Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Research Articles

Regional socialization and disarmament preferences: Explaining state positions on the nuclear ban treaty

ABSTRACT We bring nuance to the understanding of cleavages among states over the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). We measure the positions of the participants to the 2022 and 2023 TPNW Meetings of State Parties, employing text-as-data approaches. Our results show that the participants can be placed along a single axis, roughly associated with whether they view nuclear disarmament in an “old” way as primarily a security problem or in a “new” way as a humanitarian and emancipatory issue. We find that membership in a nuclear weapon-free zone—particularly in Latin America and Africa—has a statistically significant effect on state positions. We therefore debunk the idea that parties to the nuclear ban treaty are a coherent single block. Our article provides a new, quantitative way of measuring the positions of states vis-à-vis the TPNW and contributes to the emerging scholarship on the treaty.

The Challenges and Avenues for Banning Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East

This essay explores the complex dynamics surrounding the establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East. It examines the regional and international perspectives on a nuclear weapons-ban norm and the motivations behind them of some key players, including Iran, Israel, and Egypt. The essay discusses the interplay between the regional and international levels that shapes the approaches of those key players to regional security and the fundamental differences and security concerns that have prevented any change in normative practice. It then discusses the potential impact of an NWFZ on the regional balance of power. It provides an important perspective on the complex and volatile geostrategy of the Middle East and the competing interests that may affect the adoption of the nuclear weapons-ban norm in the future.

Nuclear Threats Under International Law Part I: The Legal Framework

ABSTRACT The international legal status of threats to use nuclear weapons is uncertain. In this article, we map existing prohibitions against nuclear threats at international law and seek to explain the scope and remit of such laws. To that end, the article explores unilateral negative security assurances; prohibitions on threats to use nuclear weapons in international agreements (including the TPNW, the nuclear weapons free zone treaties and their protocols, and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum); the rules concerning threats in the jus ad bellum regime; and the rules relating to threats in the jus in bello regime. Where there is disagreement about the way these international laws apply to threats to use nuclear weapons, we explain the different views and their significance, and we identify where there are gaps in the existing legal framework. This article is the first in a two-part series on the legality of nuclear threats.

Regional Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation: A Case of CANWFZ Treaty

Nuclear weapons are highly potent and devastating instruments found in the military stockpiles of contemporary nations. The immense magnitude and pace of devastation that nuclear weapons may cause, coupled with the relative ease with which governments can acquire these offensive capabilities and the inability to effectively defend against a nuclear assault, render nuclear weapons highly valuable. Against this true but bitter reality of the present world order, the author posits that creating nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZ) on a regional scale can serve as a beacon of hope and a significant catalyst in the global effort to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world. To further analyse this idea, the author explores NWFZ and their relevance to regional denuclearization by focusing on the Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone (CANWFZ) treaty. The article is divided into four sections. The first section includes a review of contemporary literature about disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation. The second section examines the development of the CANWFZ and its commitment to the objectives of disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation. The third section involves assessing the barriers to this regional cooperation that impede its full implementation. Section four explores the potential reformative strategies that can improve the effectiveness of CANWFZ and elevate it to a model for other regional groupings in achieving a nuclear-free world.

Kehadiran Kerjasama Keamanan Trilateral AUKUS bagi Asia Tenggara: Memaknai Perbedaan Sikap Negara Anggota dan Relevansi ASEAN

The phenomenon of the AUKUS (Australia-United Kingdom-United States Partnership) trilateral security pact has caused a polemic within ASEAN. Australia's involvement in AUKUS gives Australia the right to have eight nuclear-powered submarines, reaping the pros and cons of ASEAN countries. Vietnam and the Philippines tend to support, while Indonesia-Malaysia oppose Australia's decision. Ideally, ASEAN, which has declared itself a nuclear-free zone in the SEANWFZ (Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone), does not support Australia's decision. This paper aims to analyze the effect of different responses from ASEAN countries to ASEAN centrality as regionalism in Southeast Asia. Based on the analysis conducted with the realism perspective, it was found that the differences in the responses of ASEAN countries did not affect the centrality of ASEAN. This is based on two things, firstly the response of countries that support Australia's policy is a spontaneous response to the security situation of countries involved in the South Tiongkok Sea conflict, the two ASEANs are still relevant as a foothold for the foreign policy of ASEAN member countries, especially on the policy of the Nuclear Free Zone. For this reason, ASEAN is still relevant in the security constellation in the region.

