaluate and propose policies to strengthen the non-proliferation regime beyond 1995. It will be of interest to policy-makers, students of international relations and journalists.

The 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty has proven the most complicated and controversial of all arms control treaties, both in principle and in practice. Statements of nuclear-weapon States from the Cold War to the present, led by the United States, show a disproportionate prioritization of the non-proliferation pillar of the Treaty, and an unwarranted underprioritization of the civilian energy development and disarmament pillars of the treaty. This book argues that the way in which nuclear-weapon States have interpreted the Treaty has laid the legal foundation for a number of policies related to trade in civilian nuclear energy technologies and nuclear weapons disarmament. These policies circumscribe the rights of non-nuclear-weapon States under Article IV of the Treaty by imposing conditions on the supply of civilian nuclear technologies. They also provide for the renewal and maintaintenance, and in some cases further development of the nuclear weapons arsenals of nuclear-weapon States. The book provides a legal analysis of this trend in treaty interpretation by nuclear-weapon States and the policies for which it has provided legal justification. It argues, through a close and systematic examination of the Treaty by reference to the rules of treaty interpretation found in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, that this disproportionate prioritization of the non-proliferation pillar of the Treaty leads to erroneous legal interpretations in light of the original balance of principles underlying the Treaty, prejudicing the legitimate legal interests of non-nuclear-weapon States.