Obstacles to understanding the emergence and significance of the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons

ABSTRACT

This article examines the emergence of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons from a critical perspective, including how and to what degree efforts to alter states’ framing of nuclear weapons was a factor in the treaty's emergence and negotiation. It examines the so-called humanitarian initiative on the consequences of nuclear weapons, the activities of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the roles played by transnational institutions like the United Nations and the Red Cross Movement. In view of this case, lessons and limits on transnational advocacy network models of norm emergence are highlighted. In order to contribute to the process of better understanding the emergence and significance of the prohibition treaty process based on research, some areas are identified in which evidence gathering and theorizing are needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Security
• international relations
• nuclear weapons
• transnational advocacy networks
• governance
• nuclear politics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

John Borrie is Chief of Research at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).

Michael Spies is a Political Affairs Officer at the Strategic Planning Unit of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs.

Wilfred Wan is a UNIDIR researcher.

Notes

1 Tarja Cronberg, ‘After 72 Years, Nuclear Weapons Have Been Prohibited’, SIPRI Commentary, July 12, 2017, https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2017/after-72-years-nuclear-weapons-have-been-prohibited (accessed October 20, 2017); Sergio Duarte, ‘A Landmark Achievement for Nuclear Disarmament’, IDN-InDepthNews, July 10, 2017, https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/armaments/nuclear-weapons/1239-a-landmark-achievement-for-nuclear-disarmament (accessed October 20, 2017).

2 For instance, see Christopher Ford and George Perkovich, ‘Briefing on Nuclear Ban Treaty by NSC Senior Director Christopher Ford’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, August 22, 2017, http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/08/22/briefing-on-nuclear-ban-treaty-by-nsc-senior-director-christopher-ford-event-5675 (accessed October 22, 2017); Matthew Costlow, ‘The Nuclear Ban Treaty Is Way Off Target’, War on the Rocks, July 28, 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/07/the-nuclear-ban-is-way-off-target (accessed October 22, 2017).

3 Philip Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? (Princeton University Press, 2005).

4 Norwegian Nobel Committee, ‘The Nobel Peace Prize for 2017’, Nobelprize.Org, October 6, 2017, https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2017/press.html (accessed October 10, 2017).

5 For instance, see Rebecca Davis Gibbons, ‘The Nuclear Ban Treaty: How Did We Get Here, What Does It Mean for the United States?’ War on the Rocks, July 14, 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/07/the-nuclear-ban-treaty-how-did-we-get-here-what-does-it-mean-for-the-united-states/ (accessed November 12, 2017); William C. Potter, ‘Disarmament Diplomacy and the Nuclear Ban Treaty’, Survival 59, no. 4 (September 2017): 75–108.

6 See Beatrice Fihn, Matthew Bolton, and Elizabeth Minor, ‘How We Persuaded 122 Countries to Ban Nuclear Weapons’, Just Security, October 24, 2017, https://www.justsecurity.org/46249/persuaded-122-countries-ban-nuclear-weapons/ (accessed November 8, 2017).

7 See Yasmin Afina et al., The New Treaty: Taking Stock (UNIDIR, 2017), http://www.unidir.org/files/publications/pdfs/-en-687.pdf.

8 As students of his Annals know, Tacitus was no slouch at subtly spinning narratives for particular political purposes, which makes his advice doubly sound.

9 Important works in this genre include Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Cornell University Press, 1998); Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, ‘Transnational Advocacy Networks in International and Regional Politics’, International Social Science Journal 51, no. 159 (March 1999): 89–101; Richard Price, ‘Transnational Civil Society and Advocacy in World Politics’, World Politics 55, no. 4 (July 2003): 579–606.

10 For instance, see Potter, ‘The Nuclear Ban Treaty’, Survival 59, no. 4 (2017): 75–108; Nick Ritchie, The Story So Far: The Humanitarian Initiative on the Impacts of Nuclear Weapons (ILPI and UNIDIR, 2014) and The Humanitarian Initiative in 2015 (ILPI and UNIDIR, 2015); Alexander Kmentt, ‘The Development of the International Initiative on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons and Its Effect on the Nuclear Weapons Debate’, International Review of the Red Cross 97, no. 899 (2015): 681–709, as well as Nick Ritchie and Kjølv Egeland's contribution to this issue.