Book Review of "Nuclear Weapons Free Zones: A Comparative Perspective"

In 1957, when Adam Rapacki put forth the Rapacki Plan, the first nuclear weapon–free zone (NWFZ) proposal, the world had no idea this proposal would form one of international relations’ most critical subjects. Since then, authors such as Michael Hamel-Green, Ingemar Lindahl, Oluyemi Adeniji, Tad Daley, and Sverre Lodgaard have made scholarly contributions to elucidate the emergence of NWFZs in different regions that cover over 100 countries. Prior to the end of the Cold War, Ramesh Thakur edited a book, Nuclear Weapons Free Zones, that discussed the four NWFZs established before the Central Asian NWFZ. Thakur also organized the different scholars’ assessments of the existing obstacles to establishing four other prospective NWFZs in Northeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the Southern Hemisphere.

Fossil Free Zones: a proposal

ABSTRACT This perspective paper proposes a new conceptual framework for bottom-up climate mitigation: the Fossil Free Zones (FFZs) framework. The aim of the framework is to facilitate grassroots, goal-driven climate action, and government policy at increasingly higher levels, with a view to ‘tipping’ social systems away from their reliance on fossil fuels. The paper outlines the framework and the theory of change on which it is predicated, after first introducing the historical precedent that inspired it – the system of Nuclear Weapon Free Zones. The FFZs framework offers two main advantages over other anti-fossil fuel initiatives – such as the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative – though it is intended and designed to complement these, not compete with them. First, the FFZs framework combines a unified and accessible discursive frame with a focus on practical decarbonising activities at multiple levels of governance. The discursive frame promotes the diffusion of anti-fossil fuel norms while the practical activities promote positive (reinforcing) social, technological, economic and other feedback effects. Second, the combined focus on supply and demand increases the political resilience of anti-fossil fuel initiatives in the face of fossil fuel price fluctuations, and promotes cooperation between producer regions and urban consumer centres. Key policy insights Anti-fossil fuel activism has become a global phenomenon, but fossil fuel production and combustion continue to rise, threatening climate objectives. A system of Fossil Free Zones is proposed to further mobilise grassroots and subnational action against fossil fuels, and build anti-fossil fuel norms. A Fossil Free Zone is a geographic area characterised by the absence of fossil fuel production and consumption, with intermediate statuses based on fuel types and activities, e.g. ‘coal supply free zone’. Motivated groups set zone-related goals and work toward them, cooperating with others and across different levels of government as necessary, and declare the zones they have achieved. Ultimately, Fossil Free Zones could become institutionalised at national and international level, as has occurred with Nuclear Weapon Free Zones. Fossil Free Zones combine discursive framing with practical decarbonising activities, and address fossil fuel production and consumption, improving on other anti-fossil fuel initiatives.

Humanizing the Victims: A Middle East Zone (MEZ) Free of Nuclear Weapons and the Historical Necessity of Including “Other Weapons of Mass Destruction”

ABSTRACT With five nuclear-weapon-free-zones (NWFZ) in place, the Middle East Zone (MEZ), still undergoing negotiations, is the first NWFZ to include “other weapons of mass destruction” in its deliberations. This article seeks to examine the historical necessity of including other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in the MEZ. It does so by first stressing the destructive and lingering consequences of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons against human populations and the environment. It then provides an overview of the concepts of NWFZs and zones free from other WMDs while stressing the importance of understanding the historical context surrounding these concepts. After establishing these concepts, the article discusses the historical necessity of including other WMDs in addition to nuclear weapons in NWFZ treaties by exploring case studies of the use of these weapons and their consequences. By presenting these case studies, the article demonstrates the necessity of including other WMDs by adding a human face to the consequences of not including other WMDs within the MEZ.

Nuclear weapon-free zones and the issue of maritime transit in Latin America

Abstract Why did Latin American states exclude a prohibition on maritime nuclear transit from their regional nuclear weapon-free zone (NWFZ)? Latin American countries and nuclear powers shared common anxieties about the dangers of the nuclear arms race in the early 1960s. Thus, they decided to craft a regional nuclear non-proliferation mechanism. Latin American states favoured limiting maritime nuclear transit as part of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco. However, they disagreed on defining transit and the zone of application of a ban, and they faced US opposition. This article identifies issue bracketing as a negotiating tactic Latin America used to ensure a successful treaty codification. It argues that Latin American states bracketed the maritime nuclear transit issue out of the NWFZ discussions and onto the agenda of the negotiations establishing ocean governance rules in the 1970s. The Latin American construction of a NWFZ questions assumptions in international law and nuclear politics studies about the agency of the global South in the global nuclear order. Latin American concessions in Tlatelolco were not impositions from nuclear powers. Their compromises were strategic decisions that helped them promote their governance preferences.

