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History
- The Beginnings
 he NPT is the
result of a long line of negotiations among various states concerned
with the use of nuclear technology for both peaceful and destructive
purposes. With the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in mind
and risks of the spread of nuclear weapon technology growing, the international
community sought ways to prevent any future use or acquisition of such
destructive weapons.
In 1946, the UN
General Assembly established the UN Atomic Energy Commission "to deal
with the problems raised by the discovery of nuclear energy." Due to
disagreements between the United States and the Soviet Union, this commission
was unsuccessful in drafting a nonproliferation treaty.
Later that year,
the United States proposed
the Baruch Plan, named after U.S. diplomat
Bernard Baruch. According to this plan, the United States would give
up its nuclear weapon program after all other states had ceded their
nuclear materials to international control. The Soviet Union opposed
the plan as too advantageous to the United States and wanted the United
States to turn over its nuclear weapons before other countries gave
up their nuclear materials. These differences could not be resolved.
The Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon in 1949, and by 1950,
both the Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in a nuclear
arms race. In 1952, the United Kingdom tested nuclear weapons for the
first time.
In the 1950s, several
programs were launched to develop peaceful nuclear projects and guard
against nuclear weapons proliferation. In 1953, U.S. President Dwight
Eisenhower established the
"Atoms for Peace" program through which the
United States concluded nuclear cooperation agreements with 40 friendly
countries between 1956 and 1959. As a result, 26 states that accepted
U.S. safeguards on U.S.-origin nuclear materials and equipment against
military use of nuclear technology were provided with research reactors,
nuclear training, and reactor fuel (fissionable material). The Soviet
Union developed a similar program during this period to provide peaceful
nuclear technology to nations in its orbit. Meanwhile, in Western Europe,
EURATOM was established in 1958 to facilitate peaceful nuclear development
within the European Community.
The establishment
of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1957 provided the institutional foundation for promoting
the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and for the application of safeguards
by an international organization to ensure that nuclear assistance was
not being used to serve any military purpose. Inspections implemented
by the United States and the Soviet Union on their own nuclear exports
were taken over by the IAEA during the 1960s. The IAEA published its
first set of uniform safeguards standards in 1961
(INFCIRC/26). Further
refinements were devised and safeguards were extended to a broader range
of nuclear activities through subsequent safeguards documents, promulgated
in 1964 and 1967
(INFCIRC/66/Rev.2). The IAEA would later become the
institution through which the NPT would verify the commitments of NNWS.
The idea of creating
a nonproliferation treaty acquired greater urgency in February 1960,
when the first French nuclear weapon test was carried out in Algeria.
This test raised fears regarding whether other countries would follow suit.
At that time, several countries were actively researching nuclear technologies,
including among others, Germany, Israel, India, Italy, Japan, Sweden,
and Switzerland. A driving force behind a nonproliferation treaty was
the superpowers' shared interest in ensuring that West Germany, as well
as other advanced industrial countries, would not develop nuclear weapons.
While the IAEA
was still evolving, between 1958 and 1961, proposals at the United Nations
supported the negotiation of a treaty that would prevent the further
spread of nuclear weapons. These efforts culminated in the 1961 adoption
(by the UN General Assembly) of a resolution sponsored by Ireland, "Prevention
of the Wider Dissemination of Nuclear Weapons." It called for measures
to prevent the spread of nuclear weapon technology to additional states
and for all countries to desist from acquiring or transferring nuclear
weapons. The impetus provided by the "Irish Resolution" led the way
for the negotiation of the NPT. This resolution focused only on stopping
nuclear proliferation without explicitly tying it to stopping the nuclear
arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Cuban Missile
Crisis of October 1962 brought the United States and the Soviet Union
to the brink of a nuclear war. This crisis, as well as international
pressure to halt atmospheric nuclear testing resulted in a
Partial Test
Ban Treaty (PTBT) negotiated by the United States, United Kingdom, and
the USSR. But just two years later, in October 1964, China conducted
its first nuclear test, and this event renewed international interest
in devising a multinational treaty to prevent further nuclear weapon
proliferation.
The Cold War between
the United States and Soviet Union underscored the real possibility
of nuclear war. At the same time, most of the industrially advanced
NNWS formed alliance relationships giving them the benefit of a
nuclear
umbrella either through the U.S.-led
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) or the Soviet-led
Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact). These
alliances offered an alternative to the national development of nuclear
weapons, by providing nuclear defense guarantees respectively by the
United States and the Soviet Union. Both superpowers deployed large
numbers of nuclear weapons and delivery systems on the territories of
their respective NNWS allies. Unlike the Soviet program, under which
these weapons remained under the exclusive control of the USSR, several
NATO NNWS, under the aegis of NATO's Nuclear Planning Group, engaged
in military exercises that would allow them to deliver U.S. nuclear
weapons in time of war, although the United States maintained control
over the weapons in peacetime. This aspect of NATO's nuclear doctrine
and planning remains controversial to this day. Some argue that the
doctrine, which continued after the creation of the NPT, is contrary
to Articles I and II of that treaty, which prohibit the transfer of
control over nuclear weapons to any NNWS. Others contend that the exercises
were training programs only and control over U.S. nuclear weapons was,
in fact, never transferred to an NNWS.
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