11 Potter, ‘The Nuclear Ban Treaty’, 75.

12 Tim Caughley, ‘Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons: Tracing Notions about Catastrophic Humanitarian Consequences’, in Viewing Nuclear Weapons Through a Humanitarian Lens, ed. John Borrie and Tim Caughley (Geneva: UNIDIR, 2013), 14–28. See also Randy Rydell, Explaining Hammarskjöld's ‘Hardy Perennial’: The Role of the United Nations in Nuclear Disarmament (United Nations Association-United Kingdom, 2013).

13 NPT Article VI obliges all parties to ‘pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament’. See Tim Caughley, Analysing Effective Measures (ILPI and UNIDIR, 2015).

14 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Final Document, United Nations document NPT/CONF.2010/50 (Vol. 1)*, May 28, 2010, Section I.A.v.

15 See Roger Speed and Michael May, ‘Dangerous Doctrine’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 61, no. 2 (2005): 38–49.

16 Randy Rydell, ‘The Future of Nuclear Arms: A World United and Divided by Zero’, Arms Control Today, March 31, 2009, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_04/Rydell (accessed November 12, 2017).

17 See The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (the ‘Blix Commission'), Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms (Stockholm, 2006); Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi (co-chairs), Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers – Report of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (Canberra and Tokyo, 2009).

18 Reprinted in George P. Schultz et al., Toward a World Without Nuclear Weapons (Nuclear Security Project), https://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/NSP_op-eds_final_.pdf?_=1360883065 (accessed October 22, 2017).

19 Tim Wright, ‘Negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention: Distant Dream or Present Possibility?’ Melbourne Journal of International Law 10, no. 1 (2009): 8.

20 The Medical Association for the Prevention of War (Australia), http://www.mapw.org.au/about-mapw (accessed November 20, 2017).

21 Tim Wright, ‘Hiroshima's Mayor Launches Anti-nuclear Campaign: ICAN’, Reaching Critical Will News in Review, May 1, 2007.

22 Costa Rica and Malaysia submitted the model NWC as an official document of the NPT and UNGA, respectively: United Nations Doc A/62/650, 18 January 2008, and NPT/CONF.2010/PC.I/WP.17, 1 May 2007. A year later, on 24 October 2008, the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon announced a five-point proposal on nuclear disarmament supporting a NWC: https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/sg5point (accessed October 20, 2017).

23 See John Borrie et al., A Prohibition on Nuclear Weapons: A Guide to the Issues (UNIDIR and ILPI, February 2016), 18–24.

24 A more heterogeneous picture would be consistent with other campaigns studied in detail such as the Cluster Munition Coalition in the years leading up to the Oslo process. See John Borrie, Unacceptable Harm: A History of How the Treaty to Ban Cluster Munitions Was Won (UNIDIR, 2009).

25 Kmentt, ‘Development of the International Initiative’, 684.

26 See Louis Maresca, ‘The Catastrophic Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons: The Key Issues and Perspective of the International Committee of the Red Cross’, in Viewing Nuclear Weapons Through a Humanitarian Lens, ed. John Borrie and Tim Caughley (Geneva: UNIDIR, 2013), 131–44, 141. ‘In the light of this', the ICRC concluded, ‘it is difficult to envisage how a use of nuclear weapons could be compatible with the rules of international humanitarian law.'

27 For instance, see Dominique Loye and Robin M. Coupland, ‘Who Will Assist the Victims of Use of Nuclear, Radiological, Biological or Chemical Weapons – And How?’ International Review of the Red Cross 89, no. 866 (2007): 329–44.

28 ‘Bringing the era of nuclear weapons to an end: Statement by Jakob Kellenberger, President of the ICRC, to the Geneva Diplomatic Corps, Geneva, 20 April 2010’, https://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/statement/nuclear-weapons-statement-200410.htm (accessed November 8, 2017).

29 Richard Slade, Robert Tickner, and Phoebe Wynn-Pope, ‘Protecting Humanity from the Catastrophic Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons: Reframing the Debate Towards the Humanitarian Impact’, International Review of the Red Cross 97, no. 899 (2015): 731–52.

30 Maresca, ‘Catastrophic Humanitarian Consequences’, 131–44.

31 The White House Office of the Press Secretary, ‘Remarks By President Barack Obama In Prague As Delivered’, April 5, 2009, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered (accessed November 20, 2017).