POLICIES AND SCENARIOS TO PREVENT THE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS BETWEEN UNITED STATES AND CHINA IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA

<div><p class="Els-history-head">The issue of the South China Sea (SCS) dispute between the United States (U.S.) and China, which has not abated, has caused concern for countries in the region to escalate and lead to war from both sides. The thing that becomes the biggest threat when there is a nuclear war between the U.S. and China where will have an impact on several countries, one of them is Indonesia. This study tries to provide an overview of how to determine Indonesia's strategic policy from the hypothesis of existing policy options based on possible scenarios by formulating a strategic thinking framework to prevent the use of nuclear weapons as a result of the U.S.-China dispute in the SCS, using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Analytic Network Process (ANP) methods to determine the right policy strategy. The results of AHP and ANP methods show the same results, where ASEAN-SEANWFZ (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations-Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone) Multilateral Diplomacy is the Policy Choice that gets the biggest priority, and Peaceful Solutions become the Scenario that gets the highest priority.</p></div>

Obedient rebellion: conceiving the African nuclear weapon-free zone

Abstract Why do nuclear weapon-free zones (NWFZs)—areas which prohibit nuclear weapons—emerge in some contexts, and not others? Focusing on the African case, this article introduces the concept of ‘obedient rebellion’ to explain the African NWFZ's early conception. ‘Obedient rebellion’ is an attitude of ambivalence toward global nuclear order. To newly-decolonizing African states, the African NWFZ symbolized both postcolonial anti-nuclear solidarity and nuclear responsibility; it represented both ‘obedience’ to—and ‘rebellion’ against—global nuclear order. This ambivalence, between ‘obedience’ and ‘rebellion’, paradoxically accommodated multiple conflicting audiences simultaneously, thereby stabilising the zone. The African NWFZ's ambiguous meanings made it viable, even though those meanings conflicted. The zone's early conception offers insight into the complex, contending forces that continue to bind the world's NWFZs—and indeed nuclear order itself—to the present. NWFZs epitomize the tensions which stabilize nuclear order: between sovereign equality and nuclear inequality; between local solidarities and global loyalties; and between contestation and compromise. At first, these tensions seem to imperil NWFZs; in fact, these tensions stabilize NWFZs. The African zone also poses challenges to the African blind spot that continues to exist in International Relations theory.

The Security of Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones: The Middle East as a Test Case for Unconditional Security Assurances

ABSTRACT A just nuclear order based on voluntary abstinence by states and the promotion of nuclear weapon-free zones would require more credible negative security assurances than provided by the current non-proliferation regime. The question here is: how to create the necessary conditions for such a change? The negative security assurances issued to the non-nuclear states in general and to the existing regional nuclear weapon-free zones in particular are reviewed. These are analysed in relation to their conditionality and ambiguity in order to understand the security provided. On this basis, possible options to achieve unconditional, legally based security assurances collectively for all the zone states are presented. These assurances could potentially be a tool to increase the number of non-nuclear states and nuclear weapon-free zones, especially in cases where there are one or several nuclear weapon states. Currently, the most acute example is the one in the Middle East. The lack of progress in this case will haunt the NPT review conferences and deepen the crisis until some positive steps take place. In case unconditional, legal security assurances are agreed to, these could provide an interim first phase for the WMD-free zone in the Middle East and allow for some of the disagreements among the participants to at least be discussed. The model here would be the transformation of the hostile relations between Brazil and Argentina initiated by the Treaty of Tlatelolco.

Chemical and Biological Weapons in Regional Disarmament in the Middle East and North Africa

ABSTRACT In November 2019, a new series of annual one-week meetings began to eliminate non-conventional arms – essentially nuclear weapons, and to a lesser extent chemical and biological weapons (CBW) – from the arsenals in the Middle East. It followed the acceptance of Egypt’s proposal for a new conference by the First Committee of the UN General Assembly on 22 December 2018. The new Conference derives its mandate from the Resolution on the Middle East, adopted at the 1995 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Besides expanding the original idea of a Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (NWFZ) to one that would also cover CBW, it also requires the regional disarmament initiative to be verifiable. This enlarged scope for regional disarmament in the Middle East presents significant challenges for the negotiating parties. While the NWFZ primarily addressed security relationships with Israel, chemical weapons and their past and present use in the Middle East affect other regional fault lines. This article traces how CBW were inserted into the objective of a NWFZ for the Middle East. It then discusses the legal regimes governing CBW, their status in the region and implications for a regional zone exempt from non-conventional weaponry. The demand for effective verification poses multiple challenges because of the processes in the CBW disarmament treaties. The paper finally discusses steps the Conference could consider for building trust and confidence while negotiating the regional treaty framework.

Russia’s Escalation Management and a Baltic Nuclear-Weapon Free Zone

This article examines the idea of a Baltic Nuclear-Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ) in the context of the Russian Federation’s deterrence and escalation management theories, largely as enunciated by Russian military theorists. It first introduces the history of the Baltic NWFZ idea from the early 1960s to the present proposals, and then explores Russian escalation management. The author concludes by considering how Baltic NWFZ proposals may interact with—and be understood through—the Russian military’s perspective.

