gaining chip strategies. See Robert J. Bresler and Robert C. Gray, 'The bargaining chip and SALT', *Political Science Quarterly* 92: 1, 1977, pp. 65–88.

11 William Walker, 'Nuclear order and disorder', *International Affairs* 76: 4, 2000, p. 703.

12 F.A. Long, 'Arms control from the perspective of the nineteen-seventies', *Dædalus* 104: 3, 1975, p. 5. See also Thee, 'The nuclear arms race'.

13 Johan Galtung, 'The SALT armament agreement', *Bulletin of Peace Proposals* 3: 4, 1972, p. 291.

14 Andrew J. Pierre, 'The SALT agreement and Europe', *The World Today* 28: 7, 1972, p. 281.

15 Benjamin S. Lambeth, 'Deterrence in the MIRV era', *World Politics* 24: 2, 1972, p. 223.

16 Thomas C. Schelling, 'The role of deterrence in total disarmament', *Foreign Affairs* 40: 3, 1962, pp. 392–406.

17 See Francis J. Gavin, *Nuclear statecraft: history and strategy in America's atomic age* (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), p. 104.

18 Interestingly, the United Kingdom, France, and China were widely referred to in this period as the 'lesser nuclear powers'.

19 Dimitris Bourantonis, *The United Nations and the quest for nuclear disarmament* (Brookfield, VT: Dartmouth, 1993), p. 119.

20 Walker, 'Nuclear order and disorder', p. 708.

21 João A.A. Castro, 'The United Nations and the freezing of the international power structure', *International Organization* 26: 1, 1972, pp. 160–1.

22 E.g., Ireland, UNGA First Committee, New York, 3 Nov. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1883, pp. 38–9; Nigeria, UNGA First Committee, New York, 26 Oct. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1875, pp. 10–1; Japan, UNGA First Committee, New York, 27 Oct. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1877, p. 5; Brazil, UNGA First Committee, New York, 30 Oct. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1878, p. 9; Kenya, UNGA First Committee, New York, 1 Nov. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1881, p. 6; Cyprus, UNGA First Committee, New York, 2 Nov. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1882, p. 71.

23 Ecuador, UNGA First Committee, New York, 24 Oct. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV.1999, pp. 3–4.

24 Albania, UNGA First Committee, New York, 1 Nov. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1881, p. 43; India, UNGA First Committee, New York, 9 Nov. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1888, p. 5.

25 Saudi Arabia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 6 Nov. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV.2009, p. 46.

26 Sweden, UNGA First Committee, New York, 2 Nov. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1882, p. 41.

27 See, e.g., Sweden, UNGA First Committee, New York, 30 Oct. 1973, doc. A/C.1/PV.1941, p. 204; Ireland, UNGA First Committee, New York, 8 Nov. 1973, doc. A/C.1/PV.1952, p. 338; Venezuela, UNGA First Committee, New York, 8 Nov. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV.2014, p. 47; Yugoslavia, NPT review conference, Geneva, 30 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.14, p. 140.

28 Ireland, UNGA First Committee, New York, 7 Nov. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV.2012, p. 47.

29 Indonesia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 8 Nov. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV.2013, p. 48.

30 Bourantonis, *The United Nations and the quest for nuclear disarmament*, p. 119.

31 Nigeria, UNGA First Committee, New York, 26 Oct. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1875, p. 11.

32 Uganda, UNGA First Committee, New York, 9 Nov. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1888, p. 92. See also the statements by Ireland, UNGA First Committee, New York, 3
Nov. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1883; Sweden, UNGA First Committee, New York, 2
Nov. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1882; Gabon, UNGA First Committee, New York, 28
Oct. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV2002, p. 53.

33 Albania, UNGA First Committee, New York, 1 Nov. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1881, p. 42.

34 Mexico, UNGA First Committee, New York, 23 Oct. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1872, p. 1. See also Ireland, UNGA First Committee, New York, 3 Nov. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1883, p. 38.

35 John L. Gaddis, *The Cold War* (London: Penguin, 2005), p. 172.

36 Alva Myrdal, *The game of disarmament: how the United States and Russia run the arms race* (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977), p. 271; Beth Bloomfield, ‘Strategic arms limitations’, *Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science* 32: 4, 1977, p. 186; Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr, ‘The rationale for super-power arms control’, in William R. Kintner and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr, eds, *SALT: implications for arms control in the 1970s* (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973), pp. 3–20.

37 George H. Quester, 'Preventing proliferation', *International Organization* 35: 1, 1981, p. 228.

38 Hedley Bull, ‘A view from abroad’, *Foreign Affairs* 57: 3, 1978, p. 445.

39 Bloomfield, 'Strategic arms limitations', p. 188.

40 Wayland Young, 'Europe and arms control', speech made on 1 Dec. 1976. Printed in *Survival* 19: 3, 1977, p. 125.

41 Van Munster and Sylvest, *Nuclear realism*; Campbell Craig, *Glimmer of a new leviathan: total war in the realism of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz* (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007); Benoît Pelopidas, ‘The birth of nuclear eternity’, in Sandra Kemp and Jenny Andersson, eds, *Futures* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), pp. 484–500.

42 Jimmy Carter, 'Address to the nation on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan', 4 Jan. 1980, The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-nation-the-soviet-invasion-afghanistan.

43 Myrdal, *The game of disarmament*, p. 327.

44 See, e.g., Myrdal, *The game of disarmament*, pp. 98–101.

45 Michael J. Sullivan III, ‘Conference at the crossroads: future prospects for the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament’, *International Organization* 29: 2, 1975, pp. 393–413.

46 The Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament (ENDC) consisted of five states from the Western group, five states from the Eastern group, and eight non-aligned states. The West was represented by Canada, France (which boycotted the forum), Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The East was represented by Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. These ten were the original members of the Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament, which existed for four months in 1960. In 1961, eight non-aligned states were invited to join the forum and the ENDC was created: Brazil, Burma, Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Sweden, and the United Arab Republic (Egypt).

47 See, e.g., Indonesia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 24 Nov. 1971, doc. A/C.1/PV.1835, pp. 1–4; Ecuador, UNGA First Committee, New York, 24 Nov. 1971, doc. A/C.1/PV.1835, pp. 6–7; Ireland, UNGA First Committee, New York, 24 Nov. 1971, doc. A/C.1/PV.1835, p. 13. See also Alessandro Corradini, ‘Organizing for peace’, *International Journal* 35: 2, 1980, p. 302; Alan F. Neidle, ‘The rise and fall of multilateral arms control’, in Edward C. Luck, ed., *Arms control: the multilateral alternative* (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1983), p. 30.
48 See Sullivan, 'Conference at the crossroads', p. 397; Manouchehr Fartash, 'The "disarmament club" at work', *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 33: 1, 1977, p. 57. On 'input', 'output', and 'throughput' legitimacy, see Vivien A. Schmidt, 'Democracy and legitimacy in the European Union revisited', *Political Studies* 61: 1, 2012, pp. 2–22.

49 Note that a multilateral conference of non-nuclear states met shortly after the NPT's adoption in 1968. Given that the intended purpose of the conference had been to coordinate non-nuclear states' positions in the NPT negotiations – a purpose that was lost when the NPT was adopted earlier than anticipated – I treat it as a part of the wider NPT negotiating process.

50 Sullivan, 'Conference at the crossroads', p. 398.

51 Jeff Colgan, Robert O. Keohane, and Thijs Van de Graaf, 'Punctuated equilibrium in the energy regime complex', *Review of International Organizations* 7: 2, 2012, p. 121.

52 Sullivan, 'Conference at the crossroads', p. 398.

53 Bourantonis, 'Democratization, decentralization, and disarmament at the United Nations', *The International History Review* 15: 4, 1993, p. 697.

54 India, Conference on the Committee of Disarmament (CCD), Geneva, 29 Feb. 1972, doc. CCD/PV.545, p. 35.

55 See also Bourantonis, *The United Nations and the quest for nuclear disarmament*, p. 71.

56 Quoted in Avi Beker, *Disarmament without order* (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1985), pp. 93–4.

57 See Myrdal, *The game of disarmament*, pp. 327–31.

58 Mexico, UNGA First Committee, New York, 23 Oct. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1872, p. 3.

59 Sergiu Verona, 'The Geneva disarmament conference: some considerations', *Instant Research on Peace and Violence* 6: 1/2, 1976, pp. 62–71.

60 Dimitris Bourantonis, 'The role of the United Nations in disarmament and arms control', *Cambridge Review of International Affairs* 8: 1, 1994, p. 68.

61 Uruguay, UNGA First Committee, New York, 26 Oct. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1876, p. 2.

62 Iraq, UNGA First Committee, New York, 20 Nov. 1970, doc. A/C.1/PV.1767, pp. 2–3.

63 Brazil, UNGA First Committee, New York, 25 Oct. 1971, doc. A/C.1/PV.1806, p. 2.

64 Sullivan, 'Conference at the crossroads', p. 405.

65 Sullivan, 'Conference at the crossroads', p. 412.

66 United Kingdom, CCD, Geneva, 22 Aug. 1974, doc. CCD.PV.553, p. 14.

67 Cecil V. Crabb, *The elephants and the grass* (London: Praeger, 1965), p. 102.

68 See Hedley Bull, 'The revolt against the West', in Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, eds, *The expansion of international society* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 222. See also Andrew Hurrell, *On global order: power, values, and the constitution of international society* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 210.

69 Robert L. Rothstein, 'Foreign policy and development policy', *International Affairs* 52: 4, 1976, pp. 614–5.

70 A.W. Singham and Shirley Hune, *Non-alignment in an age of alignments* (London: Zed, 1986), p. 77. See also Nick Ritchie and Kjølv Egeland, 'The diplomacy of resistance: power, hegemony, and nuclear disarmament', *Global Change, Peace & Security* 30: 2, 2018, pp. 121–41.

71 E.g., Tariq O. Hyder, 'Inchoate aspirations for world order change', *International Security* 2: 4, 1978, pp. 56–64.
72 Singham and Hune, *Non-alignment in an age of alignments*, p. 346; Evard Kardelj, 'The historical roots of non-alignment', *Bulletin of Peace Proposals* 7: 1, 1976, pp. 84–9.

73 Argentina, UNGA First Committee, New York, 9 Oct. 1970, doc. A/C.1/PV.1734, p. 20.

74 Sondra R. Herman, 'The woman inside the negotiations', *Peace and Change* 23: 4, 1998, p. 517.

75 Myrdal, *The game of disarmament*, p. 209.

76 Myrdal, *The game of disarmament*, p. 210.

77 Bourantonis, 'Democratization, decentralization, and disarmament at the United Nations', p. 704.

78 See Bourantonis, *The United Nations and the quest for nuclear disarmament*; Alva Myrdal, 'The high price of nuclear arms monopoly', *Foreign Policy* 18, Spring 1975, p. 37.

79 Myrdal, 'The high price of nuclear arms monopoly', pp. 36–7.

80 Emmanuel Adler, 'The emergence of cooperation: national epistemic communities and the international evolution of the idea of nuclear arms control', *International Organization* 46: 1, 1992, pp. 101–45.

81 Myrdal, 'The high price of nuclear arms monopoly'.

82 Jozef Goldblat, *Arms control: a guide to negotiations and agreements* (London: Sage, 1994), p. 45.

83 William Epstein, *The last chance* (London: The Free Press, 1976), pp. 29–30.

84 John Edmonds, 'A complete nuclear test ban—why has it taken so long?', *Security Dialogue* 25: 4, 1994, pp. 377–8.

85 US and Canadian Pugwash, 'The uncontrolled atom', *Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences* 28: 1, 1974, p. 9.

86 Myrdal, *The game of disarmament*, p. 210.

87 Thailand, UNGA First Committee, New York, 31 Oct. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV.2005, p. 38.

88 Austria, UNGA First Committee, New York, 4 Nov. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV.2007, p. 26.

89 Sweden, UNGA First Committee, New York, 3 Nov. 1973, doc. A/C.1/PV.2075, p. 33.

90 Harald Müller, David Fischer, and Wolfgang Kötter, *Nuclear non-proliferation and global order* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 24.

91 George Perkovich, *India's nuclear bomb* (Berkeley, CL: University of California Press, 1999), p. 177.

92 Perkovich, *India's nuclear bomb*, p. 180.

93 M.S. Rajan, 'India: a case of power without force', *International Journal* 30: 2, 1975, pp. 324–5.

94 See India, UNGA First Committee, New York, 25 Oct. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV.2000, p. 67; India, UNGA First Committee, New York, 28 Oct. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV.2002, pp. 73–5.

95 Perkovich, *India's nuclear bomb*, pp. 135–40.

96 See Perkovich, *India's nuclear bomb*, p. 189.

97 Sweden, UNGA First Committee, New York, 25 Oct. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV.2000, p. 6.

98 Sri Lanka, UNGA First Committee, New York, 11 Nov. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV.2016, p. 116.

99 Richard K. Betts, 'Incentives for nuclear weapons', *Asian Survey* 19: 11, 1979, p. 1062.

100 Quoted in Kristine W. Bergan, 'Roles and rationales in the negotiations of the first review conference of the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 1973–1975', MPhil thesis (Bergen: University of Bergen, 2011), p. 44.
101 Myrdal, *The game of disarmament*, p. 327.

102 UNGA Resolution 2028 (XX), 'Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons', New York, 1965.

103 Sweden, UNGA First Committee, New York, 30 Oct. 1973, doc. A/C.1/PV.1941, p. 204.

104 Quoted in Bergan, 'Roles and rationales in the negotiations of the first review conference of the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 1973–1975', p. 49.

105 Quoted in Bergan, 'Roles and rationales in the negotiations of the first review conference of the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 1973–1975', p. 49.

106 UNGA, Resolution 3184 (XXVIII), 'General and Complete Disarmament', 1973.

107 See Chris Brown, 'The “practice turn”, phronesis and classical realism', *Millennium* 40: 3, 2012, pp. 439–56.

108 Bergan, 'Roles and rationales in the negotiations of the first review conference of the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 1973–1975', pp. 56–7.

109 Bruce Unger, 'The nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference', *World Affairs* 139: 2, 1976, p. 102.

110 Mohamed I. Shaker, *The nuclear non-proliferation treaty* (London: Oceana, 1980), p. 876.

111 Sverre Lodgaard, 'The non-proliferation treaty: status and prospects', *Instant Research on Peace and Violence* 5: 1, 1975, p. 7.

112 Iran, UNGA First Committee, New York, 9 Dec. 1971, doc. A/C.1/PV.1847, p. 9.

113 Mexico, UNGA First Committee, New York, 29 Oct. 1974, doc. A/C.1/PV.2003, p. 31.

114 Sweden, NPT review conference, Geneva, 6 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.3, p. 33. Liberia used the phrase 'concrete evidence'. Liberia, NPT review conference, Geneva, 15 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/C.I/SR.5, p. 180.

115 Australia, NPT review conference, Geneva, 8 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.7, p. 79.

116 Soviet Union, NPT review conference, Geneva, 6 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.2, pp. 17–18.

117 Iran, NPT review conference, Geneva, 7 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.4, p. 47. See also, e.g., Australia, NPT review conference, Geneva, 8 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.7, p. 78; Nigeria, NPT review conference, Geneva, 8 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.7, pp. 83–4; Mexico, NPT review conference, Geneva, 15 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/C.I/SR.5, p. 182; Sweden, NPT review conference, Geneva, 6 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.3, p. 33.

118 Myrdal and Robles were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982.

119 Epstein, *The last chance*, p. 249.

120 NPT review conference, Summary Records, Geneva, 1975, doc. NPT/CONF.35/III.

121 The respective papers were sponsored by slightly different groups of states, but a core group of ten states sponsored all three draft additional protocols: Bolivia, Ecuador, Ghana, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Romania, Sudan, Zaire, and Yugoslavia.

122 NPT review conference, Draft Additional Protocol III to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons', Final document, part II, Geneva, 12 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF.35/II.

123 NPT review conference, Draft Additional Protocols I and II to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons', Final document, part II, Geneva, 12 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF.35/II.
124 United Kingdom, NPT review conference, Geneva, 6 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.3, p. 32.

125 Fartash, 'The "disarmament club" at work', p. 61.

126 Epstein, *The last chance*, p. 246.

127 William Epstein, 'Failure at the NPT review conference', *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 31: 7, 1975, pp. 46–8.

128 Epstein, 'Failure at the NPT review conference', p. 46; Myrdal, *The game of disarmament*, p. 174.

129 E.g., Austria, NPT review conference, Geneva, 8 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.7, p. 89; Egypt, NPT review conference, Geneva, 15 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/C.I/SR.5, p. 176; Iran, NPT review conference, Geneva, 7 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.4, p. 47; Mexico, NPT review conference, Geneva, 15 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/C.I/SR.5, p. 182; Sweden, NPT review conference, Geneva, 6 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.3, p. 33; Nepal, NPT review conference, Geneva, 12 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.10, p. 116; Mauritius, NPT review conference, Geneva, 12 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.10, p. 119; Romania, NPT review conference, Geneva, 14 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/C.II/SR.5, p. 277.

130 Belgium, NPT review conference, Geneva, 14 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/C.I/SR.3, p. 164. See also Bulgaria, NPT review conference, Geneva, 13 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/C.I/SR.1, p. 149.

131 Unger, 'The nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference', p. 93.

132 United States, NPT review conference, Geneva, 20 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/C.I/SR.9, p. 200; United States, NPT review conference, Geneva, 23 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/C.I/SR.13, p. 221.

133 Thomas A. Halsted, 'The spread of nuclear weapons: is the dam about to burst?', *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 31: 5, 1975, pp. 8–11; Unger, 'The nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference'; Marek Thee, 'Arms control', *Journal of Peace Research* 14: 2, 1977, pp. 95–114; John Simpson, 'Global non-proliferation policies', *Review of International Studies* 8: 2, 1982, pp. 69–88; Fartash, 'The "disarmament club" at work'; Keith D. Suter, 'The 1975 review conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty', *Australian Outlook* 30: 2, 1976, pp. 322–40.

134 Epstein, *The last chance*, p. 253.

135 Epstein, 'Failure at the NPT review conference', p. 46.

136 Nigeria on behalf of the G77, NPT review conference, Geneva, 29 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.14, p. 147.

137 Romania, NPT review conference, Geneva, 30 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.14, p. 144.

138 Yugoslavia, NPT review conference, Geneva, 29 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/DC/SR.4, pp. 140–1.

139 Nigeria, NPT review conference, Geneva, 8 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.7, p. 83.

140 Tariq Rauf, 'Ambassador Abdallah Baali on the 2000 NPT review conference', *The Nonproliferation Review* 7: 3, 2000, pp. 1–2.

141 Thee, 'Arms control', p. 107.

142 Switzerland, NPT review conference, Geneva, 7 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.5, p. 64.

143 Myrdal, *The game of disarmament*, p. 175.

144 Myrdal, *The game of disarmament*, p. 326.

145 Myrdal, *The game of disarmament*, p. 331.

146 Erik Ringmar, *Identity, interest, and action: a cultural explanation of Sweden's intervention in the Thirty Year War* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 13–14.
147 E.g., Mexico, NPT review conference, Geneva, 6 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.2, p. 13; Nigeria, NPT review conference, Geneva, 8 May 1975, doc. NPT/CONF/SR.7, p. 85.

148 Perkovich, *India's nuclear bomb*, p. 177.

149 E.g., Pierre Lellouche, 'International nuclear politics', *Foreign Affairs* 58: 2, 1979, pp. 336–50; Steven J. Warnecke, 'Non-proliferation and INFCE: an interim assessment', *Survival* 21: 3, 1979, pp. 116–24; Müller, Fischer, and Kötter, *Nuclear non-proliferation and global order*, p. 26; Yugoslavia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 27 Oct. 1977, doc. A/C.1/32/PV.13, p. 62; Indonesia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 2 Nov. 1977, doc. A/C.1/32/PV.22, p. 26.

150 Bourantonis, 'Democratization, decentralization, and disarmament at the United Nations', p. 698.

151 Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of the Role of the United Nations in the Field of Disarmament, New York, 9 Sept. 1976, doc. A/AC.181/L.10, pp. 7–8.

152 Or Rabinowitz, *Bargaining on nuclear tests: Washington and its Cold War deals* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 56.

153 Unto Vesa, 'The special session on disarmament', *Current Research on Peace and Violence* 1: 1, 1978, p. 2.

154 Christian Reus-Smit, 'International crises of legitimacy', *International Politics* 44: 2–3, 2007, p. 161.

155 Argentina, UNGA First Committee, New York, 30 Oct. 1975, doc. A/C.1/PV.2073, pp. 32–37; Egypt, Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of the Role of the UN in the Field of Disarmament, 1 June 1975, doc. A/AC.181/2, p. 35; Romania, UNGA First Committee, New York, 5 Nov. 1975, doc. A/C.1/PV.2077, p. 26; Sweden, UNGA First Committee, New York, 3 Nov. 1975, doc. A/C.1/PV.2075, p. 43; Yugoslavia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 7 Nov. 1975, doc. A/C.1/PV.2079, p. 11.

156 Non-Aligned Movement, Final document, Colombo, 21 Aug. 1976, para. 139. See also US General Accounting Office, 'United Nations Special Session on Disarmament', Washington DC, 3 July 1979.

157 United Kingdom, Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of the Role of the UN in the Field of Disarmament, 1 June 1975, doc. A/AC.181/2, p. 35.

158 IAEA, 'A report on the UN Special Session on Disarmament', *IAEA Bulletin* 20: 4, 1978, pp. 2–6.

159 Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1977–1980, vol. XXVI, Arms control and nonproliferation, 'Memorandum of conversation', New York, 9 Sept. 1977, doc. 477.

160 Abraham Bargman, 'Nuclear diplomacy', *Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science* 32: 4, 1977, p. 166.

161 Bargman, 'Nuclear diplomacy', p. 167; Jane M. O. Sharp, 'Isaiah revisited', *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 34: 2, 1978, pp. 18–21.

162 Vesa, 'The special session on disarmament', p. 9.

163 Vladimir O. Pechatnov, 'Soviet–American relations through the Cold War', in Richard H. Immerman and Petra Goedde, eds, *The Oxford handbook of the Cold War* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 107.

164 Marc Trachtenberg, 'The structure of great power politics, 1963–1975', in Melvin P. Leffler and Odd A. Westad, eds, *The Cambridge history of the Cold War. Volume 2: crises and détente* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 482–502; Gavin, *Nuclear statecraft*, pp. 73–7, 104–7.

