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Security
Assurances
 he issue of security assurances
was recently revived because of the updated U.S. security doctrine,
which provides for the potential use of nuclear weapons against
non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS). However, the issue of security
assurances against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons has been
debated since the outset of the NPT negotiations in the early 1960s.
There are two kinds of security assurances: positive
security assurances and negative
security assurances. Positive security assurances were adopted at
the UN Security Council as
Resolution 255
in 1968. This resolution recognized that the Security Council "would
have to act immediately to provide assistance, in accordance with their
obligations under the United Nations Charter," to a state victim of an
act of nuclear weapons aggression or object of a threat of such
aggression. Although this commitment was welcomed by the NNWS, the
non-aligned states expressed the need during the negotiations of the NPT
for a legally binding commitment by the nuclear weapon states (NWS) not
to use nuclear weapons against NNWS, namely, "negative security
assurances." The Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and United States,
however, took the position that the matter should be pursued "in the
context of action relating to the United Nations, outside the treaty
itself but in close conjunction with it." Action taken “outside” the NPT
has come to mean, resolutions by the UN Security Council and protocols
annexed to NWFZ treaties. The desire by the NNWS not to be threatened by
nuclear weapons did, however, lead to the inclusion of a disarmament
component in the treaty, namely Article VI.
All NWS have made several formal pledges in the past not to threaten
to use, or use nuclear weapons against NNWS parties to the NPT, with
certain qualifications. The United States, for example, has reserved
the right to use nuclear weapons against an NPT NNWS if that state attacks
the United States or its allies in concert with or in alliance with
a NWS. The U.S. administration's strategies to maintain
the use of nuclear weapons as a retaliatory measure in the case of a WMD attack against the United States are described in official strategy
documents such as The National Security Strategy (September 2002)
and the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction
(December 2002). UN Security Council
Resolution 984, adopted
in 1995, formally acknowledged the commitments of the NWS to negative
security assurances, but did not address the need by NNWS for legally
binding assurances.
At both the 1995 and 2000 NPT Review Conferences, the importance of
security assurances was emphasized. Although a Final Document was
not adopted at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, in the "Principles
and Objectives for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament," the
Conference adopted language on negative security assurances, stating,
"further steps should be considered to assure non-nuclear weapon States
parties to the treaty against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.
These steps could take the form of an internationally legally binding
instrument."
The 2000 Review Conference mandated the Preparatory Committee to make
recommendations to the Review Conference on negative security
assurances. At the 2002 PrepCom, many NPT parties stressed that efforts
to conclude a universal, unconditional, and legally binding instrument
on security assurances to NNWS should be pursued as a matter of
priority. The
Chairman's summary at the 2003 PrepCom also proposed that negative
security assurances could take the form of an agreement or protocols to
the treaty, without prejudice to the legally binding security assurances
already given by the five NWS in the framework of the treaties regarding
nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZs). At the 2004 PrepCom many NNWS,
especially the Non-Aligned Movement countries, reiterated that they
placed a high priority on negative security assurances and called for
specific recommendations on “legally binding security assurances by the
five nuclear-weapon-states" to the 2005 RevCon. China was the only NWS
to support this call. The
United States—together with the other NWS—strongly opposed these
efforts to expand negative security assurances to encompass
global-legally binding assurances.
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