Ahead of the 2024 NPT Preparatory Committee (PrepCom), Michael Biontino writes that there is an urgent need for dialogue on nuclear doctrines, declaratory policies, and security assurances between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states.
Nuclear-weapon-free zones can help strengthen global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament norms and are a key element underpinning the NPT. Despite this, new zones in Europe, the Middle East, and North-East Asia have not materialised so far. Tarja Cronberg writes that legally based negative security guarantees and other innovative approaches are needed.
The International Partnership for Nuclear Disarmament Verification (IPNDV) is celebrating its tenth anniversary in Geneva this week. This milestone comes with some notable outcomes and achievements. Looking back on past IPNDV activities and looking ahead to its future ones, Dr Irmgard Niemeyer outlines 10 lessons learned over the years.
Most analyses of the effects of nuclear war focus on the impacts in terms of casualties and climate shocks. But there would be many second-order and third-order effects on political, social, and economic systems. Sir Adam Thomson and Paul Ingram write that it is imperative to avoid a nuclear war. If all such efforts fail, we need to understand what it would mean for global civilisation and what we could start to do to prepare.
On the second anniversary of Putin’s war in Ukraine, Olamide Samuel writes that the invasion has upset the fragile balance of obligations in the NPT’s bargain by dramatically increasing the perceived salience of nuclear weapons and reigniting motivations for proliferation. In response, nuclear weapon states choosing to reinforce their extended deterrence commitments inadvertently devalues the wider framework of security assurances granted to non-nuclear weapon states and the perceived value of the NPT’s grand bargain.
YGLN members Maren Vieluf and Ananya Agustin Malhotra argue that NPT states need to start talking about whether or not “defensive” and “offensive” nuclear threats can be distinguished. If NPT states can find agreement on this matter, it could bridge the gap between states condemning any and all nuclear threats under any circumstances and those states that stand firmly behind “defensive” nuclear threats and allow for further progress to be made in the 11th NPT Review Cycle.