Hira Bahadur Thapa

Ever since the nuclear weapons were produced, the first test of which was made in August 1945, there has been a clarion call to abolish them internationally. Despite the justification of their use during World War II by the United States, the United Nations has been in the forefront to urge their abolition. The agenda of nuclear disarmament was included in the first meeting of the UN Disarmament Commission (UNDC) in 1946.
UNDC is the most comprehensive deliberative body of the world organisation with the total membership of the UN. This body meets at UN Headquarters in New York on a regular basis. Its resolutions are not binding on the members like the UN General Assembly. Nevertheless, UNDC creates moral pressure on the member countries to work towards nuclear disarmament.
There are examples of arms control treaties that have been signed by member nations at the behest of the UN. The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) of 1963 is one of them. PTBT has suffered from the lacuna of not covering nuclear tests in all environments. However, it has got value in discouraging nations to undertake various tests to enhance their nuclear capabilities.
Realising the shortcomings of PTBT by failing to prohibit all nuclear tests comprehensively, the UN played a crucial role in providing deliberative forum to members to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty that could cover all tests, whether underground, over ground or under sea. With consistent persuasion and years of multilateral negotiations, the UN members finally agreed in 1996 to sign a treaty, which is known as Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996.
This treaty has been considered to be very important in terms of its comprehensive provisions. It was produced in the decade that followed a golden period of nuclear disarmament when some of the key nuclear arms control treaties were negotiated and singed by the US and the then Soviet Union.
Nevertheless, the CTBT has not been effective owing to some of its stringent requirements of ratification by UN members. Annex attached to that treaty provides that all 44 nations operating nuclear plants should ratify for CTBT to come into effect. It has been emphasised that non-ratification of the nuclear test pact by the countries with nuclear expertise and technology may jeopardize the efficacy of the treaty. It is because they are more likely to conduct periodic nuclear tests for modernising their weapons.
The countries with the above capabilities declining to ratify the CTBT include Egypt, Iran, Israel, Russia and the US. Their reluctance to go along with treaty's ratification process has been a setback to global efforts to take concrete measures to curb nuclear non-proliferation. Optimistically, the number of countries ratifying the aforementioned treaty has been on the rise since its signature.
Disappointingly, the events of last few years have symbolised an erosion of trust among nations with regards to their commitments to nuclear disarmament. One of these is the decision of the US to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The INF is the cornerstone of stemming the use and proliferation of a particular class of nuclear weapons stationed in the heart of Europe. Any nuclear weapon within the intermediate range would be prohibited by the above treaty. Based on this provision INF did a great service to humankind by completely restricting the use of these nuclear weapons, whose deployment in Europe both by the Americans and the Russians, had a very destabilizing effect on the security situation in the heyday of the Cold War.
But an allegation of cheating of the INF levelled against Russia, one of the two states parties to the treaty, by the US, the other party, in 2018 has cast a gloom over the nuclear arms pact, by signing and agreeing to which the world's two most powerful nuclear nations had presented a finer example of bilateral collaboration in the field of nuclear non-proliferation.
The treaty is to expire in 2021 but refusal of one of the two parties to honour its commitments has led to its premature expiry. This episode has given a wrong signal to the advocates of nuclear disarmament.
Similarly, the US pull out from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as Iran Nuclear Agreement, has further diminished the future prospects of nuclear disarmament. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, which are the world's major powers, had produced the above-mentioned treaty after years of negotiations, which significantly curtailed the Iranian nuclear ambitions.
Some critics have questioned the significance of JCOPA contending that it does not curb the nuclear ambitions of Iran completely because the country's ballistic missile component remains outside the purview of the agreement. Moreover, the Trump administration has argued that sunshine clauses that restrict the nuclear capabilities only for a certain period of time leave a loophole for Iran to resume its uranium enrichment activities.
With a view to coercing Iranian leadership the US has exited from the JCOPA. Accordingly, it has reimposed sanctions against Iran assuming that the country would be prepared to renegotiate the pact and accept further limitations on its nuclear program.
Quite contrary to US expectations Iran has shown defiance and has resumed the nuclear activities by deciding to enrich uranium, which it should not in conformity with the JCOPA. The Iran Nuclear Agreement, compliant with which by Iran was confirmed by International Atomic Energy Agency until the US withdrew from the same, has unraveled as evidenced by the recent proliferation behaviour. No less worrying is the scenario of the Korean peninsula, where North Korea has been engaged in new missile tests despite summits with the US for denuclearisation.

(Thapa was Foreign Relations Advisor to the Prime Minister from 2008 to 2009. He writes on contemporary national and international issues. He can be reached at thapahira17@gmail.com)