165 UNSSOD-I, 'Non-aligned working document containing the draft declaration, programme of action and machinery for implementation', New York, 24 Jan. 1978, doc. A/AC/.187/55/Add.1.
166 Bargman, ‘Nuclear diplomacy’, p. 167.

167 Lawrence S. Wittner, ‘The forgotten years of the world nuclear disarmament movement, 1975–78’, *Journal of Peace Research* 40: 4, 2003, pp. 435–56.

168 UNSSOD-I, Final document, New York, 1978, doc. 1/S.10/4, para. 125.

169 UNSSOD-I, Final document, para. 120.

170 Bourantonis, ‘Democratization, decentralization, and disarmament at the United Nations’, p. 697.

171 Robert O. Keohane, *After hegemony: cooperation and discord in the world political economy* (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984); Caroline Fehl, *Living with a reluctant hegemon: explaining European responses to US unilateralism* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

172 See Jon Hovi and Detlef F. Sprinz, ‘The limits of the law of the least ambitious program’, *Global Environmental Politics* 6: 3, 2006, p. 31.

173 Sullivan, ‘Conference at the crossroads’.

174 Jozef Goldblat, ‘The role of the United Nations in arms control’, *Arms Control* 7: 2, 1986, p. 129.

175 Bourantonis, *The United Nations and the quest for nuclear disarmament*, pp. 65, 122.

176 Vesa, ‘The special session on disarmament’, p. 9.

177 See John Simpson, ‘The UN’s role in disarmament’, *Contemporary Security Policy* 15: 1, 1994, p. 58.

178 The description of the document’s hierarchy of priorities as a ‘Decalogue’ was introduced by Alfonso García Robles (Mexico, UNGA First Committee, New York, 1 Oct. 1979, doc. A/C.1/34/PV.4, p. 37).

179 See Alfonso G. Robles, ‘Foreword’ to Jack Homer, *Disarm or die* (New York, NY: World Conference on Religion and Peace, 1983), p. 11.

180 UNSSOD-I, Final document, para. 65.

181 UNSSOD-I, Final document, para. 30.

182 UNSSOD-I, Final document, para. 4.

183 UNSSOD-I, Final document, para. 28. See also Bourantonis, ‘Democratization, decentralization, and disarmament at the United Nations’, p. 710. Compare the NAM’s working paper: UNSSOD-I A/AC.187/55/Add.1, pp. 3–4.

184 See, e.g., Mexico, UNGA First Committee, New York, 16 Oct. 1978, doc. A/C.1/33/PV.4, p. 6; Nigeria, UNGA First Committee, New York, 18 Oct. 1978, doc. A/C.1/33/PV.5, p. 8; Burundi, UNGA First Committee, New York, 24 Oct. 1978, doc. A/C.1/33/PV.13, p. 12; Costa Rica, UNGA First Committee, New York, 18 Oct. 1978, doc. A/C.1/33/PV.5, p. 18; Peru, UNGA First Committee, New York, 23 Oct. 1978, doc. A/C.1/33/PV.10, p. 3.

185 Rosemary Righter, *Utopia lost* (New York, NY: The Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1995), p. 223.

186 Sweden, UNGA First Committee, New York, 20 Oct. 1978, doc. A/C.1/33/PV.10, p. 22.

187 Yugoslavia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 18 Oct. 1978, doc. A/C.1/33/PV.6, pp. 36, 44.

188 Philippines, UNGA First Committee, New York, 18 Oct. 1978, doc. A/C.1/33/PV.6, p. 2.

189 Wittner, ‘The forgotten years’, p. 443.

190 Quoted in Robles, ‘Foreword’, p. 11.

191 Bourantonis, ‘Democratization, decentralization, and disarmament at the United Nations’, p. 708.

192 FRUS 1977–1980, vol. XXVI, Arms control and nonproliferation, ‘Memorandum from the director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (Warnke) to president Carter’, Washington, 15 May 1978, doc. 491.
193 FRUS 1977–1980, vol. XXVI, Arms control and nonproliferation, ‘Telegram from the Department of State to the Mission to the United Nations’, Washington, 24 May 1978, doc. 494.

194 FRUS 1977–1980, vol. XXVI, Arms control and nonproliferation, ‘Memorandum from the president’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to president Carter’, Washington, 10 June 1978, doc. 498.

195 Joseph S. Nye, ‘Nonproliferation: a long-term strategy’, *Foreign Affairs* 56: 3, 1978, p. 620.

196 Frank Barnaby, ‘Platitudes on disarmament’, *New Scientist*, 20 July 1978, p. 178.

197 Mauritius, UNGA First Committee, New York, 21 Oct. 1975, doc. A/C.1/PV.2059, p. 57.

198 Spain, UNGA First Committee, New York, 31 Oct. 1977, doc. A/C.1/32/PV.18, p. 26.

199 Bourantonis, ‘Democratization, decentralization, and disarmament at the United Nations’, p. 703.

200 Bargman, ‘Nuclear diplomacy’, p. 166.

201 See, e.g., Argentina, UNGA First Committee, New York, 2 Nov. 1976, doc. A/C.1/31/PV.21, pp. 60–1; Mauritius, UNGA Plenary, New York, 3 Nov. 1976, doc. A/31/C.1/PV.22, p. 21; Iran, UNGA First Committee, New York, 11 Nov. 1976, doc. A/C.1/31PV.29, p. 51; Algeria, UNGA First Committee, New York, 16 Nov. 1976, doc. A/C.1/31/PV.35, p. 46.

202 Bangladesh, UNGA First Committee, New York, 2 Nov. 1977, doc. A/C.1/32/PV.21, p. 12.

203 Romania, UNGA First Committee, New York, 26 Oct. 1978, doc. A/C.1/32/PV.12, p. 36.

204 Philippines, UNGA First Committee, New York, 18 Oct. 1978, doc. A/C.1/33/PV.6, p. 11.

205 E.g., Indonesia, UNSSOD-I, 31 May 1978, doc. PV.11, p. 205.

206 Yugoslavia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 27 Oct. 1972, doc. A/C.1/PV.1877, p. 8.

207 Lazar Mojsov, *Dimensions of non-alignment* (Belgrade: Jugoslavenska Stvarnost, 1981), p. 214.

208 Maria R. Rublee, *Nonproliferation norms: why states choose nuclear restraint* (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2009), p. 104.

209 Balakrishnan Rajagopal, ‘From resistance to renewal’, *Harvard International Law Journal* 41: 2, 2000, p. 532.

210 Compare Verona, ‘The Geneva disarmament conference’, p. 69.

211 See Hurrell, *On global order*, p. 82.

212 George Bunn, ‘The legal status of US negative security assurances to non-nuclear weapon states’, *The Nonproliferation Review* 4: 3, 1997, p. 6.

213 Anton Bebler, ‘Yugoslavia’s positions and policies on arms control and disarmament’, *The International Spectator* 10: 2, 1989, p. 174.
3 Renewing the Bargain, 1979–2000

The ‘Delusion’ of the Non-Aligned

Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Diplomacy in the Second Cold War

The United Nations’ first special session on disarmament greatly improved the legitimacy of the non-proliferation and disarmament regime complex. Tellingly, the non-aligned states greeted the outcome of the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) with much greater enthusiasm than they had SALT I – and indeed what had leaked about the SALT II negotiations in the mid-1970s.¹ As discussed in Chapter 2, SALT I and II were similar in scope and aims. What had changed over the course of the second half of the 1970s, of course, was not the contents of SALT but the social environment in which nuclear diplomacy was enacted. After the ‘historic’ first special session, the neutral and non-aligned states were eager to spin the bilateral negotiations on strategic arms as a meaningful step towards disarmament. A representative of Uruguay, for example, stated in 1979 that ‘we optimistically support and welcome the steps that have been taken towards achieving détente in international relations. We refer specifically to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks’.² Just three years before, the delegation of Uruguay had slammed the arms control effort as ‘useless’.³

The second review conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was convened at the Palais des Nations in Geneva in the fall of 1980. The parties made significant headway on several contentious issues. To the surprise of many, the participants reached agreement on language related to civilian nuclear cooperation and non-proliferation safeguards.⁴ However, as five years before, the parties were stuck on disarmament. The analysts Jozef Goldblat and Sverre Lodgaard argued that the conditions were propitious to work out a ‘uniform formula for negative security assurances’ that would be acceptable to all nuclear-weapon states,⁵ but the non-aligned states were, on the whole, less interested in pushing for such assurances than in holding the nuclear powers to account on abolition.⁶

Despite the apparent agreement to advance non-proliferation safeguards and nuclear technology collaboration, the Group of 77 collectively opposed consensus on the draft final declaration. Contrary to what one might expect
under a rationalist framework, the non-aligned states were not willing to abandon their principled stance on disarmament to advance other interests. According to the G77's spokesperson, the non-nuclear-weapon states 'had faithfully observed the obligations assumed under article II', i.e., on non-proliferation. The obligations regarding disarmament, however, 'had not been respected'.⁷ Certain analysts saw the break-up of the second NPT review conference without agreement on a final declaration as a significant blow to the regime complex.⁸ The then director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Ralph Earle, reported in a memo to the president of 'widespread resentment on the part of many of the non-nuclear weapon parties at the disparity between their self-denial and the dearth of concrete achievement by the nuclear weapon states in limiting their nuclear armaments'. President Carter highlighted this paragraph and added the following marginalia: 'I agree'.⁹

In hindsight, however, the second review conference's inability to reach consensus has been interpreted not as a sign of significant institutional decay or ill will, but rather as an expression of the regime complex' 'natural' dynamic. According to Christopher Daase, the review cycle's main function in this period, i.e., before the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995, was the 'ritual' enactment of the nuclear order's key bargains. In this view, the G77's blocking of consensus did not signify a deep rupture but rather an intention by the G77 to communicate that it expected disarmament to be given more attention in the future.¹⁰ In contrast to the 1975 NPT review conference and 1978 UN special session on disarmament, at which the very existence of binding disarmament obligations had seemed to be in doubt, the debate at the second review conference revolved around the degree to which the nuclear-weapon states had 'honoured existing contracts'.¹¹

The so-called Second Cold War intensified over the course of 1980 and 1981. The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan, the bilateral US-Soviet arms control process broke down, and the United States, West Germany, and several other states boycotted the 1980 Olympic games in Moscow. Promising an end to his predecessor's alleged pusillanimity vis-à-vis the Soviets, Ronald Reagan was sworn into office as president of the United States in January 1981.¹² Reagan's election victory saw the further empowerment of a strain of American conservatism that had previously been relatively fringe in US politics. Fuelled by conservative donors like Richard Scaife, John Olin, and the Bradley brothers, the new American right promoted economic deregulation at home and staunch anti-communist militarism abroad, viewing international organisations such as the United Nations (UN) with intense scepticism.¹³ While previous iterations of the Republican Party had been suspicious of overseas military commitments and high defence spending, by the early 1980s, the GOP had fully committed to being 'the pro-defence party'. Under Caspar 'the ladle' Weinberger's leadership, the Pentagon more than doubled its budget.¹⁴

When the second UN special session on disarmament (UNSSOD-II) convened in 1982 (as stipulated by UNSSOD-I), relations between the superpowers were
arguably at their most tense since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.¹⁵ And in contrast to previous disarmament conferences, where the purported military utility of nuclear weapons had either been rejected (by non-nuclear-weapon states) or left unaddressed (by nuclear-weapon states and their allies), UNSSOD-II saw several high-ranking representatives of nuclear-weapon states unapologetically endorsing nuclear deterrence. Already under the Carter administration, the United States had completed a move from MAD ('mutual assured destruction') to NUTS ('nuclear utilisation target selection'), a more forward-leaning posture centred on limited nuclear strikes, enemy leadership decapitation, and counterforce options (the targeting of the adversary's military infrastructure as opposed to population centres).¹⁶ The Reagan administration doubled down on this shift, with a number of defence experts close to the administration having spoken openly about the Winnability of nuclear war.¹⁷

Delivering the United Kingdom's opening statement, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opined that 'for thirty-seven years, nuclear weapons have kept the peace between East and West. That is a priceless achievement'.¹⁸ A French representative argued that 'nuclear deterrence has been the arm of peace wherever it comes into play'.¹⁹ Although it would hardly have come as a surprise to the audience that the leaders of the nuclear powers held such views in private, uttering them out loud at the UN was seen almost as profane.²⁰ Just four years earlier, at the first special session, the nuclear-weapon states had agreed that enduring peace and security 'cannot be built on the accumulation of weaponry by military alliances nor be sustained by a precarious balance of deterrence'.²¹ The NPT, similarly, indicated that nuclear deterrence was at best legitimate on a temporary basis pending the achievement of disarmament.²² As argued by Pope John Paul II and the Catholic bishops of the United States at the time, nuclear deterrence could be accepted 'not as an end in itself' but only as 'a step on the way toward progressive disarmament'.²³ Reagan was more conciliatory vis-à-vis the non-nuclear-weapon states than his British and French counterparts. Blaming the continuation of the arms race on the Soviets, Reagan asserted that his country remained 'deeply committed' to arms control and disarmament.²⁴

The nuclear-weapon states' deterrence rhetoric was not well received by the neutral and non-aligned states. Responding directly to the deterrence optimists, and echoing George Orwell's 1945 prediction that the atomic age would usher in a 'peace that is no peace',²⁵ Ireland's prime minister, Charles Haughey, stated that 'peace has no meaning and no value if it is only to be time in which we prepare for further war'.²⁶ According to *The New York Times*' account of the conference, the debate grew increasingly belligerent over the course of the four-week session. In an unofficial panel debate at the UN headquarters, people in the audience – likely a mix of government officials and civil society representatives – 'were shouting at the American' and 'arguing with him'. The US official kept saying 'there's no free speech in Red Square', to which the audience replied, 'what else is new, but is that any reason to blow up the world?'²⁷
The neutral and non-aligned states were strongly supported by a resurgent civil society movement. The so-called nuclear freeze movement had originated in the United States but resonated strongly with peace groups and non-nuclear-weapon states across the world.²⁸ NATO's and the Warsaw Pact's build-up of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe had been vigorously resisted by NGOs and hundreds of thousands of private citizens. On 12 June 1982, during the first week of UNSSOD-II and accompanied by Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, and other popular musicians, an enormous crowd of people, perhaps as many as a million, showed up in New York City's Central Park to show their support for serious action at the disarmament conference taking place in Turtle Bay. The June 12th demonstration was the largest political rally in US history until the 2017 'Women's March on Washington'.²⁹ The UNSSOD-II conference was also presented with the outcome of an Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues chaired by the former (and future) Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. The Commission, which was composed of 16 commissioners, largely of social democratic persuasions (former US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was probably the biggest name), promoted the concept of 'common security', the idea that security would have to be achieved *with* rather than *against* adversaries.³⁰ The commission report received some attention in political and expert circles but ultimately failed to convince the leaders of the most powerful states. Few of the report's many suggestions were taken forward on the diplomatic stage.

The outcome of UNSSOD-II was meagre. The concluding document adopted by the conference reasserted the validity of the UNSSOD-I final document and praised UNSSOD-I as 'an event of historic significance',³¹ but made no significant contributions of its own. Given the UNSSOD-II document's concession that the 'priorities and principles' laid down by UNSSOD-I had 'not been generally observed', and that the programme of action adopted in 1978 remained 'largely unimplemented',³² the non-nuclear-weapon states' willingness to join consensus may seem strange. Presumably, most non-nuclear-weapon states were unwilling to block consensus at two major conferences in a row and were happy to sign on to an agreement that had at least nominally reaffirmed the UNSSOD-I final document.³³ From a recognition theoretical perspective, we might say that the neutral and non-aligned states preferred a weak document that ostensibly confirmed the regime complex' recognition order to the uncertainty of open struggle. Thus, while civil society commentators and pro-disarmament academics labelled the outcome an 'abject failure', 'a sad non-event', and 'a deeply distressing political fiasco',³⁴ most non-nuclear-weapon state officials were more measured in their critique, describing the outcome as 'disappointing' or 'unfortunate'.³⁵ Romania held that the outcome was 'not very satisfactory', but attached 'considerable political significance to the fact that that the conclusions adopted by the session unanimously and categorically reaffirmed the value of the Final Document of the first special session'.³⁶ The delegation of Kenya, similarly, opined that the session was 'not encouraging',
but that the affirmation of the UNSSOD-I final document had been of ‘singular
importance’.³⁷

A handful of non-aligned states were more critical. Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session that followed UNSSOD-II, a representative of the Republic of Congo claimed that the major powers had not shown due ‘respect’ towards the interests of many of the world’s states and peoples. UNSSOD-II, he argued, had clearly demonstrated the major powers’ ‘arrogance and indifference’ vis-à-vis the international community.³⁸ The Iranian delegation argued that the non-nuclear-weapon states had ‘been humiliated by the abuse of their trust and confidence’.³⁹ The Indians, for their part, accused the nuclear-weapon states of ‘cynically and contemptuously’ ignoring their commitments.⁴⁰ In an interview with *Alternatives*, the Swedish official Inga Thorsson scorned the United States as an ‘arrogant military power’ and strongly criticised the US delegation’s refusal to even consider the proposal of establishing an international satellite monitoring agency that could help verify a future Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).⁴¹ Both superpowers, Thorsson maintained, had ‘quite obviously obstructed the proceedings of the Session throughout’.⁴² Thus, while the majority of non-nuclear-weapon states remained happy to maintain the status quo, influential spokespersons of the neutral and non-aligned caucus were beginning to express serious disillusionment. It is important to note, however, that the non-nuclear-weapon states’ criticisms were chiefly directed towards the alleged non-compliant behaviour of specific actors – the superpowers in particular – and not the regime complex as such. In line with Clark et al., who conclude that processes of delegitimisation tend to follow a pattern whereby disgruntled stakeholders first assign blame for poor regime performance to non-compliant actors and later towards the regime or social system as such,⁴³ this observation suggests that the normative deterioration was still at an early stage.⁴⁴

The non-nuclear-weapon states’ talk of ‘humiliation’, ‘disrespect’, and ‘arrogance’ is particularly interesting from a recognition theoretical perspective. As Axel Honneth has contended, these terms would not make sense ‘were it not for the implicit reference to a subject’s claim to be granted recognition by others’.⁴⁵ It seems obvious, in this view, that the non-nuclear-weapon states did not just see the nuclear-weapon states’ reluctance to engage in disarmament negotiations as a material security issue – that the continued existence of nuclear weapons posed a danger to their physical safety – but as a slight against their dignity as sovereign states and would-be partners in the nuclear ordering process. Incidentally, ‘humiliation’ has been described as the ‘nuclear bomb of emotions’ due to its capacity to motivate radical behaviour.⁴⁶

An ‘Appearance of Consensus’

Apart from a continued growth in the treaty's membership (the NPT had 91 parties at the time of the first review conference, 119 at the second, and 130
at the third), there were few positives to report on when the NPT parties con-
vened to assess the health of the regime in August 1985. To the chagrin of the
neutral and non-aligned states, US President Ronald Reagan had ordered a
break-up of the trilateral US–Soviet–British CTBT talks that had commenced
during Jimmy Carter’s tenure as president.⁴⁷ In their place, the United States
had engaged the Soviet Union in bilateral negotiations on reductions, first
on intermediate-range nuclear forces (in 1981) and then on intercontinental-
range forces (in 1982), but so far without any concrete results. Quite the con-
trary, relations between Moscow and Washington were frigid. In a speech
to the National Association of Evangelicals in the spring of 1983, Reagan
declared the Soviet Union ‘the center of evil in the modern world’.⁴⁸ A few
months earlier, US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger had ominously
conceded that ‘yes, I believe the world is going to end – by an act of God, I
hope – but every day, I think time is running out. [...] I worry that we will
not have enough time to get strong enough to prevent nuclear war’.⁴⁹ While
Reagan himself often spoke of his desire for nuclear abolition – particularly
during his second term – several members of his administration appeared to
work at cross purposes.⁵⁰

The Soviet Union was led by Yuri Andropov, an ailing, reportedly par-
anoid, former intelligence boss.⁵¹ Much like Reagan, Andropov was sur-
rounded by a posse of bellicose cold warriors. The Soviet military-industrial
complex had grown enormously over the course of the tenure of Andropov’s
predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev.⁵² It is estimated that, by the mid-1980s, the
Kremlin spent an astonishing 15–17 per cent of the Soviet GDP on the mili-
tary.⁵³ The Soviet Union remained a deeply repressive, authoritarian state,
persecuting human rights advocates and dissidents. In 1983, the Soviet Air
Force shot down a South Korean airliner, falsely mistaking it for an American
spy plane, killing all 269 crew and passengers aboard. The Second Cold War
reached its apogee.

