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Mexico Conference Urges Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones By Jim Wurst MEXICO CITY — An international conference on nuclear weapon-free zones opened here yesterday with diplomats arguing that the lessons learned from nearly 40 years of negotiating such areas should be broadly applied to reducing reliance on nuclear weapons in global security (see GSN, April 26). Scheduled one week before the opening of the review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the three-day conference focuses on how zones can promote the disarmament and nonproliferation goals of the international pact. Lessons learned from the development of the zones, such as verification mechanisms and dealing with noncompliance, “could lead to practical ways to enhance the nuclear arms control regime and to concrete steps towards reaching our ultimate goal — a world free from nuclear weapons,” said Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. This conference of states that have renounced nuclear weapons are pressing at this session a long-standing demand for legally binding pledges from nuclear-weapon states not to use nuclear weapons against them. These so-called negative security assurances are seen as an essential component in reducing the role of nuclear weapons in international security, but have been resisted by the nuclear powers. Of the five nuclear-weapon parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and United States — only China has given unequivocal commitments. Another common theme yesterday was how the precedents set by the four existing zones could be useful in defusing crises in other regions of the world, notably the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula. The zones are “a testament to what nations can do, region by region, to achieve common security objectives,” ElBaradei said in a speech. “An important benefit of these zones is that they open a forum for expanded regional dialogue on issues of security.” “To be successful, a collective security system must be equitable, inclusive and effective. … And it must not rely on nuclear deterrence,” he added. The conference is being held at Tlatelolco Plaza, where the first nuclear weapon-free zone treaty covering an inhabited part of the globe — Latin America and the Caribbean — was concluded in 1967. “The Treaty of Tlatelolco was visionary in [stopping] a nuclear arms race in our region,” said Edmundo Vargas Carreno, secretary general of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, which oversees the treaty. At the time, several Latin American countries, notably Argentina and Brazil, were conducting nuclear weapons research. By keeping the region “free of the nuclear threat,” Vargas said, Latin America and the other countries adhering to such zones should be “granted more effective guarantees” against nuclear attacks by the nuclear weapon states. This, he added, was “the main purpose of this conference.” In a message read to the conference, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called the Treaty of Tlatelolco “an inspiring landmark in global efforts to promote nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.” He said he hoped the meeting “will remind all states not only of the strategic and moral values of nuclear weapons free zones, but also of the possibilities for progress on a range of fronts in our quest for a world free of nuclear weapons.” In general, countries covered by a free-zone treaty pledge not to develop, test, possess or use nuclear weapons, nor will they allow nuclear weapons to be stationed on their soils or territorial waters. The treaties request that specific states outside of the region, usually the nuclear powers and countries with territories within the zone, respect the pact. Not all the governments outside the zoned regions called on to sign the various protocols have done so. There are treaties banning nuclear weapons from some 100 countries: the treaties of Tlatelolco, covering Latin America and the Caribbean; Rarotonga, covering the South Pacific; Bangkok, covering Southeast Asia; and Pelindaba, covering Africa. All nations in zones covered by a treaty have signed the pact. Pelindaba is the only treaty that has not yet entered into force. The United Nations recognizes Mongolia as a single-nation nuclear weapon-free zone. There are also treaties banning nuclear weapons from uninhabited regions of the world — Antarctica and the seabed. The areas covered by most of the zones abut each other, making the entire Southern Hemisphere free of nuclear weapons.
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