32 For instance, see Press Statement: Global Zero Statement on President Obama's Meeting with President Putin (June 17, 2013), https://www.globalzero.org/press-media/press-releases/global-zero-statement-president-obama%E2%80%99s-meeting-president-putin (accessed November 20, 2017).

33 See, for instance, Ray Acheson, ‘Time to Reframe the Debate’, First Committee Monitor, Reaching Critical Will, October 5, 2009, 3. http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/1com/FCM09/FCM-2009-1.pdf. See also David Atwood et al., ‘Learn, Adapt, Succeed: Potential Lessons from the Ottawa and Oslo Processes for Other Disarmament and Arms Control Challenges’, Disarmament Forum (Issues 1 and 2) (2009): 19–25.

34 For instance, see Patricia Lewis, ‘A New Approach to Nuclear Disarmament: Learning from International Humanitarian Law Success’, International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament Papers (2009), http://www.icnnd.org/Documents/Lewis_Convention.doc.

35 For example, Switzerland funded Ken Berry et al., Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons: Examining the Validity of Nuclear Deterrence (James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, 2010). Switzerland and Norway also funded an Acronym Institute workshop in Glion, Switzerland in June 2011 with academics and policy practitioners on ‘humanitarian-based approaches for nuclear weapons abolition' at which many concepts were put forward.

36 Borrie participated in several of these events. For example, the International Law and Policy Institute (a Norwegian think-tank) hosted a meeting of experts in September 2011 in the English village of Amersham. Several individuals at this meeting were influential in instigating the subsequent humanitarian conferences.

37 This was a view eventually articulated publicly by two activists from the British NGO Article 36: Richard Moyes and Thomas Nash, ‘Restarting Disarmament’, OpenDemocracy (May 4, 2012), http://opendemocracy.net/richard-moyes-thomas-nash/restarting-disarmament (accessed November 12, 2017).

38 For instance, see ICAN Campaigners Kit (ICAN, 2014), http://www.icanw.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Campaigners-Kit-Pernilla_final2.pdf.

39 Rebecca Johnson, Tilman Ruff, and Dimitry Hawkins, Proposal and International Two-Year Strategy to Promote Negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), August 2, 2010.

40 ILPI, A Ban on the Use of Nuclear Weapons? (ILPI, 2011), https://ilpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/PP01-12-BanOnUse.pdf.

41 Caughley, ‘Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons’, 28.

42 Espen Barth Eide (Norwegian Foreign Minister), Opening Statement at Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons Conference, March 4, 2013, https://www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/opening_humimpact/id715948 (accessed November 25, 2017) (emphasis in the original).

43 Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, About the Conference – Media Brief, https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/foreign-affairs/humanitarian-efforts/cluster_munitions/media_brief/id714276 (accessed April 17, 2013).

44 For the text of the joint-demarche on the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs by China, France, the Russian Federation, UK and US explaining their decision, see John Borrie and Tim Caughley, ‘After Oslo: Humanitarian Perspectives and the Changing Nuclear Weapons Discourse’ in ed. John Borrie and Tim Caughley (Geneva: UNIDIR, 2013), 98–9.

45 Kmentt, ‘Development of the International Initiative’, 690.

46 Espen Barth Eide, Chair's Summary: Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, March 5, 2013, https://www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/nuclear_summary/id716343 (accessed November 25, 2017).

47 See Ritchie, Humanitarian Initiative in 2015, 3 for a table summarizing these between 2012 and 2014.

48 Quoted in Kmentt, ‘Development of the International Initiative’, 701.

49 Resolution 1, Working Towards the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Council of Delegates of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, November 26, 2011.

50 Taking forward multilateral disarmament negotiations, United Nations document A/RES/67/56 (January 4, 2013), http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/1com/1com12/resolutions/56.pdf.

51 For instance, see the views of the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, ‘The Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons’, February 14, 2014, http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/articles/2014/jb_ar_140214.html (accessed October 22, 2017).

52 Tim Caughley, Taking Forward Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations: The 2016 Open-Ended Working Group (UNIDIR resources), October 2016, http://www.unidir.org/files/publications/pdfs/the-2016-open-ended-working-group-en-660.pdf.