As before, disarmament and article VI issues proved the most contentious
at the review conference in 1985. Coordinated by Mexico, the full caucus of
neutral and non-aligned states submitted a long working paper on article VI.
In it, they noted that the programme of action contained in the UNSSOD-I
final document had ‘not been realized’ and that the nuclear-weapon states
were improving their nuclear armouries rather than dismantling them. The
nuclear-weapon states should ‘be reminded of their solemn undertaking
under article VI’, they asserted. Highlighting the gravamen of their griev-
ance, the group maintained that security ‘cannot be divided’: All states,
‘nuclear or non-nuclear alike, have an equal right to live in peace without
the threat or use of force against their territorial integrity or political inde-
pendence’.⁵⁴ Note the precise words used by the non-aligned: Agreements
were described as ‘solemn undertakings’, and the neutral and non-aligned
states were asserted to have an ‘equal right’ to enjoy peace. Agreements were
interpreted not just as instruments to effect desirable outcomes, but also as
symbols of respect.
Later in the conference, the group of neutral and non-aligned states submitted three draft resolutions, all three concerning article VI issues. Recalling the aspiration enshrined in the Partial Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (PTBT) and NPT to accomplish the ‘discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time and to continue negotiations to this end’, the first resolution demanded a reopening of CTBT negotiations ‘during the year of 1985’.⁵⁵ The second resolution called for an ‘immediate moratorium’ on nuclear testing.⁵⁶ In practice, this call applied only to the United Kingdom and the United States, as the Soviet Union already had a moratorium in place at the time; China and France were still not parties to the NPT. Adopting language from the nuclear freeze movement, the third draft resolution called on the nuclear-weapon states party to the NPT to agree, first, to a ‘complete freeze’ of the ‘production and deployment of all nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles’ and, second, to ‘begin negotiations for substantial reductions of their existing stockpiles’. A freeze was ‘not an end in itself’, the co-sponsors held, but ‘would constitute the most effective first step for a cessation of the nuclear arms race’.⁵⁷

Introducing the resolutions on behalf of the neutral and non-aligned, the Mexican delegation announced that the group would call a vote on the three resolutions should the conference not be able to adopt them by consensus.⁵⁸ But when the United States threatened to vote against the resolutions and block consensus on a final declaration, the Mexican-led group agreed to the adoption, by consensus, of a declaration that merely gestured towards the three resolutions in watered-down language.⁵⁹ Announcing the NAM’s decision not to press the vote, the Senegalese NAM spokesperson avowed that the non-aligned states were keen to avoid ‘embarking on a collision course’ with the major powers, preferring instead to ‘adopt a conciliatory approach and seek compromise’.⁶⁰ The nuclear-weapon states reaffirmed their commitment to article VI and promised to make ‘greater efforts to ensure effective measures for the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date’.⁶¹ On the CTBT – most non-nuclear-weapon states’ primary demand – the final declaration noted that ‘certain states’ dissented from the call for the early conclusion of negotiations. Thus, on the crucial issue of the CTBT, the 1985 final document was at best an agreement to disagree; the text was not fully negotiated. According to one analyst, the final declaration was largely an empty agreement, certainly on the question of disarmament, made possible only by ‘sleight of diplomatic hand’.⁶²

But the agreement was not empty with respect to non-proliferation and the peaceful uses of nuclear technology. For the nuclear-weapon states and others eager to regulate trade in nuclear technology, the final document represented significant progress. In the mid-1970s, many non-aligned states had been highly resistant to the development by nuclear supplier states of ‘trigger lists’ for trade in nuclear technology, that is, lists of items that required particular non-proliferation safeguards to be in place for trade to be greenlighted. Indonesia, for example, an NPT party, had argued in 1977 that the trigger
lists were ‘futile and can only weaken efforts to implement the non-proliferation regime’.⁶³ The chair’s summary contained in the final document of the fractious 1975 NPT review conference had simply noted that certain nuclear suppliers had established requirements for the export of nuclear materials to non-nuclear-weapon states. In 1985, however, when the legitimacy of the regime had improved as a result of the adoption of the UNSSOD-I final document, the NPT parties agreed that the Zangger Committee’s trigger list was not only acceptable but should be continually updated to ‘take account of advances in technology’.⁶⁴

Most delegations expressed satisfaction with the outcome. Despite the continued growth of several of the nuclear-weapon states’ arsenals and the inability of the review conference to do anything about it, the vast majority of NPT parties proclaimed the conference a success for the cause of disarmament. Representatives from both New Zealand and Indonesia described the outcome as ‘heartening’. ‘It provides welcome assurance on the viability of multilateral disarmament discussions and negotiations’, the New Zealand official claimed, adding that it ‘augured well’ for the future.⁶⁵ Choosing to close its eyes to the unwillingness of ‘certain states’ to commit to the CTBT, Sri Lanka extolled that the NPT parties had demonstrated an ‘overriding desire’ to strengthen the regime complex in ‘all’ its aspects.⁶⁶ Kenya was ‘gratified’ by the review conference outcome, asserting that the final declaration was an ‘indication of the wish to work together to halt and reverse both horizontal and vertical proliferation’, i.e., disarmament.⁶⁷ Plainly misrepresenting the final declaration, which on the issue said to be most important to the majority of non-nuclear-weapon states had indicated an agreement to disagree, the delegation of Oman asserted that the conference had displayed a ‘unanimous’ desire to advance the regime complex’ aims.⁶⁸ The review conference had to be ‘registered as a success’, said the Austrians.⁶⁹ Egypt’s Ambassador Mohamed Shaker, the president of the review conference, noted that the ‘valuable’ final declaration was ‘the result of a colossal effort on the part of all the parties to the Treaty’, suggesting that the non-nuclear-weapon states’ roles as partners in the regime had been respected.⁷⁰

From the perspective of the majority of neutral and non-aligned states, the outcome of the 1985 review conference was a slight improvement on UNSSOD-II. The nuclear-weapon states had been more measured and careful in their statements, refraining from describing nuclear weapons as vital and legitimate tools of security as they had done at UNSSOD-II. The parties to the treaty could thus more easily maintain a semblance of agreement and common purpose. In hindsight, it would appear that the quasi-consensus at the 1985 review conference marginally boosted the regime’s legitimacy after the disappointment of UNSSOD-II, staving off a new crisis of legitimacy. But not all were convinced. According to the analysts David Albright and André Carothers, the review conference had demonstrated a ‘nearly unanimous sentiment among the non-weapons states that the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union are not in compliance with their obligations
under article VI'. The appearance of consensus indicated by the final dec-
laration was 'just that – an appearance'.⁷¹ The final document, according to
Albright and Carothers, reflected a deliberate attempt at papering over the
widening gulf between the aligned and the non-aligned.

At the UNGA First Committee meeting later that year, the Peruvian del-
egation noted that any ‘consensus’ would ‘remain precarious so long as the
nuclear Powers continue to evade their responsibility under article VI’.⁷² The
Indian delegation went further. Arguing that the NPT had conferred undue
prestige on the nuclear-weapon states, the Indians claimed that the review
conference had revealed the ‘fatuity’ of the non-proliferation regime. Recent
history, said the Indians, had confirmed New Delhi’s ‘well-founded fears’
that the NPT constituted ‘a charter for unrestrained vertical proliferation of
nuclear weapons by the nuclear-weapon States and has conferred upon them
special status and even accorded prestige for the maintenance and escalation
of their nuclear arsenals’.⁷³ To undermine nuclear weapons as status symbols,
India proposed the negotiation of a treaty to prohibit the possession and use
of nuclear arms.⁷⁴ The Indian proposal received support from many non-
aligned states, but not enough for the initiative to take off. Most non-aligned
states were unwilling to embark on a collision course with the world’s most
powerful states.

While the fruits of the multilateral process remained questionable, 1985
saw a clear breakthrough on the bilateral US-Soviet diplomatic front: For
the first time since the 1970s, the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United
States met in person. Moscow's new premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, had initi-
ated sweeping domestic reforms in the Soviet Union and was pursuing 'a new
approach' to foreign policy.⁷⁵ The Geneva summit of 1985 ended without
tangible results, but the face-to-face 'sparked mutual trust' between the two
leaders.⁷⁶ Reagan had made an impassioned case for nuclear disarmament.
Gorbachev is reported to have been quite sceptical about Reagan's aboli-
tionism at first, but, having thought it over, proposed in early 1986 that the
superpowers should commit to abolition by the year 2000.⁷⁷

At the following summit, in Reykjavik in October 1986, Reagan and
Gorbachev met to discuss their ideas for disarmament further. Most histori-
cal accounts, supported by newly released archival material and the memoirs
of people close to the two leaders, suggest that both parties were genuinely
interested in coming to an agreement on total nuclear disarmament.⁷⁸ The
spoiler, in the end, was Reagan's insistence on going ahead with the Strategic
Defence Initiative (SDI) – a major missile defence programme objected to by
the Soviets. Although an agreement on total disarmament proved impossible
to reach due to differences over SDI, the Reykjavik summit was widely seen
as the beginning of a new era in US-Soviet relations. Reykjavik was widely
discussed at the UNGA, which convened just as the summit was ending.
Although many delegations expressed disappointment at the lack of tangible
results, virtually all governments expressed optimism and expectations that
'radical disarmament measures' were finally within sight.⁷⁹ But the radical
spirit of Reykjavik soon faded. Putting abolition on hold, the superpowers
followed up the next year by concluding the Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces (INF) agreement, a treaty eliminating ground-launched ballistic and
cruise missiles with intermediate ranges. The INF Treaty was a considerable
achievement – by far the most significant arms reduction treaty to date –
but fell short of the lofty visions discussed in Iceland the year before. Both
Reagan and Gorbachev found themselves surrounded by advisors and civil
servants who were deeply sceptical of abolition.⁸⁰

Another significant development that took place in the mid-1980s was
New Zealand's adoption of a staunch anti-nuclear policy. The New Zealand
Labour government maintained that nuclear weapons were illegitimate,
that disarmament ought to be pursued with far greater urgency, that the
Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) was not a
'nuclear alliance', and that US warships that could not expressly confirm that
they were not carrying nuclear warheads were not welcome in New Zealand
ports.⁸¹ The issue came to a head in February 1985, when the New Zealand
government denied a port call from the American destroyer USS Buchanan.
In response, Washington unilaterally suspended its alliance commitments
to New Zealand. As confirmed by declassified documents, US officials were
eager to draw a line in the sand to deter other allies from undertaking similar
actions in the future.⁸² Since the beginning of the Cold War, the US govern-
ment had been keen to enlist broad backing for key US policies, including
America's nuclear strategy.⁸³ The US response may indeed have had the effect
of discouraging anti-nuclear moves in other aligned states. However, the
scholar Amy Catalinac finds that the US response fostered *increased* support
for anti-nuclear policies within New Zealand; the US reaction 'gilded, hard-
ened New Zealanders' attitudes'.⁸⁴ The United States' denial of recognition
of New Zealand's 'nuclear free' status, in other words, appeared to prompt
increased support for the Labour government's stance.

*The ‘Crisis of Multilateralism’*

In contrast to UNSSOD-II, which took place at the height of the so-called
Second Cold War, UNSSOD-III, convened in June 1988, took place as the
Cold War was winding down.⁸⁵ The United States and the Soviet Union had
agreed to eliminate ground-launched intermediate-range missiles, relations
between East and West Germany were greatly improving,⁸⁶ and Moscow
had undertaken to slash defence expenditures and scale back its foreign pol-
icy aims as a means of funding domestic economic reforms.⁸⁷ For example,
in 1986, Gorbachev had disavowed any Soviet ambitions in the Southern
African region.⁸⁸ On the one hand, the improvement in the security envi-
ronment meant that the nuclear-weapon states should be in a good position
to engage with the non-nuclear-weapon states in discussions about mul-
tilateral disarmament measures. On the other hand, the more favourable
security environment meant that the expectations of non-nuclear-weapon
states that transformative disarmament measures were imminent had never been higher.

From the perspective of disarmament advocates, UNSSOD-III was a resounding anti-climax. The nuclear powers were largely unwilling to engage on nuclear disarmament issues, insisting instead on more stringent non-proliferation measures and reductions in conventional armaments. The Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, presented an elaborate proposal to negotiate a new multilateral instrument to replace the NPT – one that would commit the nuclear powers to a time-bound elimination of their nuclear arsenals – but was snubbed by the UK and US delegations.⁸⁹ Somewhat characteristically, the Soviet delegation was happy to take relatively inconspicuous stances and let the Western nuclear powers take the responsibility – and blame – for opposing radical suggestions.⁹⁰ During the 1950s, the United States had on occasion been able to put the Soviets on the back foot in international disarmament discussions, successfully forcing the Kremlin to rebuff disarmament proposals in the full glare of publicity.⁹¹ From the 1960s onwards, however, the Soviet Union was consistently able – in spite of its militarism and authoritarian politics, resistance to many verification measures, and enormous investments in nuclear weapons⁹² – to manoeuvre in ways that put the onus on the Western nuclear powers to block disarmament proposals that the Soviets would themselves likely have opposed if push came to shove.⁹³

Ending without the adoption of a substantive final document, UNSSOD-III demonstrated what was increasingly obvious – the superpowers did not find the multilateral process particularly useful or worthwhile.⁹⁴ In the words of Dimitris Bourantonis, the session indicated the ‘unspeakable’, namely, that the UN majority had been ‘deluding’ itself for years on end by thinking that the major powers would ever commit to a multilateral disarmament process.⁹⁵ This, of course, undermined the non-nuclear-weapon states’ standing as equal partners in the regime. But not only was the multilateral nuclear disarmament agenda not advanced and the non-nuclear-weapon states relegated to the role of bystanders, the US delegation refused to acknowledge the continuing validity of the UNSSOD-I final document – the agreement that in 1978 had resolved the first crisis of legitimacy.⁹⁶ Without even an ‘appearance of consensus’, there was little opportunity for the non-nuclear-weapon states to spin the conference as a success. By refuting the UNSSOD-I final document, a text sometimes referred to as the disarmament ‘bible’, the United States had enacted a form of diplomatic sacrilege.⁹⁷ In the words of one commentator, members of the US delegation, in particular, ‘obviously resented the UN’s attempts to poke its internationalist finger into what they clearly regarded as their private pie’.⁹⁸

The latter half of the 1980s saw the intensification of what had come to be called ‘the crisis of multilateralism’.⁹⁹ Non-aligned states that since 1978 had been in the business of spinning any development in the most positive way possible so as to maintain the regime complex’ recognition order began
voicing serious dissatisfaction.¹⁰⁰ The Sri Lankan delegation to the 1988/89 UNGA claimed that the nuclear-weapon states – in particular the depositary states to the NPT – had betrayed their responsibility to effect multilateral disarmament measures, making it ‘extremely difficult to ensure the continued credibility of the non-proliferation Treaty, particularly in an environment in which the utility of nuclear weapons and their vertical proliferation continue to be expounded’.¹⁰¹ Togo postulated that the failure of UNSSOD-III had ‘arrested the momentum that had been built up since 1978 and gave rise to doubts as to the ability of this Organization to promote a multilateral approach to disarmament’.¹⁰² Slating the ‘lack of equality in the power structure of today’s world’, one non-aligned representative lamented that the ‘long history of disarmament negotiations’ gave ‘little ground for expecting disarmament by agreement’.¹⁰³ Criticism was increasingly being directed towards the institutional infrastructure.

Many non-nuclear-weapon states also expressed grievances about participation and transparency. Brazil's novelist-president José Sarney echoed the calls for inclusion that had motivated the regime's first wave of expansion by asserting that 'the task of salvation belongs to all of us, with no exclusions. The weakening of multilateralism damages the cause of peace. Disarmament, however powerful the arsenals of the superpowers, cannot be a discussion between the two'.¹⁰⁴ The single most pressing issue on the disarmament agenda, according to the delegation of Yugoslavia, was the 'breakdown' of multilateralism.¹⁰⁵ Taking a more confrontational line, the Venezuelan delegation stated that '[w]e are aware' that certain governments insist that UNSSOD-III was not a failure, but 'prefer instead to be realistic and call things by their proper names'.¹⁰⁶ For the Brazilians, a meaningful dialogue between North and South 'has not even really begun'. Disarmament could only happen once 'we all sit at the same table, those that possess weapons of mass destruction and we that do not, to negotiate a world order based on peaceful relations, mutual confidence and the rule of law'.¹⁰⁷

Already before UNSSOD-III, Inga Thorsson, Sweden's top disarmament official, had published a scathing critique of the superpowers' policies in the *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists*. Taking up the mantle from Alva Myrdal, Thorsson was a respected diplomat and unofficial leader among the neutral and non-aligned states.¹⁰⁸

> I must register a protest against the trend toward bilateral negotiations [...]. That problems of this [nuclear] kind should be discussed, negotiated, and to some extent decided in meetings between two men, instead of by the instrument of the world community, the United Nations, [...] is an affront to the intention of that body's creators.

> What has been called the crisis of multilateralism is decisively due to the superpowers' – particularly the United States' – contemptuous
neglect of the United Nations as a forum for issues of global impor-
tance. This attitude represents an arrogance bordering on hubris that is
astounding to any reasonable observer. [...] It has taken the superpow-
ers six years of negotiations to reach an agreement that is said to be
without real military significance. [...] For the time being, however, the
world must be satisfied with the INF Treaty handed down by the two
benevolent superpowers.¹⁰⁹

Thorsson's article, which was perhaps not totally fair in its characterisation of the INF Treaty, gives a powerful defence of the intrinsic value of multilateralism. Missing from the analysis, however, is a discussion of how or why a multilateral format might lead to more effective negotiations. The multilateral process had, after all, not delivered particularly meaningful results since the 1960s.

Not unlike the 1985 review conference, the 1990 conference was preceded by the somewhat contradictory co-occurrence of an increase in the NPT's membership and frequent warnings from both the academic community and practitioners that the non-nuclear-weapon states were increasingly fed up with the nuclear powers' unwillingness to move decisively on article VI.¹¹⁰ One answer to this apparent puzzle is that the norm of non-proliferation was growing increasingly entrenched as an unconditional 'standard of civilisation' independent of the nuclear-weapon states' disarmament efforts. It had become difficult, in other words, to cultivate a pro-disarmament stance or identity as a respected member of international society without being party to the NPT. Another answer is that the NPT was increasingly seen as an important means of lessening security competition within the group of non-nuclear-weapon states.¹¹¹ The NPT, in this view, offered security value to non-nuclear-weapon states irrespective of whether the nuclear powers disarmed. The observation that the NPT continued to gain adherents does thus not necessarily contradict the argument that the legitimacy of the NPT as a vehicle of future equality was decreasing.

On top of the challenges described above, the Geneva Conference was
still widely criticised for its limited membership and lack of transparency
in the accession process. 112 Despite the rounds of expansion in 1969, 1975,
and 1978, only about a quarter of the UN's member states were represented.
A large group of states, some of which had narrowly missed out on mem-
bership in 1978, were knocking fervently on the door. It is doubtful, how-
ever, whether these states truly believed that their inclusion in the conference
would make it more effective with respect to output; the results of the last
decade seemed to suggest the opposite, namely that expansion had increased
the members' preference heterogeneity and made effective cooperation more
difficult to achieve. 113 Their aspiration to join the Conference rather seems
to have reflected a desire for inclusion as an end in and of itself. Denial of
membership was experienced as a denial of recognition – a signal of inferior
rank in the international pecking order. 114
Fallout over the 1990 NPT Review Conference and CTBT

The defrosting of the Cold War over the second half of the 1980s was widely
seen as an opportunity to reinvigorate the multilateral nuclear disarmament
effort.¹¹⁵ Many expressed hope that the nuclear-weapon states would finally
agree to move from arms control and deterrence to a wholehearted embrace
of disarmament.¹¹⁶ The Soviet delegation to the UNGA in 1990 claimed that
the international community found itself on the brink of ‘an entirely new
world order’.¹¹⁷ Renowned American statesmen and scholars declared that
nuclear weapons had little or no military utility in the new world order, and
that the United States should pursue the creation of a world without nuclear
weapons as a genuine, albeit long-term, objective.¹¹⁸ According to the presi-
dent of the 1990 NPT review conference, the Peruvian diplomat Oswaldo de
Rivero, the end of the Cold War meant that the ‘traditional view of interna-
tional security’ had to be replaced by ‘a global and planetary view’.¹¹⁹

But no major paradigm shift came to pass. The bilateral US-Soviet arms
reduction accords concluded in the late 1980s and early 1990s were signifi-
cant, yet did not fulfil the promise of Reykjavik. In contrast to his predeces-
sor, a former actor and in many ways political ‘loose cannon’ with opinions
on nuclear policy that were directly at odds with establishment views,¹²⁰
President George H.W. Bush, who succeeded Reagan in January 1989, had
been a quintessential foreign policy insider during much of the Cold War.
Bush had served as US ambassador to the UN under President Nixon, as
CIA director under President Ford, as chair of the Republican National
Committee, and as chief of the US Liaison Office in China. In his memoirs,
Bush states plainly that he was prepared to undertake nuclear reductions,
‘but not elimination’.¹²¹ The UK Labour Party, which in 1982 had become
the only major political party in a nuclear-armed state to back a position of
unconditional nuclear relinquishment, reversed its policy in 1989, just as the
Cold War was coming to an end.¹²² Defying the trend towards reductions pre-
vailing in the United Kingdom and the two Cold War superpowers, between
1985 and 1995, China, France, and Israel increased their nuclear stockpiles,
as measured by warhead count, by about 43, 5, and 50 per cent, respectively
(I Israel’s nuclear-weapon programme remained officially unacknowledged).¹²³
Nuclear weapons and deterrence were largely de-emphasised, in particular
by the United States and NATO, but none of the nuclear powers changed
their basic nuclear postures. In 1993, Russia formally reversed the (largely
incredible) no-first-use pledge announced by Leonid Brezhnev on behalf of
the Soviet Union in 1982.¹²⁴

By the early 1990s, the mixture of grievances that had induced wide-span-
ning reforms in the 1970s again seemed to be coming to a boil: First, most if
not all non-nuclear-weapon states were excluded from relevant decision-mak-
ing. Preferring to negotiate bilaterally, the United States and Soviet Union/
Russia were seen to have hamstrung the United Nations, Geneva Conference,
and NPT review process, denying the non-nuclear-weapon states recognition
as genuine partners in the nuclear ordering process. Second, there was little if any credibility to the notion that nuclear disarmament – and thus the diminution of both social inequality and basic material nuclear vulnerabilities – would be forthcoming in the foreseeable future.

In contrast to the period discussed in Chapter 2, the historical period considered in the present chapter (1979–2000) saw a wide-ranging transformation of the structure of the international system.¹²⁵ In the early 1980s, the world was locked in a bipolar standoff between the superpowers. The transition to a comparatively tranquil unipolar structure was remarkably rapid.¹²⁶ Historians typically set the date of the end of the Cold War to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but the winds of change were already blowing in the area of arms control by the mid-1980s. Fundamentally transforming East–West relations, the four Reagan–Gorbachev summits between 1985 and 1988–Geneva, Reykjavik, Washington DC, and Moscow–both caused and constituted the end of the Cold War.¹²⁷

The average number of nuclear tests conducted per year declined markedly over the course of the period covered in this chapter (see Figure 1).¹²⁸ China carried out the last-ever atmospheric nuclear test in 1980. In 1990, only 18 tests were carried out (the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union completed only one test each). Yet, despite the decline in testing, the non-nuclear-weapon states’ main diplomatic demand remained the negotiation of a CTBT. After all, the commitment to negotiate a CTBT had formed part of the compensatory package that had justified the codification of the NPT nuclear hierarchy in the first place. The nuclear-weapon states’ unwillingness to heed their end of the bargain was interpreted by the non-nuclear-weapon states as a form of disrespect.