Prospects for the establishment of nuclear weapon-free zone in Central and Eastern Europe

The probability of a new great war in Europe, which was perceived as minimal in the 1990s 2010s, has seriously increased in 2022. Among numerous reasons for this were the nuclear risks associated with the highly ambiguous statements of the Ukrainian leadership, Poland’s desire to acquire American tactical nuclear weapons, and risks of the Russia U.S. nuclear war that increased with the further collapse of the arms control regime. Against this background, the revival of the long-forgotten idea of a nuclear weapon-free zone in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) could play a positive role in resolving this problem. The article raises terminological issues, discusses a potential territorial framework for such a zone, and provides a brief historical account of the issue. Four scenarios of regional developments in the field of nuclear non-proliferation are offered. Two scenarios provide for the creation of a nuclear free zone, one more involves the freezing the current situation, and the last one focuses on threats to non-proliferation regime in Central and Eastern Europe. In the end, conclusions are offered about the potential significance of such a zone for the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, especially in connection with conventional arms control measures in Europe.

Iranian Perspective for a Nuclear Free Zone in the Middle East: Challenges and Opportunities

Iran has remained a controversial topic for many decades among the international actors as well as some regional actors of the Middle East. The nuclear program of Iran has been the center of U.S. attention, and thus Iran underwent various sanctions. It was not until 2015 that the doors to U.S. cooperation opened for Iran, only to be closed two years later in 2017 by U.S. President Donald Trump.This bolted all prospects of Iranian intentions for negotiating a similar deal for Israel to have a nuclear-weapon-free Middle East. Despite being subjected to various allegations and sanctions, Iran continues in its efforts to make the Middle East a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone. This initiative will open doors for various opportunities for the regional as well as the periphery states.

“Misremembering the ACRS: economic imaginations and nuclear negotiations in the Middle East”

ABSTRACT This article examines the political economy of Arab-Israeli peacemaking in the first half of the 1990s, specifically the multilateral working group on Arms Control and Regional Security (ACRS). It focuses on the misplaced memorialization of the ACRS process as a lost opportunity for the establishment of a nuclear weapons free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East, which has resulted in a continuous “return” to ACRS in policy discussions. The article contends that rather than producing mechanisms for disarmament, the ACRS process was part of a larger economic restructuring and served as a platform for militarized economic relations. Seeking to destabilize dominant repertoires on peacemaking in the Middle East, the article demonstrates the overlap between processes of nuclear entrenchment and economic imaginaries. It offers a deeper understanding of how the nuclear realm interacts with motifs of peace and prosperity.

Treaty of Tlatelolco: an example to follow

The article analyzes the political impact of Treaty of Tlatelolco (Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean) over the last fifty years. The achievements as well as the problems of realization of the first nuclear-weapon free zone in the densely populated region of the Earth come under scrutiny. The author concludes that Treaty of Tlatelolco greatly contributed to the idea of NWFZ, which include over 100 states in different regions.

A Relationship to Watch: The ASEAN-North Korean Ties Since the Signing of ASEAN’s Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (SEANWFZ) Treaty in 1995

A Relationship to Watch: The ASEAN-North Korean Ties Since the Signing of ASEAN’s Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (SEANWFZ) Treaty in 1995

Zero Calculated Ambiguity: Unconditional Security Assurances for NWFZ-States Limit the Space for Deterrence

Calculated Ambiguity is a policy applied by the nuclear weapon states on negative security assurances given to the non-nuclear states. The goal of these assurances is to guarantee that states that have abstained from nuclear weapons will not be attacked by these weapons. The article demonstrates how these assurances have been watered down since the negotiations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the NPT, in the 60s. In “Renegotiating the Nuclear Order: A Sociological Approach” I have applied the “sociology of technology” in order to understand the non-nuclear states´ potential policies to counter this trend. As a result the study focuses on states that belong to the nuclear weapon-free zones (NWFZ-states). These states have a treaty-based commitment to a nuclear weapon-free status and the nuclear weapon states are, in a protocol to the treaties, required to confirm this status and to refrain from nuclear attacks. As ambiguity is built into these assurances the article explores a process by which the NWFZ-states, by walking out of a NPT Review Conference, could achieve unconditional guarantees. The case of the “Mexican amendments” from the early NPT-negotiations is selected as a parallel example to empower the NWFZ-states for collective action. Nevertheless, this implies that the NWFZ-states be organized, not only regionally, but also globally. The article concludes with a comment on how these unconditional assurances could form a critical step towards a nuclear weapon-free world.