53 It would eventually fail to reach agreement – ostensibly over issues concerning the Middle East – due to these states, along with Canada, rejecting the draft outcome document.

54 Taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations (United Nations document A/C.1/71/L.41) (14 October 2016).

55 Communication with Richard Lennane, former Wildfire ‘Chief Inflammatory Officer’, 20 November 2017.

56 For instance, see Wildfire, ‘A Grand Unified Treaty’, April 4, 2016, http://www.wildfire-v.org (accessed November 22, 2017).

57 This research is too numerous to list here. Examples include Beatrice Fihn, ed., Unspeakable Suffering: The Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons (Reaching Critical Will, 2013), Patricia Lewis et al., Too Close for Comfort: Cases of Near Nuclear Use and Options for Policy (Chatham House, 2014); John Borrie and Tim Caughley, An Illusion of Safety: Challenges of Nuclear Weapon Detonations for United Nations Humanitarian Coordination and Response (UNIDIR, 2014), and climate research summarized in Alan Robock and Brian Toon, ‘Self-assured Destruction: The Climate Impacts of Nuclear War’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 68, no. 5 (2012): 66–74.

58 Examples include Ray Acheson, Thomas Nash, and Richard Moyes, A Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons: Developing a Legal Framework for the Prohibition and Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (Reaching Critical Will/Article 36, May 2014); Stein-Ivar Lothe Eide, ‘A Ban on Nuclear Weapons? What's in It for NATO?’, Nuclear Weapons Project Policy Paper No. 5 (ILPI, January 2014), Nick Ritchie, ‘Waiting for Kant: Devaluing and Delegitimising Nuclear Weapons’, International Affairs 90, no. 3 (2014), and Borrie et al., Prohibition on Nuclear Weapons.

59 See Synthesis paper: Submitted by the Chair, A/AC.286/2 (20 April 2016).

60 Although practice in different multilateral bodies vary, typically ‘open informal’ are meetings of the whole where all categories of observers, including NGOs, are permitted to attend.

61 Report of the Open-ended Working Group on taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations, A/71/371, paragraph 67 (1 September 2016).

62 A/71/371, paragraph 34.

63 For instance, the possible elements described in paragraph 34 of the report are accompanied by a caveat that ‘the elements and provisions to be included in such an instrument would be subject to its negotiation’ and annex II of report, which contained suggested elements, came with a disclaimer that no agreement was reached on the annex.

64 The organizational session was unable to resolve this matter, and the conference was ultimately only able to take a decision on allowing the Holy See and Palestine to participate with full rights at the second meeting of the March session.

65 The conference ultimately adopted a decision on NGO participation based on the President's proposal, but which also included a compromise worked out by Iran and Ireland which added a so-called non-objective rule – a right for participating States to block participation by a non-ECOSOC accredited NGOs.

66 For example, prohibition on financing nuclear weapon activities, transit of nuclear weapons through national territory.

67 These included: Preamble; general obligations, declarations, safeguards and measures relating the verified elimination of nuclear weapon programmes, positive obligations (ie victim assistance and environmental remediation), implementation and final provisions.

68 On declarations, safeguards and measures relating the verified elimination of nuclear weapon programmes.

69 These two pathways were described respectively as ‘destroy-then-join' and ‘join-then-destroy'. The ‘destroy-then-join' concept built upon the experience of South Africa and would require a State possessing nuclear weapons to completely eliminate their nuclear weapon programme before joining and subsequently cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency for the purpose of verifying the completeness of its inventory of nuclear materials and installations. The ‘join-then-destroy' concept would enable a State to join or otherwise participate in the treaty while in possession of nuclear weapons, and then to subsequently negotiate provisions for the verified elimination of its arsenal with the states parties. See Borrie et al., Prohibition on Nuclear Weapons, 38–41.

70 A/CONF.229/2017/CRP.1 (27 June 2017).

71 A/CONF.229/2017/L.3.

72 In operative paragraph 10 of A/RES/71/258, the Assembly ‘Decides that the conference shall convene in New York, under the rules of procedure of the General Assembly unless otherwise agreed by the conference, … with the participation and contribution of international organizations and civil society representatives'.

73 For instance, ICAN only submitted two working papers to the negotiating conference, whereas its members and partners independently submitted about a dozen and a half.