The CTBT issue was by far the most contentious agenda item at the 1990 NPT review conference.¹²⁹ Prior to the review conference, several non-nuclear-weapon states had argued, in the words of a Swedish official, that the initiation of serious negotiations on a CTBT was ‘the very minimum’

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1 Worldwide Nuclear Tests, 1979–2000.</figcaption></figure>
to be expected.¹³⁰ But meaningful progress remained elusive. After weeks of heated debate, the 1990 NPT review conference broke up without the adoption of a substantive final declaration. Refusing to accept anything less than a clear commitment by the nuclear-weapon states to negotiate a CTBT, a group of non-aligned states led by Mexico blocked consensus to signal their defiance.¹³¹ Alluding to the final declaration of the 1985 review conference, which had glossed over differences between nuclear and non-nuclear powers, Mexico's then disarmament ambassador, Miguel Marín-Bosch, held that it would be pointless to adopt a final declaration that would 'conceal certain basic facts regarding matters of fundamental interest to non-nuclear-weapon States Parties'.¹³²

The Mexicans' strategy of holding out for a clear CTBT commitment was 'widely supported by non-nuclear states', Rebecca Johnson writes.¹³³ But it received considerable criticism from several NGOs and analysts. They alluded that the non-aligned hardliners' uncompromising stance was both irrational and unreasonable, as it had led to hard-won agreements on other important issues – International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, smuggling of nuclear materials, security assurances, and a general recommitment to article VI – slipping away. For example, by blocking consensus, the non-aligned states forewent an agreement with the nuclear-weapon states to consult on legally binding security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon states prior to the next review conference.¹³⁴ According to Leonard Spector and Jacqueline Smith, 'Mexico sacrificed other concrete gains in the international non-proliferation regime in order to advance its own diplomatic agenda'.¹³⁵ By refusing to compromise, some argued, the non-aligned states had turned clear progress towards greater global security into a 'missed opportunity'.¹³⁶ But for the Mexican and other non-aligned governments, the CTBT took priority over everything else. After decades of what they saw as broken promises, enough was enough: A bursting point had been reached.¹³⁷

In his analysis of the 1990 NPT review conference, John Simpson identifies two main grievances that hindered agreement on a final declaration.¹³⁸ The first was that, for the non-aligned states, 'a deal is a deal'. In a recognition theoretical view, 'when I break a contract I do not act merely as an atomic individual, I violate my contract partner by denying my agreement and my implicit equality with him'.¹³⁹ By refusing to negotiate a test ban, the nuclear-weapon states were seen to be reneging on the entire NPT recognition order. The 'overt bargain' that was struck upon the adoption of the NPT, the non-aligned states held, 'was that article VI of the Treaty, the disarmament article, could only be fulfilled through the completion of a CTBT'. The second grievance concerned the non-aligned states' desire 'to have a meaningful dialogue between the non-nuclear and the nuclear-weapon states on nuclear disarmament'. The trend towards bilateralism 'appears to have been deeply resented'.¹⁴⁰

The non-aligned states' attitudes towards the nuclear-weapon states shifted significantly between the 1980s and 1990s: At the NPT review conference in
1985, the non-aligned states were seemingly desperate to reach consensus on a final declaration, accepting a watered-down agreement which noted that ‘certain states’ disagreed with the provision most neutral and non-aligned states claimed to hold as the most important. The 1982 special session had delivered a similar result. At the special session in 1988, agreement on what was a decidedly feeble draft had been blocked by the United States.¹⁴¹ At the multilateral gatherings in the 1990s, by contrast, the neutral and non-aligned states adopted a less compromising stance. Rather than attempting to remit the fundamental differences between themselves and the nuclear-weapon states, the neutral and non-aligned sought instead to expose and underscore the nuclear-weapon states’ apparent unwillingness to move meaningfully towards nuclear abolition.

The wave of institutional expansion that took place over the course of the 1990s comprised several unique initiatives. Most of these, however, were cast in legalistic language. As scholars researching social movements have argued, waves of protest often coalesce around a ‘master frame’ of meaning.¹⁴² To the extent that the second wave of expansion in the multilateral nuclear disarmament framework had such a master frame, it was one of the international rule of law. Where in the 1970s reforms were promoted in the name of ‘democratising’ the regime complex, the second wave of contestation and change was justified as a concerted effort at further ‘legalising’ multilateral nuclear disarmament.

## ‘A Last Appeal for Justice’

### *A Second Crisis of Legitimacy*

The 1990s saw a deepening crisis of legitimacy for the nuclear regime complex. As in the case of the first crisis of legitimacy, the second was above all characterised by the occurrence of institutional contestation and change within and vis-à-vis the multilateral disarmament architecture. But the occurrence of a crisis of legitimacy can be corroborated also by other indicators. First, the non-nuclear-weapon states’ criticism of the regime complex grew fiercer. The behaviour of specific nuclear-weapon states had been condemned throughout the 1980s, but by the late 1980s and early 1990s, criticism was increasingly directed towards the regime complex itself.¹⁴³ This is not to say that the nuclear-weapon states escaped reproach. France, in particular, came under enormous criticism for its nuclear testing in the Pacific, which was seen by many non-nuclear-weapon state officials as a ‘remarkable demonstration of arrogance and political insensitivity’.¹⁴⁴ New Zealand’s foreign minister, Don McKinnon, charged the French leaders with ‘Napoleonic arrogance’.¹⁴⁵ The government of the Philippines argued that ‘few instances in history can rival the sheer arrogance, insensitivity and lack of concern of the French government in continuing to pursue a policy as depraved as its nuclear testing programme’.¹⁴⁶ According to the government of Papua New Guinea, the
French testing demonstrated ‘disrespect for the unanimous position of the peoples of the region’.¹⁴⁷

Second, non-nuclear-weapon states used diplomatic signals to communicate their deep disapproval of the status quo. In 1995, for example, Japan froze development aid to China in protest to the continuing Chinese tests. Australia and Chile recalled their envoys from Paris to protest the French tests in the Pacific.¹⁴⁸ New Zealand cut all military cooperation with France. Moreover, the neutral and non-aligned states adopted a more confrontational line at multilateral conferences. While non-nuclear-weapon states blocked consensus at only one of the four major conferences held in the 1980s (the 1980 NPT review conference), non-aligned states blocked consensus at the NPT review conferences in both 1990 and 1995. As discussed below, the non-aligned states also convened a PTBT amendment conference in full knowledge that the conference would fail in its official purpose; in fact, the inevitability of failure was precisely the point. The only consensus decision reached in a multilateral nuclear disarmament forum in the 1990s – the 1995 decision to extend the NPT indefinitely – was reportedly achieved in part through diplomatic arm-twisting by the major powers.

Third, non-nuclear-weapon states demonstrated intense hostility to additional non-proliferation measures. The IAEA's development of a new 'gold standard' for non-proliferation safeguards – the 1997 IAEA Additional Protocol – was met with fierce opposition from many non-nuclear-weapon states. Only 16 states signed the Protocol between its conclusion in the spring of 1997 and the 2000 NPT review conference. Interestingly, many of the Additional Protocol's greatest critics were fully committed to the norm of non-proliferation – something recent research and archival documents corroborate.¹⁴⁹ Why did states fully committed to nuclear non-proliferation oppose more robust non-proliferation measures? As argued by Andrew Grotto, many states oppose additional non-proliferation measures not necessarily because they want to keep their options open, ‘but because of what accepting those measures would symbolize about the equity of the nonproliferation regime and the international system’.¹⁵⁰

Fourth, India and Pakistan, two long-time nuclear threshold states, openly tested nuclear weapons and declared themselves nuclear powers. And while many non-nuclear-weapon states condemned these actions, a significant number made veiled or explicit excuses for the proliferators, blaming the nuclear-weapon states for their lack of commitment to disarmament. The nuclear-weapon states called for international sanctions against the two states to force them to give up their nuclear-weapon programmes and sign the NPT, but few non-aligned states joined the effort, and the sanctions were dropped after just a few years.

Fifth, the 1990s saw several non-nuclear-weapon states party to the NPT threatening to withdraw. North Korea even announced its withdrawal from the NPT in 1993, but was brought back in the fold by the international system's unipole (see below). At a diplomatic event in 1995, a representative of
the NPT party Nigeria postulated ‘that “the only reason that Nigeria does not have nuclear weapons is that we cannot afford them now” (with the “now” emphasised)’.¹⁵¹ Deeply frustrated with the regime’s inability to bring about a world without nuclear weapons, Mexico warned in 1996 that, if the nuclear powers did not soon meet their obligations under article VI, ‘we would need to revise our continuation as party to the Treaty’.¹⁵² By the late 1990s, ‘credible’ rumours reportedly circulated that a number of non-aligned states were contemplating exiting the regime in protest to the nuclear-weapon states’ lack of commitment to article VI.¹⁵³ Just how credible these rumours were is difficult to assess. But the fact that the rumours were there in the first place is a testament to the notion that the normative foundations of the NPT were in question.

The North Korean storyline took centre stage in the non-proliferation community in the early 1990s. In 1993, citing threats to its sovereignty, North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT. Pyongyang's 'nuclear deviancy' was a product of its concerns with both material and ontological security – concerns combined in the North Korean state ideology of *Juche*, described officially as a 'philosophy to materialize the independence of the popular masses'.¹⁵⁴ As the scholar Jina Kim points out, the North Korean government was obsessed with the nation's 'dignity' and 'sovereign right'.

> North Korea's provocative reactions were described as 'righteous actions against injustice.' North Korean negotiators often stressed that Pyongyang would agree to seek a solution if the IAEA did not 'abuse its authority' and the US demonstrated sensitivity for North Korea's 'prestige.'¹⁵⁵

The North Korean crisis was temporarily resolved in 1994. Striking a bilateral agreement with the United States – an example of what Reus-Smit calls ‘material compensation’ for dwindling voluntary compliance with norms¹⁵⁶ – North Korea re-committed to the NPT.¹⁵⁷

Confronted with the nuclear-weapon states' reluctance to take decisive steps towards abolition, non-nuclear-weapon states with ambitions of climbing in the international status hierarchy were compelled to make a choice: They could either redouble their efforts at effecting disarmament, aiming to pull the nuclear-weapon states 'down' from their privileged position in the nuclear hierarchy, or they could build their own nuclear weapons in a bid to elevate themselves to the level of the existing nuclear-weapon states. The sense that the extant nuclear order had contributed to freezing the international prestige hierarchy was strongest among regional and so-called emerging powers. Tellingly, the second half of the 1990s saw most of these states either spearheading bold disarmament initiatives (Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa) or acquiring nuclear weapons (India and Pakistan).

The prestige grievance was arguably most intense in India – the world's second largest state as measured by population. Ever since India gained
independence from the British Empire, Indian governments had seen disarma-
ment negotiations as platforms for furthering India's 'objective of achieving
international status'.¹⁵⁸ But as time went on without major breakthroughs on
the disarmament agenda, Indian policymakers decided to follow a new path.
While many states and civil society organisations interpreted the indefinite
extension of the NPT in 1995 as a compromise deal between the nuclear and
non-nuclear-weapon states, the Indian government saw the extension as a legit-
imisation of the nuclear-weapon states' permanent retention of nuclear arms.¹⁵⁹

In the spring of 1998, both India and Pakistan conducted a series of under-
ground nuclear-weapon tests. India's capability had been known since 1974
(see Chapter 2), and Pakistan had been suspected of being in the process of
developing nuclear weapons for several years. But the tests nevertheless posed
a significant challenge to the non-proliferation regime. India and Pakistan
became the first states since China in the mid-1960s to explicitly declare them-
selves nuclear powers. While both governments cited national security threats
to justify their actions, concerns with status and recognition were also on dis-
play. Balasaheb Thackeray, an Indian politician, justified India's crossing over
from latent to manifest nuclear-weapons capability by stating that '[w]e had
to prove that we are not eunuchs'.¹⁶⁰ In an article in *Foreign Affairs*, Jaswant
Singh, an Indian MP and senior advisor to the prime minister, argued that
the indefinite extension of the NPT had 'legitimized in perpetuity the existing
nuclear arsenals and, in effect, an unequal nuclear regime'.¹⁶¹ Maintaining that
the extension had forced India's hand, Singh asserted that 'India could have
lived with a nuclear option but without overt weaponization in a world where
nuclear weapons had not been formally legitimized'.¹⁶² Bharatiya Janata, the
ruling party in India, proclaimed 'a day of prestige' after the tests.¹⁶³

For Katherine Young, India's tests were 'only tangentially about security. Their significance is emotional'. To the Indian people, 'it is conclusive evidence that we count'.¹⁶⁴ According to Itty Abraham, the bomb was regarded by Indian elites as 'a sign of India's advancement and equality with the Western developed countries, a negation of stereotypes about the effeminacy and historical weakness of the nation, and an argument against the mimetic and derivative nature of its science and technology'.¹⁶⁵ There was, of course, something deeply ironic about this: By seeking prestige through nuclear armament, India had joined the game it for decades had portrayed as a neo-colonial evil. Himadeep Muppidi puts it succinctly:

> The tests were, in many ways, a refusal to quietly accept the position of an object in an emerging global colonial order. But they also signaled an increasing willingness on the part of Indian policymakers to accept full membership in a global order that they themselves had condemned as colonial.¹⁶⁶

Pakistan had similar concerns to India. Although Pakistan arguably did not
have the same ambitions as India for recognition as a great power, there
seems to have been a strong sense among Pakistani elites that Pakistan had to match its neighbour, India. As noted in the conceptual framework (Chapter 1), status competition typically follows the formula of ‘similar but upward’.¹⁶⁷ Pakistan’s desire to maintain parity with India appears to have been grounded in both material security concerns and ideas about standing and prestige. After Pakistan’s successful nuclear tests in 1998, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister, ‘triumphantly declared to have “settled the score”’ with India’.¹⁶⁸ Cultural forces were clearly involved. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the man who had initiated Pakistan’s nuclear programme, laments in his memoirs that ‘the Christian, Jewish, Hindu civilisations have this [nuclear] capability. The Communist Powers also possess it. Only the Islamic civilization was without it’.¹⁶⁹ In both Pakistani and Indian elite circles, George Perkovich argues, ‘the feeling exists’ that there is a ‘“white man” view that “black and brown” people are peculiarly unfit to have such weapons. [...] That perception affronts the dignity of Indians, Pakistanis, and no doubt others in Asia’.¹⁷⁰

The reception of the tests in the international community was far from universally condemnatory.¹⁷¹ According to Himadeep Muppidi, many in the developing world saw the tests as ‘desirable demonstrations of technical competence and political agency’.¹⁷² The tests, in this view, were interpreted as manifestations of an active resistance to nuclear hierarchy and the political marginalisation of the Global South. Several states offered at least implicit moral support.¹⁷³ The Kenyan delegation to the 1998/99 UNGA, for example, made the following intervention:

> The nuclear tests carried out by India and Pakistan will no doubt be remembered as having dealt a serious blow to our aspirations for a world free of nuclear weapons. It is indeed regrettable that the insecurity created as a result of the lack of serious commitment by the nuclear-weapon States to move towards disarmament has provided an excuse for others, who may have felt the need to ensure their own security, to test.¹⁷⁴

Mexico’s Miguel Marín-Bosch pointed out what he saw as clear hypocrisy on the part of the established nuclear powers:

> [T]ake their reaction to the Indian and Pakistani tests. It is simply one of repeating the same old refrain of ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ [...] Finally, take their attitude to the CTBT. The United States, for example, urges India and Pakistan to sign a treaty that the US Congress has no current plans to ratify. As the NPT prepares for its 2000 review conference – a preparation thus far marked by dissent, acrimony and stalemate – it is hard to repress fundamental concerns for the future of the treaty, and with it the international disarmament and non-proliferation regime. Some States are trying to address, rather than repress,
those fundamental concerns. The nuclear-weapon States, however, are
not among them.¹⁷⁵

A representative of the United States, for his part, maintained that, although it was ‘natural to want to place the main burden on the biggest guys’, smaller states should not use lacking disarmament to ‘excuse inaction or justify wholly unacceptable action by others’.¹⁷⁶

A pressing question was whether or how to acknowledge or grant recognition of India and Pakistan as nuclear powers. Publishing an official statement, the five original nuclear-weapon states argued that, despite India's and Pakistan's undeniable material capabilities, they did 'not have the status of nuclear-weapons states in accordance with the NPT'.¹⁷⁷ 'We will not amend the NPT to accommodate India and Pakistan', added the then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.¹⁷⁸ According to a Chinese official, the attempt by India and Pakistan 'to acquire so called great Power status through such [nuclear] tests will go nowhere'.¹⁷⁹ China and the other nuclear-weapon states were undoubtedly eager to protect the norm of non-proliferation. But it is hard to escape the sense that they were also jealously seeking to prevent an expansion of the great-power club. Replying to these statements, Jaswant Singh argued that 'India is now a nuclear weapons state, as is Pakistan. That reality can neither be denied nor wished away'.¹⁸⁰ The wider nuclear discourse quickly came to be structured by distinctions between 'official'/'unofficial', 'recognised'/'non-recognised', and 'legitimate'/'illegitimate' nuclear powers.¹⁸¹ And while the term 'nuclear-weapon state' became reserved for the legally acknowledged, original nuclear powers (often also referred to as the P5 due to the same states' permanent seats on the UN Security Council), terms such as 'nuclear possessor state' and 'nuclear-armed state' entered common usage to refer to the material condition of possessing nuclear weapons.

At the NPT review conference in 2000, Achin Vanaik argues, ‘India and Pakistan were the major diplomatic losers’, as their claims to ‘NWS status’ were firmly rejected by the international community.¹⁸² Ever since, the role of the ‘unofficial’ nuclear powers has been somewhat unsettled. In a March 2000 *New York Times* opinion piece, John Mearsheimer, a self-proclaimed structural realist, in effect uses the logic and vocabulary of recognition theory to further a normative case for recognition of India as a nuclear-weapon state:

> Despite its huge population, booming economy and growing nuclear arsenal, President Clinton, like his predecessors, refuses to show India the respect it deserves. He thereby perpetuates a needless estrangement between two natural allies. This disrespect is most apparent on the nuclear front.¹⁸³

Mearsheimer's article demonstrates the way in which formal status as a
nuclear-weapon state is often viewed as a special social entitlement – a sort
of crowning moment for great powers. In the next chapter, I discuss how
India was indeed granted partial or de facto recognition as a nuclear-weapon
state through a bilateral agreement with the United States. In the following,
I move to the institutional expressions of the crisis of legitimacy that affected
the nuclear regime complex in the 1990s.

The PTBT Amendment Conference

The 1991 Partial Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty amendment conference was the result of intensive behind-the-scenes lobbying by an NGO called Parliamentarians for Global Action, which had partnered up with Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, and other non-aligned states to gather the necessary support to compel the PTBT's depositary states, i.e., the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States, to convene a conference to explore the possibility of transforming the PTBT, which banned atmospheric and underwater nuclear testing, into a comprehensive ban on any and all nuclear explosive testing.184 As discussed elsewhere in this book, a comprehensive ban was seen as an important disarmament measure as it was believed that a prohibition on all explosive testing would make it far more difficult for the nuclear-armed states to test and refine new warhead designs. A total ban, in this view, could help curb nuclear development pressures and, ultimately, slow and reverse the arms race.

As established by article II of the PTBT, the depository states are obliged
to convene an amendment conference if requested by a third of the treaty's
parties. To take effect, however, an actual amendment of the treaty would
have to be endorsed by all three depositaries. That meant that the two states
most openly hostile to a CTBT at the time, the United Kingdom and the
United States, would be able to veto any proposed amendment (the Soviet
Union claimed to support the negotiation of a CTBT, but opposed inspec-
tions). The non-aligned states that supported the convening of the conference
were, of course, fully aware of this fact. Indeed, the United Kingdom and
the United States had both announced that they would not hesitate to block
attempts at broadening the material scope of the PTBT.185

From a strict rationalist perspective, the non-aligned states' insistence on convening a conference they knew in advance would for sure fail to produce agreement seems strange. From the theoretical perspective advanced in this study, however, the conference would appear to fill two crucial functions – one autotelic and one instrumental: First, by opening an additional space for resistance to the status quo, the amendment conference allowed dissatisfied non-nuclear-weapon states to act out their opposition to the nuclear-weapon states' alleged subversion of the regime complex' disarmament goals. In the words of the Swedish UNGA delegation, for example, the conference was an expression of non-nuclear-weapon states' 'understandable frustration' with the continuing paralysis on the test ban issue.186 Second, by forcing the test-ban issue higher on the international agenda, the amendment conference could
increase the diplomatic pressure on the nuclear-weapon states to negotiate a CTBT in the future. According to a commentator in the *Bulletin*, a pervasive view among ‘Westerners’ was that the main purpose of an amendment conference would be ‘to embarrass the United States and the United Kingdom’.¹⁸⁷

The conference was chaired by the Indonesian foreign minister. And the proceedings were about as acrimonious as could be expected. While a number of non-aligned states claimed that the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States had not lived up to their treaty commitment to end all nuclear testing, the United States’ chief negotiator, Mary Hoinkes, reportedly caused a stir by suggesting that the whole effort of convening the conference was ‘not serious’.¹⁸⁸ According to a *New York Times* editorial, the US representative ‘gratuitously offended states that want a total test ban’.¹⁸⁹ Of the PTBT’s 117 parties, 100 participated. Only two of those 100 were openly opposed to negotiating a comprehensive test ban. But as those states held veto rights, the conference could not agree to anything substantive. Yet, as argued by William Epstein, the ‘Conference sponsors feel they have raised the comprehensive test ban once again to a top place on the international arms control agenda’.¹⁹⁰ To the great pleasure of the Indonesian delegation, the amendment conference provided the first multilateral negotiating forum (as opposed to a deliberative forum) within the nuclear regime complex in which ‘all countries, nuclear and non-nuclear alike’, were able to participate.¹⁹¹ The non-aligned states agreed that they would continue the process of convening amendment conferences until the nuclear-weapon states agreed to initiate serious negotiations.¹⁹² But there would not be a second amendment conference. Coming into power in 1993, US President Bill Clinton reversed his predecessors’ opposition to the CTBT and agreed to initiate multilateral negotiations on a comprehensive test ban in the Geneva Conference.¹⁹³ While public pressure appears to have contributed to the US and, by implication, British about-face (all UK nuclear testing had for a long time been conducted at US test sites),¹⁹⁴ critical analysts pointed out that the major nuclear powers only agreed to initiate negotiations once they had accumulated all the testing data they could ever need to maintain and develop new warheads.¹⁹⁵ That said, a number of influential actors within the nuclear-weapon states’ respective defence establishments continued to oppose the negotiation of a comprehensive ban.¹⁹⁶ The shift in the US position also coincided with a shift towards greater acceptance of verification measures within the Soviet Union.

