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Almost all of the land territory in the Southern Hemisphere is covered by
the various existing NWFZs.
Since 1996, the UN General Assembly has adopted
resolutions supporting the establishment of a NWFZ in the entire
Southern Hemisphere.
The United States, United Kingdom, and France have
repeatedly voted against the creation of a Southern Hemisphere NWFZ, arguing that such a zone may contradict
the Law of the Sea
Convention which guarantees freedom of navigation and innocent passage for all naval
vessels including those that are nuclear powered or nuclear armed. Since almost
all land in the Southern Hemisphere (except for a few small islands) is already
covered by existing NWFZs, the only area remaining outside of a NWFZ is the high
seas.
The counterargument is that the establishment of a
NWFZ in the Southern Hemisphere would solidify the strong opposition to nuclear
weapons by all countries in the Southern Hemisphere thereby contributing
progress towards
establishing a world free of nuclear weapons. Proponents argue that establishment of this zone
would encourage not only the creation of other nuclear-weapon-free zones but
also encourage states in Africa to ratify the Pelindaba Treaty. A unified
Southern Hemisphere free of nuclear weapons would also be a signal to the
nuclear weapon states to make more concrete progress toward their obligations on
nuclear disarmament codified in Article VI of the NPT.
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