74 Matthew Bolton, ‘The Nuclear Weapons Ban and Human Security for All Assessing the Draft Convention on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons from a Human Security Perspective’, Perspective (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, June 2017), 1.

75 Bonnie Jenkins, ‘How a U.N. Treaty on Nuclear Weapons Makes International Security Policy More Inclusive’, Brookings, July 12, 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/07/12/how-a-u-n-treaty-on-nuclear-weapons-makes-international-security-policy-more-inclusive (accessed October 10, 2017).

76 Anne I. Harrington, Eliza Gheorghe, and Anya Loukianova Fink, ‘What Arguments Motivate Citizens to Demand Nuclear Disarmament?’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (2017); Potter, ‘The Nuclear Ban Treaty’.

77 Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics and Political Change’, International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 895.

78 Carmen Wunderlich, ‘Theoretical Approaches in Norm Dynamics’, in Norm Dynamics in Multilateral Arms Control: Interests, Conflicts and Justice, ed. Harald Müller and Carmen Wunderlich (University of Georgia Press, 2013), 38.

79 Marc Finaud, ‘“Humanitarian Disarmament”: Powerful New Paradigm or Naive Utopia?’, GCSP Geneva Paper (Geneva Centre for Security Policy, February 2017), 34, http://www.gcsp.ch/News-Knowledge/Publications/Humanitarian-Disarmament-Powerful-New-Paradigm-or-Naive-Utopia.

80 Bonnie Docherty, ‘A “Light for All Humanity”: The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the Progress of Humanitarian Disarmament', in Global Change, Peace & Security, ed. Michael Hamel-Green and Joseph Camillieri, in this volume.

81 Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, 9.

82 As documented in Borrie, Unacceptable Harm.

83 R. Charli Carpenter, ‘Vetting the Advocacy Agenda: Network Centrality and the Paradox of Weapons Norms’, International Organization 65, no. 1 (January 2011): 69–102.

84 Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders.

85 Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Cornell University Press, 1996), 12.

86 Charli Carpenter, ‘Lost’ Causes: Agenda Vetting in Global Issue Networks and the Shaping of Human Security (Cornell University Press, 2014).

87 Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, 212.

88 Carpenter, ‘Lost’ Causes, 151.

89 Finnemore, National Interests in International Society, 3.

90 Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, 29.

91 Joshua W. Busby, Moral Movements and Foreign Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 38.

92 Haralambos Athanasopulos, Nuclear Disarmament in International Law (McFarland, 2000), 27.

93 Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, 26.

94 See Emmanuel Adler and Peter M. Haas, ‘Epistemic Communities, World Order, and the Creation of a Reflective Research Program’, International Organization 46 (1992): 367–90.

95 Lisa Jordan and Peter van Tuijl, ‘Political Responsibility in Transnational NGO Advocacy’, World Development 28, no. 12 (2000): 2051–65.

96 Shamima Ahmed and David M. Potter, NGOs in International Politics (Kumarian Press, 2006), 48.

97 Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics and Political Change’. There has been further exploration of each stage, with some scholars noting processes of vetting and acceptance and agenda-setting that feed into norm emergence, and others highlighting the further development that happens after internalization. See, for instance, Carpenter, ‘Lost’ Causes; Wayne Sandholtz, Prohibiting Plunder: How Norms Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

98 Wunderlich, ‘Theoretical Approaches in Norm Dynamics’, 35.

99 Joint Press Statement from the Permanent Representatives to the United Nations of the United States, United Kingdom, and France Following the Adoption of a Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons, July 7, 2017, https://usun.state.gov/remarks/7892 (accessed November 8, 2017).

100 UN General Assembly, ‘United Action with Determination Towards the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons’, Document A/C.1/72/L.35, October 12, 2017. 144 States voted for; 4 against; 27 abstained.

101 John Borrie, ‘Humanitarian Reframing of Nuclear Weapons and the Logic of a Ban’, International Affairs 90, no. 3 (2014): 615–46.

102 For a case study, see Itty Abraham, ‘India's “Strategic Enclave”: Civilian Scientists and Military Technologies’, Armed Forces and Society 18, no. 2 (Winter 1992): 231–52.

103 See Stein-Ivar Lothe, A Ban on Nuclear Weapons: What’s in It for NATO? (International Law and Policy Institute, February 2014).