As had also been the case during the mid-1970s, the early 1990s saw growing differences between nuclear and non-nuclear-weapon states over the meaning of article VI and the legitimacy of nuclear weapons as instruments of policy. While the neutral and non-aligned states argued that the NPT and UNSSOD-I final document made it clear that nuclear weapons were fundamentally illegitimate, some of the nuclear-weapon states openly argued that the NPT gave them the right to possess nuclear weapons more or less indefinitely. France, for example, which joined the NPT in 1992, argued that, as a nuclear-weapon state under the NPT and a permanent member of the
UN Security Council, it had ‘the right to maintain her deterrent at a credible level’.¹⁹⁷ After the 1995 NPT review and extension conference (discussed below), a UK official asserted that the extension had signified a ‘ringing endorsement’ of ‘the right of the nuclear powers to keep their weapons’.¹⁹⁸ Such statements, disarmament advocates argued, made the nuclear-weapon states’ ‘true intentions’ abundantly clear.¹⁹⁹ They also appeared to perpetuate the prestige value of nuclear weapons.²⁰⁰

## *The ICJ Advisory Opinion on Nuclear Weapons*

In May 1993, two years after the PTBT amendment conference, a group of non-aligned states made another confrontational move. Encouraged by NGOs, in particular the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), 22 non-aligned states tabled a resolution at the World Health Assembly requesting the World Health Organization (WHO) to authorise the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to deliver an advisory opinion on the following question: ‘In view of the health and environmental effects, would the use of nuclear weapons by a State in war or other armed conflict be a breach of its obligations under international law including the WHO Constitution?’²⁰¹ The intention of the co-sponsors and the NGOs that supported them was clearly to have the Court declare the use of nuclear weapons unlawful through the legal back door of an advisory opinion. If the Court ruled that the use of nuclear weapons would inevitably fail to meet the standards of international humanitarian law, so went the argument, the nuclear powers would have a much harder time legitimising their retention and continuing modernisation of such arms.²⁰²

Despite opposition by the nuclear-weapon states and most of their allies, the resolution was adopted by the World Health Assembly by 73 votes to 40, with ten abstentions. The nuclear-weapon states and their allies did not give up that easily, though. Over the following months, they argued strongly that the World Health Assembly did not have the authority to make such a request. If the non-aligned states wanted an ICJ advisory opinion, they would have to go through the UNGA, not the WHO, the nuclear-weapon states argued. The result was that the NAM tabled an even more ambitious resolution to the UNGA in the fall of 1993. This time, the question asked was the following: ‘Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstances permitted under international law?’ By adding the element of ‘threat’ – which both the respective non-aligned states and the Court took to be largely synonymous with the practice of nuclear deterrence – the non-aligned states promoting the initiative took aim not just at the nuclear powers, but also those non-nuclear-weapon states involved in extended nuclear deterrence practices.²⁰³

For Miguel Marín-Bosch, a respected and influential figure in the disarmament community, the rationale behind taking the nuclear question to the ICJ was clear: The standard disarmament framework available to the non-nuclear-weapon states had proved unsatisfactory.
[A]t each of the NPT’s five review conferences, two fundamental questions have been raised. First, have the non-nuclear-weapon state lived up to their part of the bargain by remaining non-nuclear-weapon States? And second, have the NWS fulfilled their nuclear disarmament obligations? Invariably, the answer to the first question has been in the affirmative while the second has been in the negative.²⁰⁴

‘Our recourse to the court now, with the full support of civil society’, postulated a Malaysian diplomat, ‘is tantamount to a last appeal for justice’.²⁰⁵ Certain states reportedly also believed that the initiative could have trickle-down effects on ongoing debates about UN Security Council reform.²⁰⁶ Several of the emerging powers that were active in promoting the resolution – Brazil, Indonesia, India, Mexico – were vying for permanent membership or other significant alterations of the UN Security Council’s structure. It was also argued that the advisory opinion would provide ‘a positive contribution’ to the 1995 NPT review and extension conference.²⁰⁷ More immediately, the initiative was a means of expanding the regime’s *agentes* or, as supporters put it, ‘an attempt by non-nuclear states to bring another international institution [the ICJ] into play’.²⁰⁸ The initiative received energetic backing from a coalition of NGOs called the World Court Project (WCP). Originating in New Zealand in 1986, WCP mobilised NGOs from across the world to promote the idea of an ICJ advisory opinion on nuclear weapons.

Upon learning of the draft UNGA resolution and its contents, the nuclear powers initiated a campaign of counter-resistance. Several of the established major powers reportedly sent delegations to NAM capitals and threatened to withdraw aid or cancel trade deals if the resolution was not withdrawn.²⁰⁹ NAM consensus eventually cracked, and the resolution was withdrawn before it was put to a vote. ‘During my 20 years’ experience as a UN delegate’, said a Swedish official, ‘I have never seen such supreme power politics openly being used as during the fall of 1993’. ‘Hysteria is not too strong a word to describe the nuclear weapon states’ point of view around here’, said Canada’s ambassador. WCP activists thought the battle was lost.²¹⁰

But the government's championing of the resolution came back stronger. Just a few weeks after the 1993 UNGA First Committee meeting, the NAM meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo decided to reintroduce the resolution in 1994 and to put it to a vote. ‘To these countries’, Manfred Mohr claims, ‘the situation of “nuclear apartheid” was simply intolerable’.²¹¹ The nuclear-weapon states’ attempts at derailing the initiative only seemed to confirm the non-aligned states’ suspicion that the nuclear-weapon states would not agree to disarmament even now that the Cold War had ended.²¹² According to WCP activists, NAM states were ‘infuriated’ and doubly determined to push on.²¹³ The resolution was eventually adopted with 78 votes in favour, 43 against, and with 38 states abstaining. The nuclear-weapon states and their allies had revealed ‘their real attitude to nuclear weapons’, said the Mexican Ambassador Marín-Bosch.²¹⁴ While the United States and the Soviet
Union had signed two major strategic arms reduction treaties – Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) I in 1991 and START II in 1993 – progress towards complete abolition looked uncertain.

It might appear puzzling that the nuclear-weapon states’ pushback only seemed to generate greater resistance by the non-aligned states. It is a mantra of much International Relations theory that securing the support of ‘critical states’ is a prerequisite for any diplomatic initiative to gain momentum.²¹⁵ The literature on social movements offers a different perspective. To wit, Charles Brockett argues that while repression of protest is often successful when the wider social structure is stable, otherwise similar attempts at suppressing protest tend to backfire during times of upheaval, triggering more rather than less resistance.²¹⁶ This fits well with the pattern described above. In the context of an ongoing crisis of legitimacy, the nuclear-weapon states’ attempt at suppressing the advisory-opinion initiative aggravated the non-aligned states’ grievances against nuclear hierarchy. As one commentator put it, the ‘rearguard actions of the Five – the United Kingdom, Russia, France, the United States, and China – seem increasingly like the petulence of a clique that has lost its charisma’.²¹⁷

Endowed by the UN Charter with the authority to settle international legal disputes, the ICJ is the ‘principal judicial organ of the United Nations’.²¹⁸ Owing to its formal role as international society’s highest court, cross-regional composition, and the professional competence of the 15 judges in its employ, the Court commands significant influence.²¹⁹ And while the Court cannot force a state to do anything against its will – state consent (sovereignty) remains the foundation of international law – the ICJ’s decisions and opinions are considered authoritative expressions of *lex lata*.

As a part of the legal process of the ICJ, stakeholders were invited to court hearings. The court hearings on the nuclear question took place in the autumn of 1995. These provided a new arena for engagement, adding another ad hoc *locus* to the regime’s existing institutional infrastructure. Measured by the number of states participating, the court hearings for the nuclear advisory opinion were the most popular in the history of the ICJ.²²⁰ France’s continued nuclear testing became a hot topic during the oral proceedings, releasing, as the *Washington Post* put it, ‘a typhoon of anger’ among non-nuclear-weapon states.²²¹

Through their advocacy and expert advice on complex legal issues, civil society actors were instrumental in bringing about the advisory opinion. Through the World Court Project, anti-nuclear governments and NGOs collaborated more closely than ever before.²²² In fact, the World Court Project was one of the first instantiations of what has since been labelled ‘new diplomacy’ – social-movement-type mobilisation of grand coalitions of states and NGOs that ‘draw strength and legitimacy through numbers and the mobilization of “boundary role” players in civil society and nongovernmental organizations’.²²³ Indeed, some of the people and organisations involved in the World Court Project later contributed to launching more famous new-diplomacy initiatives such as the campaigns to ban anti-personnel landmines
and to establish the International Criminal Court.²²⁴ Yet, influential as the World Court Project was in promoting the advisory opinion and inspiring subsequent diplomatic initiatives, its main contribution lay in providing expert advice and encouragement to the already converted neutral and non-aligned states. None of the states in the higher echelons of the nuclear hierarchy proved particularly receptive to direct pressure.

The *Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons* was published by the ICJ in 1996. It did not quite contain the conclusions the champions of the World Court Project had hoped. By split decision, the Court ruled that it could not determine definitively whether the use of nuclear weapons would be illegal in ‘extreme circumstances of self-defence’.²²⁵ This meant that the nuclear-weapon states could maintain that their possession and potential use of nuclear weapons remained lawful. However, the ruling contained a tangential statement of great value to the non-aligned states and others promoting disarmament: By a unanimous decision of all 15 judges, the Court stated that there exists an obligation not just to ‘negotiate’ effective measures for nuclear disarmament, as suggested by the wording of the NPT, but to bring nuclear disarmament negotiations ‘to a conclusion’, i.e., that complete nuclear disarmament was indeed a standing legal obligation.²²⁶ The opinion also concluded that, ‘in view of the unique characteristics of nuclear weapons’, the use of such arms ‘seems scarcely reconcilable’ with the requirements of ‘humanity’.²²⁷ The use of nuclear weapons, the Court concluded, would in most realistic scenarios constitute a violation of international humanitarian law.

*Backlash in the United States and Disarmament in the Post-Soviet Space*

While the mid-1990s saw several influential US security experts and practitioners planting their flags in the nuclear abolitionist camp, arms control and disarmament sceptics scored important victories in Congress. Many in conservative circles were adamant that the United States should make the most of its unipolar moment and eschew military restraint. In 1995, a Republican faction sceptical of independent scrutiny of weapon programmes secured the dissolution of the Office of Technology Assessments, a body tasked with providing members of Congress with objective information and analysis about scientific and technical issues, including arms development.²²⁸ Two years later, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jesse Helms and other Republicans ideologically opposed to arms control and disarmament secured a backroom agreement to permanently dissolve the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), the US government’s hub of disarmament expertise since the 1960s.²²⁹

Another major development of the early-to-mid 1990s was the renunciation of nuclear weapons by Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. The dissolution of the Soviet Union had left four new states with nuclear weapons on their territories – Russia and the three states just mentioned. While Moscow was in control of the launch codes necessary to use the weapons – certainly
this applied to all the strategic arms – it was not axiomatically the case that
Russia owned or had a right to seize the weapons located in the other post-
Soviet states. Launch codes and electronic locks preventing unauthorised use
could likely also be broken or circumvented in time; US authorities claimed
in 1993 that there were ‘specific programs underway to develop launch codes
and triggering mechanisms for nuclear weapons located in Ukraine’.²³⁰ In
each case, renunciation was informed by broader movements to rearticu-
late new national identities distinct from that of the militaristic and ‘nuclear’
Soviet Union.²³¹ The three states’ respective decisions to relinquish nuclear
arms were clearly also influenced by diplomatic pressure and international
normative expectations, in particular the NPT and attendant norm of nuclear
non-proliferation.²³² In the words of a senior Ukrainian official, scrapping
nuclear weapons and joining the NPT would help Ukraine gain ‘a kind of
passport to the international community of civilized nations’.²³³

The disarmament process was most difficult in Ukraine. Demanding recognition as a lawful successor state to the Soviet Union, many Ukrainian elites saw the question of nuclear ownership as a matter of principle.²³⁴ The Ukrainian leadership also wanted to make sure that the weapons it gave up were dismantled and not merely redeployed by Russia.²³⁵ The eventual removal (to Russia) and dismantlement (partly in Russia and partly in the states wherein the weapons had been based) of the nuclear weapons in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine was brought about in large measure through the US Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction programme established in 1991 (many of the weapons were also relevant under the START I agreement). Involving the United States and a number of post-Soviet states, the Nunn–Lugar programme constituted a highly successful regional multilateral disarmament effort aimed at assisting with the safe and secure transportation, storage, and dismantlement of nuclear, chemical, and other weapons in the former Soviet Union.²³⁶ While the three states’ respective decisions to renounce nuclear weapons were national choices subject to domestic politics, the Nunn–Lugar programme played an important role in implementing those decisions.

Beyond the factors described above, renunciation was also facilitated by
the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, an agreement through which Russia, the
United Kingdom, and the United States, in connection with the respective
states' accession to the NPT, undertook never to use military force against
Belarus, Kazakhstan, or Ukraine save in 'self-defence or otherwise in accord-
ance with the Charter of the United Nations'.²³⁷ The Budapest Memorandum
would later be violently cast aside when, in 2014, Russia intervened in
Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Eight years later, Russia also launched a full-
scale invasion, aiming to force through regime change in Kyiv.

Renewing the NPT

On the horizon throughout the 1980s and early 1990s was a critical event
in the history of the nuclear regime complex: the 1995 NPT review and
extension conference.²³⁸ As stipulated by the NPT’s article X, the treaty would remain in effect for a 25-year period after its entry into force. After 25 years, a conference would be convened to decide whether the treaty should be extended indefinitely or for another fixed period or periods. Many neutral and non-aligned states viewed the conference as an excellent opportunity to wrest disarmament commitments from the nuclear-weapon states. With the Cold War over, many were hopeful that the extension conference could provide an opportunity to effect transformative change. According to a report in *Strategic Survey*,

> the current wave of interest in nuclear abolition is a by-product of the debate over whether and how to extend the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the diplomacy associated with the NPT Review and Extension Conference of April-May 1995. In advance of the conference, the nuclear powers were subjected to several years of mounting pressure from many quarters, including non-nuclear states as well as groups advocating arms control, to fulfil their obligation to pursue nuclear disarmament, as required by article VI of the NPT.²³⁹

Following the fractious advisory-opinion initiative and acrimonious multi-lateral conferences in 1990 and 1991, the NPT review and extension conference was convened in an atmosphere of diplomatic polarisation between the neutral and non-aligned states, on the one hand, and the nuclear powers and many of their military allies, on the other. US President Bill Clinton had run as an advocate of denuclearisation, but, in June 1994, the US Department of Defense finalised a ‘nuclear posture review’ that on the whole upheld the fundamentals of US Cold War nuclear policy. This implied, inter alia, the retention of thousands of alert nuclear warheads and a full nuclear triad.²⁴⁰ In a significant rhetorical realignment, the Pentagon had indicated that the primary function of nuclear weapons was no longer to deter a specific adversary from undertaking specific acts, but instead to hedge against threats that might emerge in the future.²⁴¹ As pointed out by the analysts Tanya Ogilvie-White and David Santoro, by the mid-1990s, ‘a “second nuclear age” spawned a new generation of deterrence theories that attempted to legitimize nuclear weapons retention as an insurance policy against the rise of new nuclear threats’.²⁴²

The Clinton administration had ceased nuclear testing and engaged constructively in the CTBT negotiations, but took measures to retain expertise in the field of warhead development and maintenance through a ‘stockpile stewardship’ programme implemented by the US national nuclear laboratories.²⁴³ In anticipation of leaner years ahead for the defence industry, the Clinton administration also sponsored a series of mergers and acquisitions in the US arms sector. According to one analyst, this consolidation process – involving the emergence of corporate giants such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman – led to a strengthening of the Cold War
‘rentseeking triangles’ of economic, political, and military elites with stakes in the military-industrial complex.²⁴⁴

Passing a UN Security Council resolution on nuclear security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon states in advance of the conference, the nuclear-weapon states had ostensibly endeavoured to make a gesture of good faith. But while China offered a near unconditional pledge that it would not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states, the other four made more ambiguous promises, seemingly reserving the right to use nuclear weapons in self-defence. Several non-nuclear-weapon states remained adamant that security assurances would only have value if codified in a precisely worded and legally binding instrument. Some were sceptical that security assurances would have value at all so long as the weapons remained in place and in a constant state of readiness. As discussed above, non-aligned hardliners had waived consultations on security assurances when blocking consensus at the NPT review conference in 1990.²⁴⁵ Moreover, the primary nuclear threat most non-nuclear-weapon states were faced with was not the relatively remote possibility of being directly targeted with nuclear arms – the major powers would hardly need nuclear weapons to win wars against the majority of non-nuclear-weapon states – but rather the prospect of being battered by the transboundary consequences of somebody else’s nuclear conflict.

As its name suggests, the NPT review and extension conference was really two conferences in one. The NPT parties would first decide on the matter of the NPT’s extension. Then, once the decision on extension had been made, they would take stock of the implementation of the treaty over the foregoing five years. On the first matter, the nuclear-weapon states and most of their allies argued for an indefinite extension without disarmament conditions attached. Most neutral and non-aligned states, for their part, wanted any extension to be conditioned on disarmament actions by the nuclear-weapon states. Yet the neutral and non-aligned states were caught in a difficult position. After all, most non-nuclear-weapon states believed non-proliferation to be in their interest regardless of what the nuclear-weapon states did on the disarmament agenda. As a case in point, a Nigerian representative’s suggestion that their country might consider acquiring nuclear arms should the nuclear-weapon states continue to drag their feet on disarmament was reportedly received with alarm by several West African states.²⁴⁶ At the same time, most neutral and non-aligned states were keen to use the bargaining leverage that flowed from their collective power over the treaty’s future. As ever, disarmament was viewed as an imperative of both security and justice. Many were also wary of the social status implications of perpetuating the NPT indefinitely. The Indonesian delegation, for example, asserted that an indefinite extension without conditions attached would ‘ratify inequality in international relations once and for all, and relegate the non-nuclear countries to second-class status’.²⁴⁷ The Zambian delegation expressed concern that an indefinite and
unconditional extension would mean that the ‘discriminatory features [of the NPT] will be codified and will thus become immutable’.²⁴⁸

After weeks of intense discussions, the NPT parties agreed to a ‘renewed NPT bargain’ brokered by the Canadian and South African delegations.²⁴⁹ Several accounts suggest that the outcome was secured in part through diplomatic arm-twisting and threats of economic consequences by the major powers.²⁵⁰ In exchange for the indefinite extension of the treaty, the nuclear-weapon states and their allies agreed to a so-called package of commitments. The first element of the package was a decision to significantly expand the NPT review process in scope and ambition. From now on, the review process would consist of four major conferences for every five-year cycle – three preparatory committee meetings (in Vienna, Geneva, and New York) and one concluding review conference (in New York). The review process would also be formally mandated to make specific recommendations on implementation, not just to review past work.²⁵¹ The second element was a declaration on ‘Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament’ that, inter alia, called for the negotiation of a treaty prohibiting the production of fissile material for weapons purposes – a proposal that had been discussed at irregular intervals since the 1940s – and the conclusion of CTBT negotiations ‘no later than 1996’.²⁵² The third element was a resolution urging the creation of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Middle East. The latter had been a major demand of several states in the Arab League. For them, discussions on a WMD-free zone provided a means of putting diplomatic pressure on Israel, which was universally suspected of having developed nuclear weapons sometime in the late 1960s.²⁵³ The fact that the Western powers seemed to look between their fingers when it came to Israel’s development of nuclear weapons was greatly resented by many non-aligned states, particularly the members of the League.²⁵⁴

The extension question, then, was resolved by a consensus agreement. But, on the review question, no agreement could be found. A group of non-aligned states, deeply critical of the nuclear-weapon states’ track record on article VI, opposed consensus on the draft final declaration. According to the Canadian ambassador, ‘[t]he lack of a review declaration at this Conference can be attributed to some extent to the “bruised feelings” of some of the participants’.²⁵⁵ It is certainly possible or even likely that many non-aligned officials felt steamrollered and slighted; the Venezuelan ambassador, for example, resigned when the nuclear-weapon states’ preferred extension option won the day. But the blocking of consensus on the review might perhaps more fruitfully be interpreted as a rational diplomatic signal: Despite the agreement on an indefinite extension, the nuclear-weapon states should have no illusions that the non-aligned states accepted a permanent nuclear hierarchy.

The 1995 conference saw several influential states participate for the first time. Having finally shed their once principled objections to the non-proliferation project, China and France had both acceded to the NPT in 1992, joining the treaty as nuclear-weapon states. Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine were
there. South Africa was also a newcomer, having discontinued its nuclear-weapon programme a few years prior. For South Africa, which had developed nuclear weapons in the 1970s, disarmament came about as part of a broader process of dismantling the militaristic apartheid regime. At the 1995 conference, the South African delegation was instrumental in bringing a group of hardline non-aligned states on-board with the extension deal.²⁵⁶ Middle powers Algeria, Argentina, Mozambique, and Tanzania also took part in the NPT process for the first time. Chile was in the process of joining and participated as an observer. Brazil would not formally join the NPT until 1998 but had seemingly committed firmly in favour of non-proliferation.²⁵⁷ In each case, the end of the Cold War and the gradual strengthening of the norm of non-proliferation appear to have played important roles in pushing erstwhile holdouts towards accepting the NPT. Importantly, the breakdown of one of the Cold War power blocs meant that non-aligned holdouts lost their traditional means of eluding superpower pressure, namely their opportunity to threaten to align with the opposing power bloc if pressure from one side grew too bothersome.²⁵⁸ The collapse of the Soviet Union also meant that states formerly in the wider Soviet sphere of influence lost (or were freed from) their patron and, by implication, their diplomatic cover. States in the American sphere of influence, for their part, soon found that anti-communism alone no longer sufficed to stay on good terms with Washington; the Pinochet regime in Chile, for example, had clearly enjoyed a long leash from Washington due to its supposed usefulness as a bulwark against socialism.²⁵⁹ Finally, the end of the Cold War also fundamentally transformed the incentives faced by many of the liberal democracies that during the 1960s had been wary of tying their hands indefinitely. For states such as Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, which had all opposed giving the NPT indefinite duration during the original negotiations, the demise of the Soviet Union undermined the argument for nuclear hedging. In conjunction, the emergence of American unipolarity increased the reputational costs of opposition to US normative leadership.

