Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone developments in Asia: Problems and prospects

Abstract

Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZs) are binding agreements to prevent the acquisition and stationing of nuclear weapons within a particular region, and to secure guarantees from nuclear states not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the zone. In the context of developing dialogues on nuclear proliferation and security issues in the Asian region, the existing Southeast Asian NWFZ (Bangkok Treaty), the current negotiations towards a Central Asian NWFZ, and proposals for NWFZs in South Asia and Northeast Asia, are examined and assessed from the viewpoint of their contributions to regional arms control and security, scope, and prospects for implementation. It is concluded that such zones provide an important avenue, in conjunction with the Nonproliferation Treaty, for regional groups of states in Asia to reduce nuclear proliferation threats within their own regions, to gain security assurances from the nuclear powers, and to facilitate wider confidence-building and cooperative security approaches to nuclear and weapons-of-mass destruction threats across the Asian region. Proposed ways forward include enhanced cooperation between existing NWFZ states, further international conferences in UN studies on NWFZ initiatives, and civil society pressures to establish NWFZs.

¹This is a refereed version of an address delivered to the Symposium ‘Security and Co-operation in Asia Pacific: Chinese and Australian Perspectives’, held at La Trobe University, Melbourne and jointly sponsored by East China Normal University, Shanghai, 5–6 July 2004.

Notes

¹This is a refereed version of an address delivered to the Symposium ‘Security and Co-operation in Asia Pacific: Chinese and Australian Perspectives’, held at La Trobe University, Melbourne and jointly sponsored by East China Normal University, Shanghai, 5–6 July 2004.

²United Nations Disarmament Commission, ‘Establishment of Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones on the Basis of Arrangements Freely Arrived at among the States of the Region Concerned’, Annex 1, Report of the Disarmament Commission, 54th General Assembly, UN A/54/42, 6 May 1999, paragraph 33.

³United Nations Disarmament Commission, ‘Establishment of Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones on the Basis of Arrangements Freely Arrived at among the States of the Region Concerned’, Section B.

⁴See Niklas Swanstrom, Regional Cooperation and Conflict Management: Lessons from the Pacific Rim, (Uppsala, Sweden: Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, 2002), for a recent survey and analysis of the Asia Pacific forums and dialogues on security and arms control issues.

⁵J. Goldblat, Arms Control: The New Guide to Negotiations and Agreements, (London: Sage/PRIO/SIPRI, 2002), pp. 206–208.

⁶Goldblat, Arms Control, p. 206.

⁷Marty Natalegawa, ‘De-nuking Southeast Asia’, Pacific Research, 6, 1, (1993), p. 9; also cited in Bilveer Singh, ASEAN, The Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, and the Challenge of Denuclearisation in Southeast Asia, (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU, 2000), p. 37.

⁸Singh, ASEAN, p. 51.

⁹Singh, ASEAN, p. 52.

¹⁰Singh, ASEAN, pp. 13–21, 56.

¹¹Singh, ASEAN, pp. 44–47.

¹²Singh, ASEAN, pp. 46–47.

¹³Murat Laumulin, ‘Nonproliferation and Kazakstani Security Policy’, Nonproliferation Review, 5, 3, (1998), pp. 127–130; Scott Parish, ‘Prospects for a Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone’, Nonproliferation Review, 8, 1, (2001), p. 142.

¹⁴Goldblat, Arms Control, p. 212.

¹⁵UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific, ‘Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (CANWFZ)’, UN website, <http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/asia>, (accessed 27 July 2005).

¹⁶UN Department for Disarmament Affairs, DDA 2002 Update, (January–February 2003), p. 2.

¹⁷Chinese support was conditional on the other NWS also agreeing to sign the protocols.

¹⁸United Nations General Assembly, Press Release GA/10310, (3 December 2004).

¹⁹Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, Letter to UN Secretary-General, UN A/59/733-S/2005/155, (New York: United Nations, 10 March 2005); Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Letter to UN Secretary-General, UN A/59/741-S/2005/172, (New York: United Nations, 11 March 2005).

²⁰Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Letter to UN Secretary-General, p. 3.

²¹Tsutomu Ishiguri, Director, UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific, ‘Agreement on a Central Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty Text’, Council for Nuclear Fuel Cycle website, <http://www.cnfc.or.jp/plutonium/pl42/e/letter.html>, (accessed on 25 July 2005).

²²Ishiguri, ‘Agreement on a Central Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty Text’.

²³Parish, ‘Prospects for a Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone’, pp. 145–147.

²⁴Jozef Goldblat, ‘Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone Treaties: Benefits and Deficiencies’, paper presented at UNIDIR/Arab League Symposium, ‘Building a WMD Free Zone in the Middle East’, Cairo, (24–25 February 2003), p. 15.

²⁵Parish, ‘Prospects for a Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone’, p. 148; Ishiguri, ‘Agreement on a Central Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty Text’.

²⁶Interview with Ike Reed, First Secretary, US Delegation to the Conference on Disarmament, and John King, Special Advisor to the US Delegation to the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva, (24 September 2003).

²⁷Goldblat, Arms Control, p. 213.

²⁸Burkhard Conrad, Regional (Non-)Proliferation: The Case of Central Asia, (NGO Committee on Disarmament, 2000), New York p. 2.

²⁹Conrad, Regional (Non-)Proliferation.

³⁰Conrad, Regional (Non-)Proliferation.

³¹ Daily Times (Lahore, Pakistan), (6 June 2004).

³²Henry Kissinger, ‘The US in Central Asia: Active Partner or Absentee Landlord?, Strategic Comment, 10, 3, (2004).

³³James Brooke, ‘North Korea Says It Has Nuclear Weapons and Rejects Talks’, New York Times, (10 February 2005), Section A, p. 3.

