Revisiting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Lawfare, By Shanelle Van, Tuesday, November 27, 2018 One year ago, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the Nobel Peace Prize for its advocacy that contributed to the first legally binding treaty ban of nuclear weapons: the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the nuclear ban treaty. If and when it enters into force, the TPNW will legally bar treaty parties from—among other prohibited activities—possessing, developing, acquiring, testing, stockpiling, transferring, stationing, or threatening the use of nuclear weapons. It will also be illegal for treaty parties to “assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited” by the treaty.

The treaty’s supporters acknowledge that the agreement will not, realistically, cause the immediate disarmament of nuclear-armed states, which boycotted the negotiations and are unlikely to join the treaty. But that is not the advocates’ aim. The primary purpose of the treaty, they offer, is to declare nuclear weapons illegal and thereby chip away at the legitimacy of possessing them—in the hopes that, if norms shift against nuclear weapons, even nuclear-armed states not party to the treaty will eventually be pressured into disarming. This post explains the controversy surrounding the negotiations of the treaty, the debate over its substance, and its uncertain future in creating legal change.

Background

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was born primarily of frustration amongst some states and nongovernmental activists with a disarmament framework that has for the past half-century revolved around the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)………..

The Treaty’s Merit: Arguments For and Against

Those who opposed the negotiations have remained largely unswayed after seeing the treaty’s final text, noting several substantive issues. Among other potential problems, the treaty does not define its terms, leaving open questions about the legal obligations it creates (for example, what it means to “assist, encourage or induce” in contravention of the treaty) that the treaty’s supporters have recently tried to answer. ………

Advocates remain confident that the treaty will shake up the “nuclear weapons establishment.”

Slow Rate of Ratification

While outward support for the treaty has not dimmed one year on, that support is not yet reflected in the treaty’s signatures and ratifications. The treaty has to date collected 69 signatories and 19 ratifiers—with four of the most recent ratifications deposited on Sept. 26. When Fihn was asked this past summer—at the time, the treaty had only 10 ratifiers—why more states were not formally joining the treaty, she defended the pace in part by citing the paces of comparable treaties. “It’s faster than any other nuclear weapons treaty so far,” she said. “It took the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty more than a year before it got the second ratification. It’s faster than the NPT, it’s faster than the Chemical Weapons Convention. It’s completely on pace in terms of other treaties.”………..

Slow Rate of Ratification