It is also worth noting that the 1995 conference saw major developments in the organisation of the NGO community. During the conference, a large group of NGOs launched a transnational advocacy network to work for the negotiation of a comprehensive convention to eliminate nuclear weapons by the year 2000.²⁶⁰ The network, called ‘Abolition 2000’, had been initiated by IPPNW in December 1994. According to one of its early members, the purpose of Abolition 2000 was to challenge the creeping ‘status-quoism’ in civil society.²⁶¹ The idea of negotiating a comprehensive nuclear weapons convention – an international agreement that would provide for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons in a time-bound manner – was soon picked up by a group of international legal experts organised in the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy. By 1996, the committee had drafted a ‘Model Nuclear Weapons Convention’ that the government of Costa Rica, a long-standing proponent of nuclear disarmament, submitted to the UN Secretary General as a ‘discussion document’. This innovative manoeuvre provided
a rallying point for NGOs and non-aligned states for several years.²⁶² The 1995 conference also provided for greater integration of NGOs into the regime complex. Taking his cue from a call by the president of the 1995 conference, the chairman of the preparatory committee meeting in 1997 gave NGOs the opportunity to address the floor during an informal session. This arrangement was accepted by the parties and set a clear precedent for future meetings.

The 1995 conference president, Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, did his best to spin the outcome of the conference in a positive light. The indefinite extension of the NPT did 'not represent a permanence of unbalanced obligations', nor 'the permanence of nuclear apartheid between nuclear haves and have-nots', he contended. Rather, the extension simply represented a collective dedication to the norm of non-proliferation 'so that we can forge ahead in our tasks towards a nuclear-weapon-free world'.²⁶³ But not all were convinced. At the UNGA session immediately following the 1995 conference, the Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, made a strong statement against inequality:

> The victors of 1945 have clung tenaciously to the levers of power [...], exercising influence and power as nakedly as when they were colonial Powers. Only the masks have changed. [...] What, may I ask, qualifies some countries to possess the means of mass destruction in perpetuity? It is time that the nuclear-weapon States committed themselves to nuclear disarmament through a programmed reduction of their nuclear arsenals within a specific time-frame, beginning with the immediate cessation of all nuclear tests and culminating in their total elimination.²⁶⁴

Although the package of decisions adopted at the 1995 conference was widely seen as confirming the validity of article VI and the goal of a world without nuclear weapons, the outcome was nevertheless seen as disappointing. Many were worried that the indefinite extension had legitimised the nuclear-weapon states' indefinite possession of nuclear arms.

In November 1995, a few months after the closing of the NPT review and extension conference, Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating launched the 'Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons'. The Commission brought together a wide selection of experts and former political leaders, including the former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, former Commander of the US Strategic Command George Butler, and Dr Joseph Rotblat, who had received the Nobel Peace Prize a year earlier along with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an organisation he had co-founded with the British philosopher and anti-nuclear activist Bertrand Russell in 1957. The Canberra Commission finalised its outcome report in August 1996, and the contents were presented to the UN General Assembly at the end of September
of that year. The central takeaways were that nuclear weapons were militarily impractical, but that any use ‘would be catastrophic’. Nuclear terrorism was identified as a growing threat.

Nuclear weapons are held by a handful of states which insist that these weapons provide unique security benefits, and yet reserve uniquely to themselves the right to own them. This situation is highly discriminatory and thus unstable [...]. The opportunity now exists, perhaps without precedent or recurrence, to make a new and clear choice to enable the world to conduct its affairs without nuclear weapons and in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.²⁶⁵

### *The Geneva Conference, the CTBT, and the NAC*

In September 1995, after significant pressure from a large group of states over several years, the Geneva Conference, then at 38 members,²⁶⁶ admitted 23 new members in what was the largest-ever expansion of the Conference's membership. Among the new members were regional powers such as Turkey and South Africa and smaller states that had shown considerable interest in humanitarian and disarmament issues such as Austria, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland.²⁶⁷ In 1999, the membership was expanded by another four states, taking the total membership to 65. A prevailing view had been that ‘the legitimacy of the CD could be called in question by its failure to open its membership to *deserving* states’.²⁶⁸ Yet, as was the case for previous rounds of expansion, the ‘legitimacy’ in question was clearly one of *input* legitimacy. There was little reason to suspect that the inclusion of additional non-nuclear-weapon states would improve the CD’s ability to negotiate disarmament treaties. If anything, history suggested that the opposite was the case. But the dominant motivating factor for those applying for membership was seemingly not to increase the forum’s effectiveness, but more simply to be included. Inclusion functioned here quite clearly as an extension of recognition as ‘deserving’ subjects – as full ‘partners’ in the multilateral nuclear disarmament framework.

The package of decisions that facilitated the indefinite extension of the NPT included a commitment to conclude a CTBT by 1996. And for once in multilateral nuclear disarmament diplomacy, the deadline was met – albeit in an unconventional manner. Promising CTBT negotiations had been underway at the Geneva Conference since 1994 and, by 1996, a draft that most delegations were happy with had been finalised.²⁶⁹ The negotiators had been able to draw on robust work on verification techniques by the Group of Scientific Experts established in 1976. But certain states – India most of all – opposed it (at least officially) because it did not include measures for arms reductions. It was, as Jaswant Singh put it, ‘devoted to ratifying the nuclear status quo’.²⁷⁰ And, given the rule of consensus, India could block the CTBT’s adoption in the CD. This, of course, was totally unacceptable to
many other states, for which the CTBT had been *the* most important agenda item in disarmament diplomacy since the 1950s. Thus, to circumvent the Geneva Conference and its rule of consensus, Australia's ambassador to the UN in New York, Richard Butler, designed a procedural device whereby a draft would be introduced to the UNGA as a resolution without first having attained consensus in Geneva. A special meeting of the UNGA was convened and the draft treaty was adopted on 10 September 1996. Butler's manoeuvre represented a significant break with the rule of consensus.²⁷¹ Despite the lack of consensus in the CD and somewhat slim prospects of bringing the treaty into force – ratification of the states that opposed it in Geneva would be a requirement of its entry into force – the adoption of the CTBT was widely seen as a victory for the cause of disarmament.²⁷²

Above I described how the frozen nuclear hierarchy was perceived by some to have made it difficult for non-nuclear-weapon states to climb in the international pecking order. Non-nuclear-weapon states with ambitions of gaining social parity with the established major powers were in this view compelled to either build their own nuclear weapons, redouble their efforts at effecting disarmament, or undermine the status value of nuclear arms. While India and Pakistan opted for the former alternative, emerging powers such as Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa opted for the latter two. In the spring of 1998, before the tests on the Subcontinent had taken place, seven states (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden) formed a cross-regional ginger group to promote multilateral nuclear disarmament called the 'New Agenda', later dubbed the 'New Agenda Coalition' (NAC).²⁷³ The official purpose of the NAC was to 'galvanize the international community in common action for the purpose of eradicating these [nuclear] weapons once and for all'.²⁷⁴ As one of its founders stated, the years immediately following the 1995 conference had 'engendered the suspicion' that the indefinite extension of the NPT had legitimised the nuclear-weapon states' indefinite possession of nuclear weapons. The purpose of the NAC was to counteract this interpretation.²⁷⁵ In the formulation of South Africa, the NAC's business was to 'call on the States that South Africa recognizes as nuclear weapon states "to demonstrate an unequivocal commitment to the speedy and total elimination of their respective nuclear weapons"'.²⁷⁶ South Africa was thus still prepared to 'recognise' China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States as 'nuclear-weapon states', but held that they should do more to deserve that recognition.

The run-up to the 2000 NPT review conference confirmed that the legitimacy of the regime complex remained in question. The various initiatives taken over the course of the 1990s had not been able to re-establish the credibility of the disarmament framework as a vehicle of justice. Many states 'feel that the agreements made at the 1995 Review and Extension Conference, in order to secure the indefinite extension of the NPT, have to a large part not been honoured', said Sweden's ambassador for disarmament.²⁷⁷ If the preparatory committee meetings preceding the review conference were anything to go by, the scholar Manpreet Sethi argued, 'then the review conference can
be expected to be an acrimonious affair that might end up generating more
heat than light'.²⁷⁸ According to the Australian ambassador, Richard Butler,
'[t]here was credible corridor discussion of the possibility that a whole bloc
of non-aligned states might decide to leave the treaty'.²⁷⁹

Euphoria in New York

*The Imperative of Abolition*

The burst of protest that began with the non-aligned states’ blocking of con-
sensus at the 1990 NPT review conference ended in 2000. After intense con-
sultations between the nuclear-weapon states and the NAC over the last few
days of the conference, the 2000 NPT review conference adopted what was
seen by virtually all observers as a highly progressive outcome. It was, in
fact, the first time an NPT review conference had ever been able to adopt a
fully negotiated final document.²⁸⁰ For advocates of disarmament, the most
notable achievement was the inclusion in the document of 13 ‘practical steps’
to implement article VI. Most crucially, the declaration declared the ‘une-
quivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the total
elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament’.²⁸¹ The
inclusion of the phrase ‘unequivocal undertaking’ – borrowed from the 1996
advisory opinion – had been a central demand of the NAC.

The 13 steps were as follows:

1. Entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

2. A moratorium on nuclear testing pending the entry into force of the CTBT.

3. Negotiation in the Geneva Conference of a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or explosive devices (a 'fissile material cutoff treaty', FMCT).

4. Establishment of a subsidiary body in the Geneva Conference to deal with nuclear disarmament.

5. Application of the principle of ‘irreversibility’ to nuclear arms control and disarmament.

6. An ‘unequivocal undertaking’ by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.

7. The entry into force and implementation of START II, the conclusion of START III, and preservation of the ABM Treaty.

8. The completion of the Trilateral Initiative between the United States, Russia, and the IAEA (verification of the civilian status of excess weapons-grade nuclear material).

9. Steps by all the nuclear-weapon states leading to nuclear disarmament, including unilateral reductions of arsenals.

10. Implementation of measures in all nuclear-weapon states to place excess fissile material under international control.
11. A reaffirmation of the goal of general and complete disarmament.

12. Regular reports by all states parties to the NPT on the implementation of article VI.

13. Further development of verification capabilities.

The adoption of the 13 steps was celebrated as a major success by most non-nuclear-weapon states. For Sweden, the 13 steps represented 'a new beginning in the pursuit of nuclear disarmament' that 'fundamentally alters the context in which nuclear disarmament must henceforth be pursued'.²⁸² For Myanmar, 'we have been able to transform our vision into a reality'.²⁸³ Canada exulted that, following 'discouraging setbacks, [...] our most important of all treaties, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), won resounding, sceptic-confounding reaffirmation'.²⁸⁴ After years of deadlock and pessimism, said a Kazakh official, 'the adoption of the Final Document bears witness to the success of our work'.²⁸⁵ The adoption of the 13 steps was thus represented as a radical break with the inglorious past of the multilateral nuclear disarmament framework. At the same time, non-aligned states drew parallels between the adoption of the 13 steps and the alleged successes of the past – the inclusion in the NPT of article VI and the adoption of the UNSSOD-I final document in 1978. That way, the adoption of the 13 steps was framed as a third iteration of the NPT bargain: Just as the UNSSOD-I final document had reconstituted the original bargain, the 13 steps reconstituted both the original bargain and the UNSSOD-I final document:

> We [...] find it necessary to reaffirm the priorities of the international community in the field of disarmament. These were clearly established in the 1978 Final Document of the General Assembly's special session devoted to disarmament, which accorded absolute priority to efforts for disarmament in the area of nuclear weapons. [... A] number of initiatives have been launched for the elimination of nuclear weapons. They include the initiative of the New Agenda Coalition, of which Egypt is a member. This initiative and subsequent General Assembly resolutions have achieved marked success. The members of the Coalition played a distinctive role in the Sixth NPT review conference, which resulted in the adoption of 13 practical steps for the implementation of article VI of that Treaty, pertaining to the unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.²⁸⁶

Douglas Roche, a former Canadian ambassador who was present at the review conference as a civil society observer, described the mood among disarmament advocates after the adoption of the outcome document as 'euphoric'.²⁸⁷ According to the Norwegian diplomat Steffen Kongstad, the conference was experienced as an unambiguous breakthrough for the disarmers.²⁸⁸ Henrik Salander, the Swedish ambassador, used similar words to
describe the outcome.²⁸⁹ The 2000 NPT review conference was, quite simply, seen as the most positive result ever achieved through the NPT review process. Richard Butler believed the adoption of the 13 steps had averted a major exodus of non-aligned states from the NPT.²⁹⁰

Empowerment through Struggle

I have argued throughout this study that the legitimacy of the nuclear regime complex depends on both substantive and procedural elements. Substantively, the non-nuclear-weapon states have consistently insisted that the nuclear-weapon states commit to effective measures of disarmament. Procedurally, non-nuclear-weapon states have demanded a right to participate meaningfully in nuclear disarmament diplomacy. As discussed above, the very act of contesting the nuclear hierarchy may therefore serve a relegitimising function, insofar as active resistance allows the non-nuclear-weapon states to act out their self-descriptions as active and audible nuclear order makers. The initiatives undertaken by non-nuclear-weapon states during the 1990s corroborate this finding. Allowing the neutral and non-aligned states to take the offensive and push back against the nuclear-weapon states' alleged subversion of the regime complex' disarmament goals, the ICJ advisory-opinion initiative, PTBT amendment conference, and expansion of the NPT review cycle and Geneva Conference were seen as acts of self-empowerment. Consider, for example, how the Mexican ambassador described the advisory-opinion initiative. Claiming that the initiative had pushed the nuclear-weapon states on the defensive, Marín-Bosch asserted that the nuclear-weapon states were 'scared shitless'. The nuclear-weapon states were desperately attempting to hold on to their 'toys', he maintained, but now, '[t]heir turn is up'.²⁹¹ Contesting the status quo provided Mexico and other neutral and non-aligned states with an opportunity to assert themselves as active participants in the struggle to abolish nuclear weapons.

The various initiatives undertaken during the 1990s also offered individuals and groups of non-nuclear-weapon states opportunities to assume leadership positions within the non-nuclear-weapon state caucus. Leading the charge of the non-aligned states in the years after the 1995 review and extension conference, the NAC gained recognition as the de facto negotiating partner of the nuclear-weapon states on disarmament. In 2000, the NAC's successful extraction from the nuclear-weapon states of an 'unequivocal undertaking' to achieve nuclear disarmament 'significantly enhanced its [the NAC's] authority as the single most important unofficial voice for the non-nuclear-weapon states in their struggle against the nuclear-weapon states'.²⁹² According to one of the NAC's key spokespersons, Sweden's Henrik Salander, several non-nuclear-weapon states 'positively begged' to be included as members of the NAC after 2000.²⁹³ None were admitted.

Indonesia also positioned itself within the non-nuclear-weapon state bloc. In 1995, Indonesia took the initiative to establish a permanent NAM
working group on disarmament, which Indonesia would chair for the next
two decades.²⁹⁴ The working group would be tasked with coordinating the
positions of the governments of the NAM and formulating a common lan-
guage for relevant conferences and meetings. The working group chair would
also be expected to negotiate on behalf of the NAM in smaller gatherings.²⁹⁵

Conclusion

The demise of the political settlement underpinning the 1978 UNSSOD-I
outcome document led in the 1990s to a second crisis of legitimacy in the
nuclear regime complex. The associated wave of diplomatic contestation and
change led to a vertical deepening of the multilateral nuclear disarmament
framework through a process of legalisation. In contrast to the first wave of
expansion, which primarily targeted procedural and organisational issues,
the second wave added substance (res) to the regime in the form of the ICJ
advisory opinion and the CTBT. The advisory opinion established that, as
a matter of international law, the nuclear-weapon states were obligated not
just to *engage* in nuclear disarmament negotiations, but to *conclude* such
negotiations. The CTBT codified the emerging norm against nuclear testing
in all environments. Although the CTBT is not yet in legal force due to out-
standing ratifications by a number of states, the norm against nuclear testing
has grown strong. Since the adoption of the CTBT, only three states – India,
Pakistan, and North Korea – have conducted (a total of 11) nuclear tests.
This stands in sharp contrast to the situation of the preceding decades, when
nuclear tests were a monthly or even weekly occurrence. The second wave of
adaptation also led to a horizontal expansion of the regime. The expansion
of the NPT review process and Geneva Conference membership gave non-
nuclear-weapon states additional opportunities to engage in nuclear disarma-
ment talks. The ICJ court hearings supplied another ad hoc arena.

Most of the institutional adaptations pursued during the mid-1990s may
be seen as efforts at enhancing global security through nuclear disarma-
ment.²⁹⁶ But other motives were also on display. The advisory-opinion ini-
tiative, for example, was justified as ‘a last appeal for justice’,²⁹⁷ a means of
‘democratizing’ nuclear disarmament,²⁹⁸ a form of resistance to the ‘intoler-
able’ exercise of ‘nuclear apartheid’,²⁹⁹ and a means of undermining the link
between nuclear weapons and permanent membership of the UN Security
Council.³⁰⁰ The nuclear-weapon states – most vocally so France during this
period – continued to justify their retention of nuclear weapons by reference
to their status as great powers and permanent members of the UN Security
Council.³⁰¹ For some, the struggle for recognition as major powers arguably
provided a powerful incentive to retain nuclear armouries.³⁰²

The processes that led to the first and second waves of adaptation in the
multilateral nuclear disarmament framework were similar. Firstly, both waves
were responses to the erosion of the nuclear regime complex’ credibility as
a vehicle of meaningful change on the disarmament front. Secondly, both
the first and second waves were mainly instigated and carried out by neutral and non-aligned states. Thirdly, the adaptations pursued by the neutral and non-aligned states were explicitly framed as a struggle of small states with law and justice on their side against ‘arrogant’ great powers. A notable difference between the two waves was the far greater role played by civil society organisations during the second wave. Although their ability to change states’ basic positions on nuclear armament clearly remained limited, civil society organisations were instrumental backers and instigators of the efforts to convene the PTBT amendment conference and authorise the ICJ to produce an advisory opinion on nuclear weapons. Civil society organisations were also instrumental in raising nuclear weapons on the international agenda.

As had been the case also for the first crisis of legitimacy, the second crisis of legitimacy was resolved largely through a rhetorical and future-oriented recommitment to the goal of nuclear disarmament by the nuclear-weapon states. Along with the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995, the 2000 NPT review conference crystallised a kind of ‘end of history’ moment for the nuclear regime complex: The nuclear-weapon states agreed to a series of concrete disarmament steps and made an ‘unequivocal commitment’ to abolition; the NPT challengers India and Pakistan were diplomatically isolated and denied recognition as nuclear-weapon states; the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes was entrenched; and the non-proliferation norm was confirmed as an eternal, unconditional norm. After the 2000 NPT review conference, threats of defection died down and most non-aligned states demonstrated a greater appetite for heightened IAEA safeguard standards. However, the long-term legitimating value of the 13 steps clearly depended on the extent to which they would be lived up to in practice.

## Notes

1 E.g., Venezuela, United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee, New York, 17 Oct. 1979, doc. A/C.1/34/PV.6, p. 38; Republic of Congo, UNGA First Committee, New York, 17 Oct. 1979, doc. A/C.1/34/PV.6, pp. 43–4.

2 Uruguay, UNGA First Committee, New York, 31 Oct. 1979, doc. A/C.1/34/PV.23, p. 68.

3 Uruguay, UNGA First Committee, New York, 19 Nov. 1976, doc. A/C.1/31/PV.38, p. 26.

4 Harald Müller, David Fischer, and Wolfgang Kötter, *Nuclear non-proliferation and global order* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 27.

5 Jozef Goldblat and Sverre Lodgaard, ‘Non-use of nuclear weapons’, *Bulletin of Peace Proposals* 11: 2, 1980, p. 122.

6 John Simpson, ‘Global non-proliferation policies’, *Review of International Studies* 8: 2, 1982, p. 80.

7 Nigeria for the G77, NPT review conference, New York, 7 Sept. 1980, doc. NPT/CONF.II/SR.19, p. 147.

8 Simpson, ‘Global non-proliferation policies’, p. 69; Müller, Fischer, and Kötter, *Nuclear non-proliferation and global order*, p. 27.

9 Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1977–1980, vol. XXVI, Arms control and nonproliferation, ‘Memorandum from the director of the Arms Control
and Disarmament Agency (Earle) to President Carter', Washington, 12 Sept. 1980, doc. 391.

10 Christopher Daase, 'Nonproliferation und das studium internationaler legitimität', *Zeitschrift für International Beziehungen* 19: 2, 2003, p. 353.

11 Simpson, 'Global non-proliferation policies', p. 80.

12 Douglas Brinkley, *The unfinished presidency* (London: Penguin, 1998), p. 23.

13 Jane Mayer, *Dark money: the hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the radical right* (New York, NY: Anchor Books, 2016); Edward H. Miller, *A conspiratorial life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the revolution of American conservatism* (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2022), Chapter 27; Matthew Dallek, *Birchers: how the John Birch society radicalized the American right* (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2022).

14 Michael Brenes, *For might and right: Cold War defense spending and the remaking of American democracy* (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2020), pp. 15–16, 36, 62–3.

15 R. P. Barston, 'Soviet foreign policy in the Brezhnev years', *The World Today* 39: 3, 1983, p. 88.

16 See S. M. Amadae, *Prisoners of reason: game theory and neoliberal political economy* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 105; Dima Adamsky, 'The 1983 nuclear crisis – lessons for deterrence theory and practice', *Journal of Strategic Studies* 36: 1, 2013, pp. 11–12.

17 See, e.g., Colin S. Gray and Keith B. Payne, 'Victory is possible', *Foreign Policy* 39: 2, 1980, pp. 14–27.

18 Margaret Thatcher, speech to the 1982 UN Special Session on Disarmament, New York, 23 June 1982, https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104974.

