A Path Toward Productive Negotiations at the Second NPT PrepCom

As diplomats gather in Geneva for the 2024 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee (PrepCom), the pressure on States parties to make progress on the treaty’s implementation is growing. After States parties failed to produce a consensus document in the last two NPT review cycles, a more successful outcome is sorely needed. Getting there will require the NPT community to reenvision the review process to allow for more constructive approaches and new pathways to progress.

Challenges to the NPT regime have only increased: Russia’s war in Ukraine is in its third year, nuclear modernization is advancing in all nuclear-weapon states (NWS, also known as P5), defense budgets are ballooning, and there is a growing reliance on and belief in nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantor of national security, especially among NWS and their allies. With the New START treaty between the United States and Russia set to expire in February 2026, the next NPT Review Conference (RevCon) in summer 2026 might well take place in a world without arms control.

Instead of throwing in the towel, however, NPT States parties urgently need to recognize and address several areas where continued deterioration will have the most damaging effects on the treaty regime. These include the increasing mistrust and misperceptions among NWS that fuel harmful action-reaction dynamics, failure to compartmentalize arms control and risk reduction from geopolitical tensions, weakening commitment to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and norm against nuclear testing, and absence of crisis communication channels.

As long as cooperative approaches seem out of reach, NPT States parties need to broaden their toolbox to meet the urgency of the moment.

Successfully “stopping the bleeding” and demonstrating movement on implementation of Article VI—which commits NWS to pursue nuclear disarmament—could take many forms, as explored by NTI’s Global Enterprise to Strengthen Nonproliferation and Disarmament (GE). This Track 1.5 initiative generated recommendations for States parties to take actionable steps prior to the 10th NPT RevCon in 2022, many of which remain acutely relevant in this review cycle.

First, States parties should start shifting their mindset now to recognize that success at the next RevCon does not have to be defined by a consensus final document, though it should still be the main goal. States should therefore use this PrepCom to discuss and consider multiple options, including:

• A high-level political declaration by all States parties reaffirming a shared commitment to the core principles of the NPT and reinvigorated pursuit of all its goals
• Gift basket diplomacy, or what the GE called Joint Voluntary Commitments (JVCs), made by individual states (including the P5) or groups of states. These could be announced before or at the 2026 RevCon and reflected in a final outcome document. Given the rising risks of nuclear use, specific JVCs that could contribute to risk reduction and crisis management could include:
  • NWS reaffirming the Reagan-Gorbachev statement that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” and committing to base their rhetoric, doctrines, policies, postures, and actions on their commitment to avoid the use of nuclear weapons
  • NWS declaring a commitment to exercise restraint, and non–nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) urging NWS to refrain from provocative rhetoric, posturing, and activities to avoid heightening the risk of escalation
  • NNWS urging NWS to strengthen dialogue on crisis avoidance and crisis management, including within the P5 process and between defense and military officials

Second, a 2022 NTI paper with takeaways from the GE suggested that the P5 should build on the Reagan-Gorbachev statement by backing it up with specific actions. With China assuming chairmanship of the P5 process in August—possibly focusing on advancing discussions on a no-first-use (NFU) agreement—the group should be open to discussing and considering this issue as one potential way to reduce the risk of nuclear use, recognizing the significant effort needed to make NFU commitments credible and verifiable.

Third, given the immediate and grave impact that a resumption of explosive nuclear testing by an NPT member state would have on the treaty and the international security environment, NWS and NNWS should immediately increase their commitment to upholding the norm against explosive testing and apply political pressure to ensure others do the same. This could take the form of:

• A reaffirmation by all States parties that the goal of prohibiting all nuclear tests is firmly embedded in the NPT through its preamble, which includes the objective “to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time.” This could also include bilateral outreach by NNWS (key NWS allies in particular) to NWS, strongly urging them to uphold the norm against nuclear testing.
• A commitment by NWS—unilateral or otherwise—to uphold their moratoria on nuclear explosive testing and refrain from actions that would defeat the object and purpose of the CTBT
• The introduction of unilateral or joint confidence-building measures, such as commitments to increased test site transparency, including the provision of notifications and/or information exchanges
• An acknowledgment of the human and environmental cost of nuclear testing, and cooperation with States parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as they begin to fulfill their legal responsibilities under that treaty to provide assistance and environmental remediation to people and regions harmed by past nuclear weapon use and testing

These risk reduction measures cannot substitute for concrete progress on Article VI of the NPT and nuclear disarmament. Conducting “business as usual” threatens to render the review cycle—and with it, the NPT—dysfunctional. The problem is not a lack of ideas but a lack of political will, which hampers possibilities for cooperative measures. However, this should not distract from the pursuit of unilateral options or actions by groups of like-minded states. The next two weeks in Geneva will be crucial in starting to untangle the deadlock that has plagued the review cycle for too long.