³⁴Joseph Cirincione, Deadly Arsenals: Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction, (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002), pp. 241–254; International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2002–2003, (London, Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 222.

³⁵Andrew Mack, ‘A Northeast Asia Nuclear-Free Zone’, in Andrew Mack (ed.), Nuclear Policies in Northeast Asia, (Geneva: UNIDIR, 1995), pp. 106–108.

³⁶Mack, ‘A Northeast Asia Nuclear-Free Zone’, pp. 99–106.

³⁷Goldblat, Arms Control, p. 205.

³⁸Joseph Camilleri, Regionalism in the New Asia–Pacific Order, (Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar, 2003), pp. 167–181; Desmond Ball and Amitav Acharya, The Next Stage: Preventive Diplomacy and Security Cooperation in the Asia–Pacific Region, (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 1999), pp. 125–131; Swanstrom, Regional Cooperation and Conflict Management, pp. 95–109.

³⁹Hiromichi Umebayashi, ‘A Civil Society Initiative for Northeast Asia Security’, INESAP Information Bulletin, 21, (April 2003), pp. 31–33.

⁴⁰John Endicott and Alan Gorowitz, ‘Track-II Cooperative Regional Security Efforts: Lessons from the Limited-Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone for Northeast Asia’, Pacifica Review, 11, 3, (1999), pp. 3293–3324.

⁴¹Nicole Butler, ‘North Korea: Six Party Nuclear Talks Delayed’, Disarmament Diplomacy, 75, (January–February 2004).

⁴²Hiromichi Umebayashi, ‘Beyond Unilateral Bilateralism towards a Cooperative Security System in Northeast Asia’, Peace Depot Japan, (Yokohama, 2003).

⁴³Umebayashi, ‘Beyond Unilateral Bilateralism’.

⁴⁴Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Yearbook 2002, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 557.

⁴⁵Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Yearbook 2002, p. 562.

⁴⁶Susan Willett, Costs of Disengagement—Mortgaging the Future: The South Asian Arms Dynamic, (Geneva: UNIDIR, 2003), pp. 16–28.

⁴⁷S. R. Naim, ‘After Midnight’, in S. P. Cohen (ed.), Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia, (Boulder: Westview, 1991), pp. 46–77.

⁴⁸Rebecca Johnson, ‘Iran, Libya, and Pakistan's Nuclear Supermarket’, Disarmament Diplomacy, 75, (January/February 2004).

⁴⁹UN Department of Disarmament Affairs, UN Disarmament Yearbook 1997, (New York: United Nations), pp. 265–266.

⁵⁰Samina Yasmeen, ‘South Asia after the Nuclear Tests’, Pacifica Review, 11, 3, (1999), p. 244.

⁵¹UN Department of Disarmament Affairs, UN Disarmament Yearbook 2000, (New York: United Nations), p. 142.

⁵²Yasmeen, ‘South Asia after the Nuclear Tests’, p. 246.

⁵³For instance, the Bangladesh Minister for Foreign Affairs, Reaz Rahman, recently affirmed that ‘Bangladesh strongly supported regional approaches to nuclear disarmament including the establishment of a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in South Asia’, at the UN Conference on Disarmament in March 2004, ‘Senior Officials from Canada, Ireland, Bangladesh and Sweden Address Conference on Disarmament’, UN Press Document, (16 March 2004), <http://www2.unog.ch/news2/documents/newsen/dc04013e.htm>, (accessed 27 July 2005).

⁵⁴Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, Transnational Institute, Japanese Peace Depot, Gensuikin, International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP), Uppsala Declaration on Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones, (Uppsala, Sweden: Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, 2000).

⁵⁵Achin Vanaik, ‘Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream’, INESAP Information Bulletin, 21, (April 2003), p. 96.

⁵⁶Iftekhar Zaman, ‘Living with a Nuclearized South Asia: Rethinking Disarmament and Security’, Disarmament Forum, 2, (2004), p. 55.

⁵⁷Zaman, ‘Living with a Nuclearized South Asia’, p. 56.

⁵⁸Martin Indyk, ‘How Bush's Doctrine of Pre-emption Was Ambushed by Reality’, The Age, (26 March 2004). Martin Indyk is a former US ambassador to Israel.

⁵⁹Background information supplied by representatives of the US UN Mission in Geneva, (24 September 2003).

⁶⁰B. M. Reddu, ‘India and Pakistan Agree on Timeframe for Talks’, The Hindu, (17 February 2004); O. Tohid, ‘India, Pakistan Pursue Peace Talks in the Slow Lane’, Christian Science Monitor, (17 February 2004).

⁶¹ The Age, (21 June 2004), p. 6.

⁶²Gabrielle Kohlmeier, ‘India, Pakistan Seek Missile Test Pact’, Arms Control Today, 34, 7, <http://www.armscontrol.org>, (accessed 26 February 2005).

⁶³Gabrielle Kohlmeier, ‘Back to Normal: India, Pakistan Hold Nuclear Talks’, Arms Control Today, 34, 6, <http://www.armscontrol.org>, (accessed 26 February 2005).

⁶⁴Willett, Costs of Disarmament, pp. 74–78.

⁶⁵Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (India) and Pakistan Peace Coalition: see Praful Bidwal, ‘Hopes for Indo-Pak Peace in ‘05’, <http://www.antiwar.com/bidwai/?articleid=4204>, (accessed 26 February 2005).

⁶⁶‘Declaration’, Conference of States Parties and Signatories to Treaties that Establish Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones, Thalelolco, Mexico, (26–28 April 2005), <http://www.opanal.org>, (accessed 17 July 2005).

⁶⁷Leonard Spector and Aubrie Ohlde, ‘Negative Security Assurances: Revisiting the Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Option’, Arms Control Today, (April 2005).