By Steve Hynd
Sanity in the house!
President Obama today was the first U.S. president to ever preside over a UN security council session. It's something that should happen more often. He gained a unanimous vote for a resolution which will strengthen the hands of negotiators and non-proliferation experts in future.
Today's resolution calls for the nuclear weapons states to ratify a ban on nuclear testing - something the US senate has yet to do - and negotiate a new treaty to stop the production of fissile material. It also calls for on them to join the disarmament process being led by the US and Russia, who account for more than 90% of the world's nuclear weapons between them.
The document also endorses a string of measures intended to strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), ahead of a major review conference next May.
Those measures focus on attempts to raising the costs of exiting the treaty, so that states cannot import nuclear technology as NPT signatories, build up a civil nuclear programme legally, and then walk out of the treaty and divert their programme to building weapons, all without breaking international law.
The resolution urges exporting countries to make sales of nuclear technology conditional on the customer nation agreeing to intrusive UN inspections, and requiring the return of the technology in the event of withdrawal from the NPT.
The resolution was weaker than it could have been. France, which has always regarded its nukes as its national crown jewels, had objected to stronger language calling directly for the abolition of nuclear weapons. But, going forward, this resolution will be a powerful lever for non-proliferation attempts. Some nations doubtless had their fingers crossed when they voted for it - particularly those states with nuclear weapons who are currently outside the NPT - but vote for it they did, and that will count when international pressure is brought to bear on them.
Update: In a bit of related news, former UK diplomat Craig Murray says that a source at MI6 has told him that the Israeli nuclear arsenal is now larger than Britain's and comprises at least 163 weapons. Israel, of course, is one of the four nations which are not currently NPT members, along with India, Pakistan (both likewise U.S. allies) and North Korea.
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