Power to the have-nots? The NPT and the limits of a treaty hijacked by a “power-over” model

ABSTRACT

The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), its evolution over the past five decades, and the dissatisfaction of the non-nuclear states within it, can be analyzed by focusing on different understandings of power. Within the various concepts of power are claims which distinguish between what is known broadly as “power-over” and a more subtle form of influence, “power-to.” This article explores the history of the NPT, showing how the nuclear weapon states have shaped and limited this institution by practices which fall within the relational emphasis of “power-over.” Recently, however, non-nuclear states have adopted a “power-to” approach. Frustrated by their inability to bring about substantive change within the limits of the NPT, these states have realized and applied their agency and collective “power-to” in order to create an alternative approach to the problem of nuclear weapons in the context of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

KEYWORDS:

• Non-proliferation treaty
• power
• nuclear weapon states
• non-nuclear weapon states
• treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my thanks to Maria Rost Rublee and Carmen Ẅunderlich for convening this special issue. I am also very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers, and to CSP’s editor, Hylke Dijkstra, who provided valuable feedback in the completion of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This is not to say that these states will withdraw from the NPT. Many of them believe that the TPNW is compatible with the NPT and indeed aligns with the NPT’s Article VI.

2 I use the term non-nuclear states in this paper to refer specifically to those members of the NPT which have engaged heavily in the Humanitarian Initiative process and the negotiation of the TPNW. Not all states without nuclear weapons have done this: Several U.S. allies have not moved away from the prevailing power-over model of the NPT. They might have called for disarmament (see Hanson, 2010), but remain loyal to the United States (for the moment) and have not signed the TPNW. When this article refers to non-nuclear states therefore, it indicates those states which have exercised their “power-to” abilities, and which have clearly affirmed the TPNW.

3 On the origins of the NPT, see Shaker (1980), Chossudovsky (1990), Bourantonis (1997), Davenport (2019), and Popp et al. (2017).

4 This has prompted Maddock (2010, p. 251) to describe the NPT as a “treaty to castrate the impotent.”

5 Even though China and France did not join the NPT until 1992, their status as recognised nuclear weapon states in the 1968 treaty ensures their place in the overall hierarchy of the nuclear order.

6 Examples of this belief are the statement made by British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that “those who are the major nuclear powers can remain nuclear powers” (UK House of Commons, Official Report, 2006).

7 See for example the Joint Press Statement made by these states (United States, 2016).

8 When the UN and its Security Council were founded in 1945, the United States was the sole nuclear weapon state. The Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and France, all permanent members in 1945, did not develop their nuclear capabilities until 1949, 1952, and 1960, respectively. China became a nuclear weapons state in 1964, but only replaced Taiwan on the UNSC in 1971.

9 The United States, United Kingdom, and the USSR may never have intended to uphold the NPT’s Article VI: When the wording for this was agreed, a U.S. diplomat was recorded as saying that while it “required” states to pursue in good faith negotiations toward nuclear disarmament, the wording did not require them actually to “achieve” nuclear disarmament (as cited in Shaker, 1980, p. 567; see also Ford, 2007). Regardless of whether this was a genuine commitment, the point remains that non-nuclear states accepted the bargain in good faith.

10 India, Pakistan, and Israel are not members of the NPT, but tolerance of these states’ arsenals undermines the norms of the NPT.

11 By way of example, even though the First Committee approved a resolution in support of the TPNW in October 2019, the NPT nuclear weapon states issued their own joint statement restating their ongoing opposition to the TPNW.

12 Again, this does not necessarily mean rejecting the NPT en tout. But it does suggest a rejection of the rigidities and inequalities inherent in the NPT.

13 We should remember that the NPT and the TPNW are not necessarily divergent, but can be seen as complementary. Supporters of the TPNW have not denounced the NPT or indicated they will leave it. None so far has refused to attend the Review Conference in 2022. But it is impossible at this stage to predict how the two treaties will interact or what the dynamics will be for states which might in the future reject the NPT altogether.

14 These authors themselves build on the seminal work of Steven Lukes and Gregory Bateson.

15 It is important not to over-simplify the categories within this case. Those who did the “shifting” were not only states from the NAM and the global South, typically those over whom power has often been applied in numerous forums, but also a range of Western states, even informal allies of the US, such as Austria, Ireland, and New Zealand. We should not conclude therefore that the shift was simply a “revolt against the West” which Hedley Bull (1984) had warned of, although the application of a colonial lens to the nuclear order has certainly been useful (see for example Biswas, 2014; and Mathur, 2018).

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Notes on contributors

Marianne Hanson

Marianne Hanson is an associate professor of international relations in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland, Australia. She was also the founding Director of the University of Queensland’s Rotary Center for International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution.