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NPT seems to be in trouble

The first formal review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since its permanent extension in 1995 is going to bring out the pact's failings and uncertain future. The 25-day review, currently underway at the United Nations, is likely to end without a consensus between the nuclear and non-nuclear states.

The treaty's permanent extension was a spectacular success for its five nuclear members -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China. Five years later, the enormous costs of the extension are becoming visible.

The NPT regime today is at a crossroads. The top US arms control official, John Holum, has warned against "a weakened NPT regime" emerging from the review conference. But that is precisely what is likely to happen.

Since the treaty was perpetually extended, its five nuclear members have lost all incentive to work for arms control and disarmament, a process now in a state of "deplorable stagnation", to quote United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Russia's belated ratification of the START-II treaty, and the recent accession of some additional states to the nuclear test ban treaty, do not change this picture. The test ban treaty remains in limbo, thanks to its rejection by the US Senate, while START-II, already delayed by seven years, has still to cross other implementation hurdles.

In fact, with the so-called "revolution in military affairs" unveiling new destructive technologies, a dangerous new arms race, as Annan has warned, "looms on the horizon". The UN's top disarmament official at present, who chaired the NPT extension, Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, has said that "we are now entering a dangerous new era".

The non-nuclear states are venting their anger and frustration during the review conference. At a recent UN-sponsored meeting attended by this writer, Egypt's ambassador on disarmament, Fayza Aboulnaga, warned that unless the five nuclear powers met their treaty obligations, "the NPT regime could crumble".

Despite its membership having grown to encompass all nations except Cuba, India, Israel and Pakistan, the NPT, ironically, seems to be in trouble. Some are already demanding a new non-proliferation regime.

Switzerland's Alec Jean Baer, former chief of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (also known by its original name, the London Club) has called for "a better non-proliferation regime" to replace the NPT without the latter's inherent discrimination. In an elaborate proposal, Baer said the present non-proliferation "system was designed for a world that ceased to exist 10 years ago. It cannot, therefore, serve as a basis for the 21st century." He argued that "rather than trying to 'fix' a system that is getting increasingly out of date, we should have the courage to start afresh."

The NPT regime has already lost its central goal: to keep the number of nuclear-weapon states at five. The Second Nuclear Age ushered in by India with its 1998 tests appears incompatible with the NPT-type arrangements from the older era.

By approving the treaty's permanent extension, the non-nuclear parties have little leverage left over the nuclear powers. The stalled disarmament process is testament to the fundamental mistake these states committed in 1995. Though the permanent extension took place on the basis of 20 agreed "principles and objectives" that included the key goal of "systematic and progressive efforts" to reduce nuclear weapons, no such efforts have been undertaken.

"Such realities have adverse effects on the stability and validity of the nuclear non-proliferation regime," according to a twelve-member Japanese study group headed by Professor Mitsuru Kurosawa of Osaka University. The group has unveiled an "action plan" for the 21st century that calls for, among other things, an NPT executive body to be set up to ensure that treaty-related obligations are put into effect.

Although one of the most openly discriminatory treaties in history, the NPT introduced its system of discrimination with the support of the discriminated. It did that through a bargain under which non-nuclear states agreed to forswear nuclear ambitions and tolerate retention of nuclear arsenals by the then five possessor nations in return for concrete efforts to achieve complete disarmament.

The treaty's indefinite extension, however, effectively abandoned that bargain, greatly intensifying the inherent inequity and implicitly legitimising a five-nation nuclear monopoly.

At the root of the NPT's present problems is the non-compliance of its nuclear members with legal obligations enshrined in the treaty. The obligations centre on Article VI to achieve complete disarmament (a requirement unanimously upheld by the World Court) and Article I relating to non-transfer of weapons-related technology. China's continuing covert nuclear assistance to Pakistan mocks Article I. Ironically, it was the sign-and-violate approach of states like China that played a role in the US Senate's rejection of the test ban last October.

Today, the legacy of 1995 is beginning to haunt the NPT. By the time the final conference gavel falls on May 19, the frailty of the NPT regime will stand exposed.

In history, oversuccess has often bred eventual failure. The NPT's permanent extension was the equivalent of a blank cheque being handed to the nuclear powers by non-nuclear states. In time to come, the legacy of 1995 is likely to prove to be the NPT's undoing.

The past five years suggest that the NPT nuclear powers have forgotten that the future of a discriminatory treaty is linked to the winning of continued co-operation and backing of the discriminated on the basis of a mutually acceptable quid pro quo.

Brahma Chellaney, a well-known commentator and columnist, is professor of security studies at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.

General Ashok K Mehta