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NWS and the Establishing of NWFZs
While the nuclear weapons states often support the creation of NWFZs, the
security interests and obligations of these states can conflict with
specific provisions of a NWFZ. In particular, the United States and other
NWS insist on the right under international law of transit by vessels
carrying nuclear weapons consistent with the principle of freedom of the
seas. With these concerns in mind, the U.S. government set forth in 1995 its
own criteria for the establishment of a NWFZ:
- The initiative for the creation of the zone should come from the
states in the region concerned.
- All states whose participation is deemed important should participate
in the zone.
- The zone arrangement should provide for adequate verification of
compliance with its provisions.
- The establishment of the zone should not disturb existing security
arrangements to the detriment of regional and international security or
otherwise abridge the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense
guaranteed in the UN charter.
- NWFZ treaties should effectively prohibit its parties from developing or
otherwise possessing any nuclear device for whatever purpose.
- The establishment of the zone should not affect the existing right of its
parties under international law to grant or deny transit privileges within their
respective land territory, internal waters and airspace to nuclear powered and
nuclear capable ships and aircraft of non-party nations, including port calls
and over flights.
- The zone arrangement should not seek to impose restrictions on the exercise
of rights recognized under international law, particularly that high seas
freedoms of navigation and over flight, the right of innocent passage of
territorial and archipelagic seas, the right of transit passage of international
straits, and the right of archipelagic sea lane passage of archipelagic waters.
China, the only NWS that has explicitly rejected the
first use of nuclear weapons, has supported the idea of negative security assurances and has
promised unconditionally not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against
non-nuclear weapon states and member states of NWFZ treaties. France, Russia,
and the United Kingdom generally accept the UN principles for establishment of
NWFZs and make their decisions to support individual NWFZs on a case-by-case
basis.
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