19 Quoted in John D. Bandy, 'Rites of disarmament', *Peace & Change* 18: 2, 1993, pp. 136–7.

20 Bandy, 'Rites of disarmament'.

21 UNSSOD-I, Final document, New York, 1978, doc. 1/S.10/4, para. 13.

22 William Walker, 'Nuclear order and disorder', *International Affairs* 76: 4, 2000, p. 708.

23 See Paul Surlis, 'The challenge of peace: the U.S. bishops' pastoral letter on war and peace', *The Furrow* 34: 8, 1983, pp. 485–91, p. 489.

24 Ronald Reagan, 'Transcript of Reagan's UN speech on the nuclear arms race', *New York Times*, 18 June 1982.

25 George Orwell, 'You and the atomic bomb', *Tribune*, 18 Oct. 1945.

26 Bandy, 'Rites of disarmament', p. 137.

27 Philip M. Boffey, 'Session on disarmament has delegates in a dither', *New York Times*, 17 June 1982.

28 David Cortright and Ron Pagnucco, 'Transnational activism in the nuclear weapons freeze campaign', in Thomas R. Ronchon and David S. Meyer, eds, *Coalitions and political movements* (Boulder, CL: Lynne Rienner, 1997), pp. 81–94.

29 Vincent Intondi, *Saving the world from nuclear war: the June 12, 1982 disarmament rally and beyond* (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023).

30 Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues, *Common security: a blueprint for survival* (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1982).

31 UNSSOD-II, Concluding Document, New York, 1982, doc. A/S-12/32, para. 57.

32 UNSSOD-II, Concluding Document, para. 59.

33 Homer A. Jack, *Disarm – or die* (New York, NY: World Conference on Religion and Peace, 1983), p. 206.

34 Quoted in Jack, *Disarm – or die*, p. 216.

35 E.g., Sri Lanka, UNGA First Committee, New York, 4 Nov. 1982, doc. A/C.1/37/PV.19, p. 58; Costa Rica, UNGA First Committee, New York, 4 Nov. 1982,
doc. A/C.1/37/PV.26, p. 61; Libya, UNGA First Committee, New York, 28 Oct. 1982, doc. A/C.1/37/PV.15, p. 73; Madagascar, UNGA First Committee, New York, 1 Nov. 1982, doc. A/C.1/37/PV.20, p. 66; The Netherlands, UNGA First Committee, New York, 27 Oct. 1982, doc. A/C.1/37/PV.14, p. 52.

36 Romania, UNGA First Committee, New York, 21 Oct. 1982, doc. A/C.1/47/PV.5, p. 28.

37 Kenya, UNGA First Committee, New York, 29 Oct. 1982, doc. A/C.1/37/PV.18, p. 31.

38 Republic of Congo, UNGA First Committee, New York, 4 Nov. 1982, doc. A/C.1/37/PV.26, p. 36.

39 Iran, NPT review conference, New York, 4 Sept. 1985, doc. NPT/CONF.III/SR13/Add.1, p. 181.

40 India, UNGA First Committee, New York, 4 Nov. 1982, doc. A/C.1/37/PV.25, p. 11.

41 Inga Thorsson and Stephen Maikowski, 'Disarmament and global security', *Alternatives* 8: 2, 1982, p. 253.

42 Thorsson and Maikowski, 'Disarmament and global security', p. 248.

43 Ian Clark et al., 'Crisis in the laws of war? Beyond compliance and effectiveness', *European Journal of International Relations* 42: 2, 2018, p. 12.

44 Clark et al., 'Crisis in the laws of war?', p. 12.

45 Axel Honneth, 'Integrity and disrespect', *Political Theory* 20: 2, 1992, p. 189.

46 Evelin G. Lindner, *Making enemies: humiliation and international conflict* (London: Praeger, 2006), p. 32.

47 Rebecca Johnson, *Unfinished business: the negotiation of the CTBT and the end of nuclear testing* (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2009), p. 23.

48 Ronald Reagan, Speech to the national association of Evangelicals, 8 March 1983, https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/reagan-evil-empire-speech-text/.

49 Quoted in Sally Denton, *The profiteers: Bechtel and the men who built the world* (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2017), p. 164.

50 Denton, *The profiteers*, p. 164.

51 Jeffrey Lewis and Aaron Stein, 'Paranoia and defense planning: why language matters when talking about nuclear weapons', *War on the Rocks*, 10 Oct. 2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/10/paranoia-and-defense-planning-why-language-matters-when-talking-about-nuclear-weapons/.

52 Lawrence Freedman and Jeffrey Michaels, *The evolution of nuclear strategy*, 4th edition (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), p. 406.

53 Federation of American Scientists, 'Russian military budget', 7 Dec. 2000, https://nuke.fas.org/guide/russia/agency/mo-budget.htm.

54 NPT review conference, 'Working Paper on article VI of the NPT', Final document, part II, Geneva, 2 Sept. 1985, doc. NPT/CONF.III/64/II, p. 2.

55 NPT review conference, 'Draft resolution on a comprehensive nuclear test ban', Final document, part II, Geneva, 17 Sept. 1985, doc. NPT/CONF.III/64/II, p. 1.

56 NPT review conference, 'Draft resolution on a nuclear test ban moratorium', Final document, part II, Geneva, 17 Sept. 1985, doc. NPT/CONF.III/64/II, p. 1.

57 NPT review conference, 'Draft resolution on nuclear-arms race', Final document, part II, Geneva, 17 Sept. 1985, doc. NPT/CONF.III/64/II, p. 1.

58 Mexico, NPT review conference, 18 Sept. 1985, NPT/CONF.III/SR.15, p. 190.

59 See Paul F. Power, 'The mixed state of non-proliferation', *International Affairs* 62: 3, 1986, p. 482.

60 Senegal for the non-aligned and neutral countries, NPT review conference, New York, 18 Sept. 1985, doc. NPT/CONF.III/SR.15, p. 192.
61 NPT review conference, Final document, Annex I, Geneva, 25 Sept. 1985, doc. NPT/CONF.35/II, p. 7.

62 Matthew E. Harries, *The role of article VI in debates about the nuclear non-proliferation treaty*, PhD thesis (London: King’s College London, 2013), p. 197.

63 Indonesia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 2 Nov. 1977, doc. A/C.1/32/PV.22, p. 26.

64 NPT review conference, Final document, p. 5. See also James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and King’s College London, *NPT briefing book* (Monterey/London, 2014), p. L 5.

65 New Zealand, UNGA First Committee, New York, 16 Oct. 1985, doc. A/C.1/40/PV.5, p. 49; Indonesia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 16 Oct. 1985, doc. A/C.1/40/PV.6, pp. 37–8. See also, e.g., Nepal, UNGA First Committee, New York, 28 Oct. 1985, doc. A/C.1/40/PV.15, p. 39.

66 Sri Lanka, UNGA First Committee, New York, 21 Oct. 1985, doc. A/C.1/40/PV.9, p. 50.

67 Kenya, UNGA First Committee, New York, 18 Oct. 1985, doc. A/C.1/40/PV.9, p. 38.

68 Oman, UNGA First Committee, New York, 23 Oct. 1985, doc. A/C.1/40/PV.12, p. 57.

69 Austria, UNGA First Committee, New York, 17 Oct. 1985, doc. A/C.1/50/PV.7, p. 12.

70 Egypt, UNGA First Committee, New York, 21 Oct. 1985, doc. A/C.1/40/PV.10, p. 3.

71 David Albright and André Carothers, ‘Fragile consensus on non-proliferation treaty’, *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 41: 11, 1985, p. 8.

72 Peru, UNGA First Committee, New York, 22 Oct. 1985, doc. A/C.1/40/PV.11, p. 6.

73 India, UNGA First Committee, New York, 21 Oct. 1985, doc. A/C.1/50/PV.10, p. 91.

74 India, UNGA First Committee, New York, 21 Oct. 1985, doc. A/C.1/50/PV.10, pp. 92–3.

75 Dimitri K. Simes, ‘Gorbachev: a new foreign policy?’, *Foreign Policy* 65: 3, 1986, pp. 477–500.

76 Jonathan Hunt and David Reynolds, ‘Geneva, Reykjavik, Washington, and Moscow, 1985–8’, in Kristina Spohr and David Reynolds, eds, *Transcending the Cold War* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 155.

77 John L. Gaddis, *The Cold War* (London: Penguin, 2005), pp. 226–32.

78 See, e.g., Hunt and Reynolds, ‘Geneva, Reykjavik, Washington, and Moscow, 1985–8’; Gaddis, *The Cold War*, pp. 230–2; William J. Perry, *My journey at the nuclear brink* (Stanford, CL: Stanford University Press, 2015), p. 179.

79 Austria, UNGA First Committee, New York, 13 Oct. 1986, doc. A/C.1/41/PV.3, p. 28. See also, e.g., Canada, UNGA First Committee, New York, 8 Oct. 1986, doc. A/C.1/41/PV.2, p. 22; Bangladesh, UNGA First Committee, New York, 14 Oct. 1986, doc. A/C.1/41/PV.3, p. 61; Egypt, UNGA First Committee, New York, 14 Oct. 1986, doc. A/C.1/41/PV.4, p. 57; India, UNGA First Committee, New York, 14 Oct. 1986, doc. A/C.1/41/PV.5, p. 2; Mongolia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 19 Oct. 1987, doc. A/C.1/PV.11, p. 41; Ghana, UNGA First Committee, New York, 15 Oct. 1987, doc. A/C.1/42, PV.7, p. 46; Pakistan, UNGA First Committee, New York, 16 Oct. 1987, doc. A/C.1/42/PV.9, p. 31; Sudan, UNGA First Committee, New York, 20 Oct. 1987, doc. A/C.1/42/PV.12, p. 52.

80 Kjølv Egeland, ‘Who stole disarmament? History and nostalgia in nuclear abolition discourse’, *International Affairs* 96: 5, 2020, pp. 1387–403.
81 See, e.g., Amy L. Catalinac, 'Why New Zealand took itself out of ANZUS', *Foreign Policy Analysis* 6: 4, 2010, pp. 317–38.

82 Reagan Archive, ANZUS Port access problem – U.S. policy (4), ‘Memorandum for the president from George P. Shultz’, 14 Feb. 1985.

83 See, e.g., FRUS 1961–1963, vols VII, VIII, IX, Arms control; national security policy; foreign economic policy, microfiche supplement, ‘Memorandum from Battle to Bundy’, Washington, DC, 27 Apr. 1962, doc. 127; FRUS 1961–1963, vol. VII, Arms control and disarmament, ‘Memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense McNamara’, Washington DC, 23 March 1961, doc. 9.

84 Catalinac, 'Why New Zealand took itself out of ANZUS', p. 331.

85 Dimitris Bourantonis, *The United Nations and the quest for nuclear disarmament* (Brookfield, VT: Dartmouth, 1993), p. 159.

86 Helga Haftendorn, 'The unification of Germany, 1985–1991', in Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, eds, *The Cambridge history of the Cold War: volume III, endings* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 333–55.

87 See, e.g., Archie Brown, 'The Gorbachev revolution and the end of the Cold War', in Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, eds, *The Cambridge history of the Cold War: volume III, endings* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 244–66.

88 Chris Saunders and Sue Onslow, 'The Cold War and southern Africa', in Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, eds, *The Cambridge history of the Cold War: volume III, endings* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 241.

89 Metta Spencer, 'UNSSOD III: setback for multilateralism', *Peace Magazine*, Aug./Sept. 1988, p. 16.

90 See Peter Herby, 'U.N. disarmament session fizzles', *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 5: 7, 1988, pp. 6–7.

91 See Laura A. Belmonte, *Selling the American way: U.S. propaganda and the Cold War* (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), p. 62.

92 David Holloway, 'War, militarism and the Soviet state', *Alternatives* 6: 1, 1980, pp. 59–92.

93 See Jonathan Haslam, 'The UN and the Soviet Union: new thinking?', *International Affairs* 65: 4, 1989, pp. 677–84.

94 Herby, 'U.N. disarmament session fizzles', p. 6.

95 Bourantonis, *The United Nations and the quest for nuclear disarmament*, p. 160.

96 Bourantonis, *The United Nations and the quest for nuclear disarmament*, p. 160.

97 John Simpson, 'The UN's role in disarmament', *Contemporary Security Policy* 15: 1, 1994, p. 58.

98 Bill Dailey, 'Disarmament at the United Nations', *Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review* 78: 311, 1989, p. 303.

99 Marc Nerfin, 'The future of the United Nations system', *Development Dialogue* 1: 1, 1985, p. 28.

100 E.g., Austria, UNGA First Committee, New York, 28 Oct. 1988, doc. A/C.1/43/PV.16, pp. 17–18; Indonesia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 20 Oct. 1988, doc. A/C.1/43/PV.9, pp. 38–40; Nepal, UNGA First Committee, New York, 26 Oct. 1988, doc. A/C.1/43/PV.11, p. 26.

101 Sri Lanka, UNGA First Committee, New York, 30 Oct. 1989, doc. A/44/C.1/PV.21, p. 44.

102 Togo, UNGA First Committee, New York, 21 Oct. 1988, doc. A/C.1/43/PV.10, p. 38.

103 Bahamas, UNGA First Committee, New York, 1 Nov. 1988, doc. A/C.1/43/PV.22, pp. 2–3.

104 Brazil, UNGA First Committee, New York, 24 Oct. 1988, doc. A/C.1/43/PV.12, p. 64.
105 Yugoslavia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 9 Nov. 1988, doc. A/43/C.1/PV.31, p. 21.

106 Venezuela, UNGA First Committee, New York, 24 Oct. 1988, doc. A/C.1/43/PV.12, p. 12.

107 Brazil, UNGA First Committee, New York, 18 Oct. 1989, doc. A/C.1/44/PV.6, p. 46.

108 See Ulrich Herz, *Nedrustning under debatt, 1978–1982* (Stockholm: Arbetsgruppen för Svensk Folkriksdag för Nedrustning, 1980), pp. 210–11.

109 Inga Thorsson, ‘Who needs summits anyway’, *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 44: 2, 1988, p. 36.

110 See, e.g., Benjamin Frankel, ‘An anxious decade: nuclear proliferation in the 1990s’, *Journal of Strategic Studies* 13: 3, 1990, pp. 1–13; John M. Lamb, ‘Rolling the arms control waters’, *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 43: 8, 1987, p. 18; Glenn T. Seaborg and Benjamin S. Loeb, ‘Make the partial test ban comprehensive’, *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 43: 4, 1987, p. 3.

111 John Simpson, ‘The 1990 review conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty’, *The Round Table* 80: 318, 1991, p. 152.

112 E.g., Austria, UNGA First Committee, New York, 28 Oct. 1988, doc. A/C.1/43/PV.16, pp. 17–18; Oman, UNGA First Committee, New York, 20 Oct. 1989, doc. A/C.1/44/PV.10, p. 39; Norway, UNGA First Committee, New York, 16 Oct. 1990, doc. A/C.1/45/PV.5, p. 22; Belgium, UNGA First Committee, New York, 24 Oct. 1990, doc. A/C.1/45/PV.15, p. 32; Chile, UNGA First Committee, New York, 26 Oct. 1990, doc. A/C.1/45/PV.18, p. 7.

113 Compare Arild Underdal, *The politics of international fisheries management: the case of the north-east Atlantic* (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1980).

114 Compare Vincent Pouliot, ‘Setting status in stone’, in T. V. Paul, Deborah W. Larson, and William C. Wohlfort, eds, *Status in world politics* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 192–215.

115 See, e.g., Nick Ritchie, *US nuclear weapons policy after the Cold War* (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 2.

116 See, e.g., Geoffrey Kemp, ‘Regional security, arms control, and the end of the Cold War’, *The Washington Quarterly* 13: 4, 1990, pp. 33–49; Douglas Roche, *The ultimate evil: the fight to ban nuclear weapons* (Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 1997); Richard K. Betts, ‘Systems for peace or causes of war?’, *International Security* 17: 1, 1992, p. 7. See also, e.g., Ireland, NPT review conference, Geneva, 21 Aug. 1990, doc. NPT/CONF.IV/SR.1, p. 19; North Korea, NPT review conference, Geneva, 23 Aug. 1990, doc. NPT/CONF.IV/SR.1, p. 100; Sri Lanka, NPT review conference, Geneva, 23 Aug. 1990, doc. NPT/CONF.IV/SR.1, p. 111; Australia, NPT review conference, Geneva, 23 Aug. 1990, doc. NPT/CONF.IV/SR.1, p. 121; Mexico, NPT review conference, Geneva, 27 Aug. 1990, doc. NPT/CONF.IV/SR.1, p. 227.

117 Soviet Union, UNGA First Committee, New York, 16 Oct. 1990, doc. A/C.1/45/PV.4, p. 5.

118 See, e.g., Carl Kaysen, Robert S. McNamara, and George W. Rathjens, ‘Nuclear weapons after the Cold War’, *Foreign Affairs* 70: 4, 1991, pp. 95–110.

119 Oswaldo de Rivero, NPT review conference, Geneva, 20 Aug. 1990, doc. NPT/CONF.IV/SR.1, p. 7.

120 Matthew Dallek, *The right moment: Ronald Reagan’s first victory and the decisive turning point in American politics* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 65, 203.

121 George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, *A world transformed* (New York, NY: Vintage, 1998), p. 203.
122 Paul Beaumont, *Performing nuclear weapons: how Britain made Trident make sense* (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), p. 160. The French Communist and Socialist parties opposed French nuclear armament between 1960 and 1972. See Patrice Buffotot, *Le socialisme français et la guerre: du soldat-citoyen à l'armée professionnelle, 1871-1998* (Brussels: Editions Bruylant, 1998), Chapter 13.

123 Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, 'Global nuclear weapons inventories, 1945-2013', *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 69: 5, 2013, pp. 75-81.

124 The 1982 pledge was never seen as credible by NATO leaders. Soviet and Warsaw Pact documents also appeared to contradict it. See Ankit Panda, "No first use" and nuclear weapons', Council on Foreign Relations, 17 July 2018, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/no-first-use-and-nuclear-weapons.

125 'Structure' is here used in the Waltzian sense of the 'distribution of capabilities' across states. Kenneth N. Waltz, *Theory of international politics* (London: Addison-Wesley, 1979).

126 The end of the Cold War did not result in tranquillity everywhere, of course. Yugoslavia, one of the leaders of the non-aligned world during the 1960s and 1970s, was devastated by civil war and political disintegration.

127 See Hunt and Reynolds, 'Geneva, Reykjavik, Washington, and Moscow, 1985-8'.

128 Data from Arms Control Association, 'The nuclear test tally', Sept. 2017, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nucleartesttally. The sudden drop and subsequent increase in tests between 1985 and 1987 owed to a Soviet testing moratorium.

129 Simpson, 'The 1990 review conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty', p. 143.

130 Sweden, UNGA First Committee, New York, 17 Oct. 1989, doc. A/C.1/44/PV.4, p. 23. See also, e.g., Sri Lanka, UNGA First Committee, New York, 30 Oct. 1989, doc. A/44/C.1/PV.21, p. 44; Togo, UNGA First Committee, New York, 19 Oct. 1989, doc. A/C.1/44/PV.7, pp. 16-17; Malaysia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 20 Oct. 1989, doc. A/C.1/44/PV.10, p. 44; Bulgaria, UNGA First Committee, New York, 19 Oct. 1989, doc. A/C.1/44/PV.8, pp. 17-18; India, UNGA First Committee, New York, 20 Oct. 1989, doc. A/C.1/44/PV.9, pp. 22-3.

131 Simpson, 'The 1990 review conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty', p. 143.

132 Mexico, NPT review conference, 11 Sept. 1990, doc. NPT/CONF/IV/45/III, p. 202.

133 Johnson, *Unfinished business*, p. 34.

134 John Simpson, 'The role of security assurances in the nuclear nonproliferation regime', in Jeffrey W. Knopf, ed., *Security assurances and nuclear nonproliferation* (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), p. 65.

135 Leonard S. Spector and Jacqueline R. Smith, 'Deadlock damages non-proliferation', *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 46: 10, 1990, p. 44.

136 Simpson, 'The 1990 review conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty', p. 151.

137 Johnson, *Unfinished business*, p. 34.

138 See Simpson, 'The 1990 review conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty', pp. 145-6.

139 Robert R. Williams, *Hegel's ethics of recognition* (Berkley, CL: University of California Press, 1997), p. 155.

140 Simpson, 'The 1990 review conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty', pp. 139-54.

141 See Herby, 'U.N. disarmament session fizzles'.

142 See David A. Snow and Robert D. Benford, 'Master frames and cycles of protest', in Aldon D. Morris and Carol M. Mueller, eds, *Frontiers in social movement the-
*ory* (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 133–55; Sidney Tarrow, ‘Cycles of collective action’, *Social Science History* 17: 2, 1993, p. 284.

143 E.g., Austria, UNGA First Committee, New York, 17 Oct. 1985, doc. A/C.1/50/PV.7, p. 18; Brazil, UNGA First Committee, New York, 24 Oct. 1988, doc. A/C.1/43/PV.12, p. 64; Yugoslavia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 9 Nov. 1988, doc. A/43/C.1/PV.31, p. 21; Togo, UNGA First Committee, New York, 21 Oct. 1988, doc. A/C.1/43/PV.10, p. 3; Nigeria, UNGA First Committee, New York, 24 Oct. 1989, doc. A/C.1/44/PV.13, pp. 48–50; Colombia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 18 Oct. 1989, doc. A/C.1/44/PV.6, pp. 13–14; Madagascar, UNGA First Committee, New York, 29 Nov. 1989, doc. A/C.1/44/PV.51, p. 7.

144 Tariq Rauf, ‘French nuclear testing: a fool’s errand’, *The Nonproliferation Review* 3: 1, 1994, p. 51.

145 *Deseret News*, ‘France stresses that 8 n-tests will be its last’, 14 June 1995, https://www.deseret.com/1995/6/14/19177032/france-stresses-that-8-n-tests-will-be-its-last.

146 The Philippines, Conference on Disarmament (CD), Geneva, 1 Nov. 1995, doc. CD/PV.1369, p. 2.

147 Papua New Guinea, UNGA Fourth Committee, New York, 18 Oct. 1995, doc. A/C.4/50.SR.8, p. 3.

148 Rauf, ‘French nuclear testing’, p. 49.

149 See Erik Gartzke and Matthew Kroenig, ‘A strategic approach to nuclear proliferation’, *Journal of Conflict Resolution* 53: 2, 2009, pp. 151–60.

150 Andrew Grotto, ‘Why do states that oppose nuclear proliferation resist new non-proliferation obligations?’, *Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law* 18: 1, 2010, p. 6.

151 Thomas Graham Jr, *Disarmament sketches: three decades of arms control and international law* (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2002), p. 282.

152 Roche, *The ultimate evil*, p. 37. See also Malaysia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 12 Oct. 1999, doc. A/C.1/54/PV.4, p. 16.

153 Richard Butler, *Fatal choice: nuclear weapons – survival or sentence* (Boulder, CL: Westview Press, 2001), p. 66.

154 Kim Jong Il, *Essential juche works* (Pyongyang: Red Flame Press, 2020). On nuclear ‘deviance’, see Michal Smetana, *Nuclear deviance: stigma politics and the rules of the nonproliferation game* (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

155 Jina Kim, *The North Korean nuclear weapons crisis* (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), p. 43.

156 As Max Weber pointed out, there are three reasons for complying with any social arrangement: (1) a sense that the arrangement is just (legitimacy), fear of punishment for non-compliance (coercion), or a belief that compliance brings added benefits (self-interest). See Ian Hurd, ‘Legitimacy and authority in international politics’, *International Organization* 53: 2, 1999, p. 379.

157 Kim, *The North Korean nuclear weapons crisis*, p. 16.

158 Ziba Moshaver, *Nuclear weapons proliferation in the Indian subcontinent* (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991), p. 109.

159 Christopher Daase, ‘Der anfang vom ende des nuklearen tabus’, *Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen* 10: 1, 2003, pp. 32–3.

160 Quoted in Carol Cohn, ‘International security, language and gender’, in Birgit Brock-Utne and Gunnar Garbo, eds, *Language and power* (Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota, 2009), p. 41.

161 Jaswant Singh, ‘Against nuclear apartheid’, *Foreign Affairs* 77: 5, 1998, pp. 41–52. I do not suggest that aspirations for prestige and/or equality with the great powers explain India’s decision to build nuclear weapons alone. Security
concerns also played a major part. In fact, concerns with prestige, equality, and security were interwoven.

162 Singh, ‘Against nuclear apartheid’, p. 45.

163 David Kinsella and Jugdep S. Chima, ‘Symbols of statehood’, *Review of International Studies* 27: 3, 2001, p. 353.

164 Katherine K. Young, ‘Hinduism and the ethics of weapons of mass destruction’, in Sohail H. Hashmi and Steven P. Lee, eds, *Ethics and weapons of mass destruction: religious and secular perspectives* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 281.

165 Sankaran Krishna, ‘The social life of a bomb’, in Itty Abraham, ed., *South Asian cultures of the bomb* (Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009), p. 72.

166 Himadeep Muppidi, ‘Colonial and postcolonial global governance’, in Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, eds, *Power in global governance* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 288.

167 William C. Wohlforth et al., ‘Moral authority and status in international relations’, *Review of International Studies* 44: 3, 2017, p. 528.

168 Feroz H. Khan, *Eating grass: the making of the Pakistani bomb* (Stanford, CL: Stanford University Press, 2012), p. 287.

169 Z. A. Bhutto, *If I am assassinated* (New Delhi: Vikas, 1979), p. 138.

170 G. Perkovich, ‘A nuclear third way in South Asia’, *Foreign Policy* 91, Summer 1993, pp. 94–5.

171 Etel Solingen, *Nuclear logics: contrasting paths in East Asia and the Middle East* (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 22.

172 Muppidi, ‘Colonial and postcolonial global governance’, p. 285.

173 See also, e.g., Malaysia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 12 Oct. 1998, doc. A/C.1/53/PV.3, p. 23; Venezuela, UNGA First Committee, New York, 16 Oct. 1998, doc. A/C.1/53/PV.7, p. 8.

174 Kenya, UNGA First Committee, New York, 20 Oct. 1998, doc. A/C.1/53/PV.10, p. 22.

175 Miguel Marín-Bosch, ‘Nuclear disarmament on the eve of the twenty-first century’, *Disarmament Diplomacy* 36, 1999, p. 6.

176 United States, UNGA First Committee, New York, 14 Oct. 1998, doc. A/C.1/53//PV.5, p. 3.

177 P5, Joint declaration (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States), Geneva, 5 June 1998, http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/southasia/johnson060598.html.

178 Madeleine K. Albright, Statement, 5 June 1998, http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/southasia/johnson060598.html.

179 China, UNGA First Committee, New York, 14 Oct. 1998, doc. A/C.1/53/PV.5, p. 11.

180 Singh, ‘Against nuclear apartheid’, p. 45.

181 See, e.g., Hugh Gusterson, ‘Nuclear weapons and the other in the Western imagination’, *Cultural Anthropology* 14: 1, 1999, p. 113; Michael Quinlan, ‘The future deterrent capability for medium-sized Western powers in the new environment’, IFRI security studies department, *Proliferation Papers*, Autumn 2001, p. 11.

182 Achin Vanaik, ‘Sixth NPT review conference’, *Economic and Political Weekly* 35: 39, 2000, p. 3469.

183 John J. Mearsheimer, ‘India needs the bomb’, *New York Times*, 24 March 2000, https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/24/opinion/india-needs-the-bomb.html.

184 See Müller, Fischer, and Kötter, *Nuclear non-proliferation and global order*, p. 42; William Epstein, ‘January meeting keeps hope alive’, *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 47: 3, 1991, p. 10.

185 Epstein, ‘January meeting keeps hope alive’, p. 11.
186 Sweden, UNGA First Committee, New York, 15 Oct. 1990, doc. A/C.1/45/PV.3, p. 33.

187 Kevin P. Clements, ‘Will test ban conference self-destruct?’, *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist* 45: 6, 1989, p. 18.

188 Epstein, ‘January meeting keeps hope alive’, p. 11.

189 *New York Times* (editorial), ‘Self-defeating on nuclear tests’, 27 Jan. 1991, https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/27/opinion/self-defeating-on-nuclear-tests.html.

190 Epstein, ‘January meeting keeps hope alive’, p. 11.

191 Indonesia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 16 Oct. 1991, doc. A/C.1/46/PV.6, p. 26.

192 Epstein, ‘January meeting keeps hope alive’, p. 11.

193 Johnson, *Unfinished business*, p. 47.

194 Johnson, *Unfinished business*, pp. 23–40.

195 Sumit Ganguly, ‘India’s pathway to Pokhran II’, *International Security* 23: 4, 1999, p. 170.

196 Johnson, *Unfinished business*.

197 Robert Green, ‘What are nuclear bombs for?’, *Peace Magazine*, 1 Jan. 1996, http://peacemagazine.org/archive/v12n1p08.htm.

198 Cited in O. Dyer, ‘WHO asks world court’s opinion on nuclear weapons’, *British Medical Journal* 311: 7003, 1995, p. 469.

199 Kate Dewes and Robert Green, ‘The world court project’, *Canadian Foreign Policy Journal* 7: 1, 1999, p. 68. See also Adam Bartos and Christopher Hitchens, *International territory* (London: Verso, 1994), p. 22.

200 See William Walker, *A perpetual menace: nuclear weapons and international order* (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 16–17.

201 World Health Assembly, ‘Health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons’, Geneva, 14 May 1993, doc. WHA46.40.

202 Christopher Bellamy, ‘Big five nuclear powers braced for move to ban Bomb’, *The Independent*, 4 Jan. 1994; Manfred Mohr, ‘Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the use of nuclear weapons under international law’, *International Review of the Red Cross* 37: 316, 1997, pp. 92–3.

203 See Dewes and Green, ‘The world court project’, p. 65.

204 Miguel Marín-Bosch, ‘The NPT’s indefinite extension?’, in James Brown, ed., *Arms control in a multi-polar world* (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1996), pp. 33–47.

205 John Burroughs and Jacqueline Cabasso, ‘Nukes on trial’, *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 52: 2, 1996, p. 41.

206 Kate Dewes and Robert Green, ‘The world court project: how a citizen network can influence the United Nations’, *Peace, Security & Global Change* 7: 2, 1995, p. 17.

207 Martin Lailach, ‘The General Assembly’s request for an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons’, *Leiden Journal of International Law* 8: 2, 1994, p. 404.

208 Burroughs and Cabasso, ‘Nukes on trial’, p. 41.

209 Dewes and Green, ‘The world court project’, p. 66.

210 Dewes and Green, ‘The world court project’, p. 66.

211 Mohr, ‘Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice’, p. 94.

212 See, e.g., Mohr, ‘Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice’, p. 94; Dewes and Green, ‘The world court project’, p. 74.

213 Dewes and Green, ‘The world court project’, p. 74.

214 Miguel Marín-Bosch, ‘Getting rid of nuclear weapons’, *Medicine, Conflict, and Survival* 13: 4, 1997, p. 287.

215 E.g., Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, ‘International norms dynamics and political change’, *International Organization* 52: 4, 1998, pp. 887–917.
216 Charles D. Brockett, ‘The repression/popular-protest paradox’, in Mark Traugott, ed., *Repertories and cycles of collective action* (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), pp. 134–5.

217 Bartos and Hitchens, *International territory*, p. 23.

218 Charter of the United Nations, adopted 26 June 1945, in force 24 Oct. 1945, Art. 92.

219 Edvard Hambro, ‘The authority of the advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice’, *The International and Comparative Law Quarterly* 3: 1, 1954, pp. 2–22.

220 orty-two states presented written statements. wenty-two made oral interventions. Mike Moore, ‘World court says mostly no to nuclear weapons’, *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 52: 5, 1996, p. 40. See also Dewes and Green, ‘The world court project’, p. 69.

221 William Droziak, ‘France’s nuclear storm’, *Washington Post*, 8 July 1995, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/07/08/frances-nuclear-storm/ba783057-3b0e-439b-99ef-e948751e5f63/.

222 Dewes and Green, ‘The world court project’, p. 71.

223 Fen O. Hampson and Holly Reid, ‘Coalition diversity and normative legitimacy in human security negotiations’, *International Negotiation* 8: 1, 2003, p. 7.

224 Dewes and Green, ‘The world court project’, p. 71.

225 International Court of Justice (ICJ), *Legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons*, Advisory Opinion, 8 July 1996, p. 263.

226 ICJ, *Legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons*, p. 267.

227 ICJ, *Legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons*, p. 40.

228 Bruce Bimber, *The politics of expertise in congress* (New York: State University of New York Press, 1996).

229 Leon Ratz, *Organizing for arms control* (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belfer Center, 2013), p. 17.

230 Cited in Mariana Budjeryn, *Inheriting the bomb: the collapse of the USSR and the nuclear disarmament of Ukraine* (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022), p. 178.

231 Budjeryn, *Inheriting the bomb*; Wohlforth et al., ‘Moral authority and status in international relations’; Togzhan Kassenova, *Atomic steppe: how Kazakhstan gave up the bomb* (Stanford, CL: Stanford University Press, 2022); William C. Potter, ‘The politics of nuclear renunciation’, Henry L. Stimson Center, Occasional paper 2, 1995.

232 Budjeryn, *Inheriting the bomb*; Kassenova, *Atomic steppe*; Potter, ‘The politics of nuclear renunciation’; Stephen Burgess and Togzhan Kassenova, ‘The roll-back states’, in Tanya Ogilvie-White and David Santoro, eds, *Slaying the nuclear dragon* (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2012), pp. 85–117.

233 Christopher A. Stevens, ‘Identity politics and nuclear disarmament: the case of Ukraine’, *The Nonproliferation Review* 15: 1, 2008, p. 59.

234 Budjeryn, *Inheriting the bomb*, p. 250.

235 Budjeryn, *Inheriting the bomb*, p. 143.

236 Amy F. Woolf, ‘Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction programs: issues for Congress’, US Congressional Research Service, order code 97-1027 F, 6 March 2002.

237 Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Budapest, 5 December 1994, para. 2.

238 See, e.g., John Simpson, ed., *Nuclear non-proliferation: an agenda for the 1990s* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), Part 4; Paul Leventhal, ‘Flaws in the non-proliferation treaty’, *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* 41: 8, 1985, pp. 12–15; Australia, NPT review conference, Geneva, 28 Aug. 1985, doc. NPT/CONF.III/SR.2, p. 22; Switzerland, NPT review conference, Geneva, 29
Aug. 1985, doc. NPT/CONF.III/SR.4, p. 62; Portugal, NPT review conference, Geneva, 30 Aug. 1985, doc. NPT/CONF.III/SR.6, p. 94; Sri Lanka, NPT review conference, Geneva, 3 Sept. 1985, doc. NPT/CONF.III/SR.10, p. 123.

239 *Strategic Survey*, 'Nuclear weapons: the abolitionist upsurge', 98: 1, 1997, p. 46.

240 Robert A. Manning, 'The nuclear age: the next chapter', *Foreign Policy* 109, Winter 1997, p. 73.

241 Egeland, 'Who stole disarmament?'.

242 Tanya Ogilvie-White and David Santoro, 'The nuclear dragon', in Ogilvie-White and Santoro, eds, *Slaying the nuclear dragon* (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2012), p. 3.

243 Benjamin Sims and Christopher R. Henke, 'Repairing credibility: repositioning nuclear weapons knowledge after the Cold War', *Social Studies of Science* 42: 3, 2012, p. 325.

244 Rachel Weber, *Swords into dow shares: governing the decline of the military-industrial complex* (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001), pp. 10, 100.

245 Simpson, 'The role of security assurances', pp. 66–9.

246 Graham, *Disarmament sketches*, pp. 282–3.

247 Indonesia, NPT Review and Extension Conference, New York, 18 Apr. 1995, doc. NPT/CONF.1995/32, p. 35. See also, e.g., Tanzania, NPT Review and Extension Conference, New York, 19 Apr. 1995, doc. NPT/CONF.1995/32, p. 56; Bangladesh, NPT Review and Extension Conference, New York, 21 Apr. 1995, doc. NPT/CONF.1995/32, p. 109; Papua New Guinea, NPT Review and Extension Conference, New York, 21 Apr. 1995, doc. NPT/CONF.1995/32, p. 111; Zimbabwe, NPT Review and Extension Conference, New York, 20 Apr. 1995, doc. NPT/CONF.1995/32, p. 91.

248 Zambia, UNGA First Committee, New York, 24 Oct. 1994, doc. A/C.1/49/PV.9, p. 22.

249 Lewis A. Dunn, 'The NPT: assessing the past, building the future', *The Nonproliferation Review* 16: 2, 2009, p. 160.

250 See Welsh, 'Delegate perspectives on the 1995 NPT review and extension conference', *The Nonproliferation Review* 2: 3, 1995; Grotto, 'Why do states that oppose nuclear proliferation resist new nonproliferation obligations?'.

251 In addition to quinquennial review conferences, the NPT states parties and signatories would from now on also meet for a major conference, a so-called preparatory committee meeting, in the three years prior to each Review conference. See NPT Review and Extension Conference, 'Strengthening the review process of the treaty', Decision 1, New York, 1995, doc. NPT/CONF.1995/L.4.

252 NPT Review and Extension Conference, 'Principles and objectives for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament', Decision 2, New York, 1995, doc. NPT/CONF.1995/L.5, p. 2.

253 On Israel's 'opaque proliferation', see Avner Cohen, *Israel and the bomb* (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1998).

254 Egypt, NPT Review and Extension Conference, New York, 20 Apr. 1995, doc. NPT/CONF.1995/32, p. 80; Lebanon, NPT Review and Extension Conference, New York, 11 May 1995, doc. NPT/CONF.1995/32, p. 186; Libya, NPT Review and Extension Conference, New York, 11 May 1995, doc. NPT/CONF.1995/32, p. 193.

255 Quoted in Welsh, 'Delegate perspectives on the 1995 NPT review and extension conference', p. 3.

256 Jayantha Dhanapala and Randy Rydell, *Multilateral diplomacy and the NPT* (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2005).

257 Carlo Patti, *Brazil in the global nuclear order* (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021); Matias Spektor, 'The evolution of Brazil's nuclear intentions', *The Nonproliferation Review* 23: 5–6, 2016, p. 643.
258 See, e.g., John Lewis Gaddis, *The Cold War* (London: Allen Lane, 2004), p. 124.

259 See, e.g., The National Security Archive, 'Kissinger and Chile: the declassified record', 11 Sept. 2013, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB437/.

260 Abolition 2000, 'Abolition 2000 statement', April 1995, https://www.abolition2000.org/en/about/founding-statement/.

261 Interview with Alice Slater, New York, 3 July 2017.

262 Interview with Alice Slater, New York, 3 July 2017. Lachlan Forrow, Victor W. Sidel, 'Medicine and nuclear war', *Journal of the American Medical Association* 280: 5, 1998, pp. 456–61.

263 Jayantha Dhanapala, NPT Review and Extension Conference, New York, 12 May 1995, doc. NPT/CONF.1995/32, p. 214.

264 Malaysia, UNGA Plenary, 29 Sept. 1995, doc. A/50/PV12, p. 23.

265 Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, *Report of the Canberra commission on the elimination of nuclear weapons* (Canberra: National Capital Printers, 1996), p. 7.

266 After UNSSOD-I, the CD had 40 members, but by 1995, the unification of Germany and dissolution of Yugoslavia brought the number of members down to 38.

267 UN, Press Release, 'Conference on disarmament admits 23 new members', 17 June 1996, https://press.un.org/en/1996/19960617.dcf266.html. The CD was expanded by another five states in 1999.

268 Nigeria, CD, Geneva, 28 July 1994, doc. CD/PV.685, p. 7. Emphasis added. See also Norway, UNGA First Committee, New York, 19 Oct. 1994, doc. A/C.1/49/PV.6, p. 7.

269 Johnson, *Unfinished business*, pp. 45, 109.

270 Singh, 'Against nuclear apartheid', p. 41.

271 The NPT was adopted by consensus in the Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament (ENDC) and then by majority voting in the UNGA. The PTBT was adopted by consensus by the United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR. All NPT review conference final documents and special session documents have been adopted by consensus.

272 Johnson, *Unfinished business*, p. 231.

273 Slovenia was originally a member but withdrew almost instantly after pressure from the United States (Slovenia was, at the time, vying for NATO membership). See Robert Green, 'A fast track to zero nuclear weapons', *Medicine, Conflict and Survival* 16: 1, 2000, pp. 24–36. An important forerunner of the NAC was the so-called Six-Nation Peace Initiative, a loose group of six non-nuclear-weapon states advocating disarmament formed in 1984. In contrast to the NAC, however, which engaged actively in the institutions of the multilateral nuclear disarmament framework from the get-go, the Six-Nation Initiative never really engaged in the running political processes or institutions of the multilateral nuclear disarmament framework. The Six-Nation Initiative published a handful of statements calling for disarmament, but never entered the NPT or UNGA as a negotiating bloc. The NAC, by contract, entered the existing forums as an actor. The members of the Six-Nation Initiative were Argentina, Greece, India, Mexico, Sweden, and Tanzania.

274 Ireland for 31 states, UNGA First Committee, New York, 27 Oct. 1998, doc. A/C.1/53/PV.16, pp. 1–2.

275 Darach MacFhionnbhairr, 'How can we make greater progress towards nuclear disarmament and prevent further proliferation?', panel discussion, 27 Oct. 1998, transcribed in United Nations, *Disarmament* (New York: UN Printing Office, 1999), p. 43.

276 South Africa, UNGA First Committee, New York, 27 Oct. 1998, doc. A/C.1/53/PV.16, p. 11.
277 Henrik Salander, ‘Special comment’, *Disarmament Forum* 1, 2000, p. 3.

278 Manpreet Sethi, ‘NPT reviews conference 2000’, *Strategic Analysis* 24: 1, 2000, p. 51.

279 Butler, *Fatal choice*, p. 66.

280 Tariq Rauf, ‘Ambassador Abdallah Baali on the 2000 NPT review conference’, *The Nonproliferation Review* 7: 3, 2000, pp. 1–2.

281 NPT review conference, Final document (Parts I and II), New York, 2000, doc. NPT/CONF.2000/28, p. 14.

282 Sweden, UNGA First Committee, New York, 23 Oct. 2000, doc. A/C.1/55/PV.21, p. 8.

283 Myanmar, UNGA First Committee, New York, 11 Oct. 2000, doc. A/C.1/55/PV.11, p. 4.

284 Canada, UNGA First Committee, New York, 5 Oct. 2000, doc. A/C.1/55/PV.6, p. 1.

285 Kazakhstan, UNGA First Committee, New York, 12 Oct. 2000, doc. A/C.1/55/PV.12, p. 12.

286 Egypt, UNGA First Committee, New York, 10 Oct. 2001, doc. A/C.1/52/PV.5, p. 9.

287 Phone interview with Douglas Roche, 8 Sept. 2016. The New Zealand diplomat Hine-Wai Loose also uses the word ‘euphoric’ to describe the adoption of the 13 Steps. Hine-Wai Loose, ‘2005 – year of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty – but what happened to nuclear disarmament?’, *New Zealand Yearbook of International Law* 4, 2007, p. 143.

288 Interview with Steffen Kongstad, Geneva, 7 Dec. 2015.

289 Interview with Henrik Salander, Stockholm, 27 Sept. 2016.

290 Butler, *Fatal choice*, p. 66.

291 Mark Schapiro, ‘Mutiny on the nuclear bounty’, *The Nation*, 27 Dec. 1993.

292 Vanaik, ‘Sixth NPT review conference’, p. 3470.

293 Interview with Henrik Salander, Stockholm, 27 Sept. 2016.

294 During the early history of the multilateral nuclear disarmament framework, the G77 had been preferred vehicle of collective bargaining for the developing states. In advance of the 1990 NPT review conference, this role was transferred to the NAM, the membership of which is largely overlapping with that of the G77. On the relationship between the NAM and the G77, see William Potter and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, *Nuclear politics and the non-aligned movement: principles vs pragmatism* (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012).

295 NAM, ‘11th summit conference of heads of state or government of the Non-Aligned Movement’, Cartagena, 18–20 Oct. 1995, para. 107.

296 See, e.g., Dewes and Green, ‘The world court project’.

297 Burroughs and Cabasso, ‘Nukes on trial’, p. 41.

298 Dewes and Green, ‘The world court project’, p. 62.

299 Mohr, ‘Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice’, p. 94.

300 Marín-Bosch, ‘The NPT’s indefinite extension’.

301 Dewes and Green, ‘The world court project’, p. 68.

302 Walker, *A perpetual menace*, p. 16.