An Alternative to Nuclear Deadlock and Stalled Diplomacy – Proposals,
Pathways, and Prospects for the Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone
Michael Hamel-GreenA Working Paper presented to
The 75th Anniversary Nagasaki Nuclear-Pandemic Nexus Scenario Project
October 31–November 1, and November 14–15, 2020 (Japan Time)
Co-sponsored by
Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University (RECNA)
Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability
Asia Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (APLN)

About the Author
Michael Hamel-Green is Emeritus Professor in Social Inquiry in the College of Arts, Victoria
University Melbourne, Australia. He was previously the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Educationand Human Development at Victoria University; and taught in in international security, conflict
resolution, and community development subjects.

1Abstract
The current nuclear deadlock with North Korea remains unresolved as the initially promising2018-2019 three-way diplomacy between the DPRK, US and ROK stalls. More widely inNortheast Asia, nuclear confrontation between China and the US is mounting, with increased
deployment of nuclear-weapon-capable forces in and around the region, including land and seabased missiles, missile defence systems, and deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons onmobile platforms. The paper proposes that an alternative to continuing nuclear escalation, andthe increasing threat of a nuclear catastrophe, does exist in the shape of a phased establishmentof a regional Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ) negotiated in tandem with aregional comprehensive security agreement. The comprehensive security agreement would
involve a final peace settlement of the Korean War, establishment of a regional security forum,
economic and energy assistance to the DPRK, and legally binding security guarantees for the
NWFZ from the US, China, and Russia. The paper discusses the precedents of successful NWFZ
establishment in other regions, and the history of past proposals for such a zone in Northeast
Asia. It examines the special NWFZ features that would be required in this region, including theneed for rigorous verification of the dismantlement of existing nuclear weapons and facilities inthe DPRK, a Korean War peace settlement, a flexible NWFZ entry into force mechanism thatgives time for DPRK to assess the security guarantee benefits of the NWFZ zone, and provisions
for preventing forward deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons within the region. The
paper concludes by presenting NEANWFZ proposals emerging from a recent Northeast Asian
workshop of regional experts, and identifying potential pathways, advocates, and prospects for
its successful negotiation in the current global context.

Keywords
Nuclear weapons free zones, treaties, allies, prohibition, disarmament, arms control, Northeast
Asia, DPRK, Korea, China, Russia, United States, diplomacy

2Introduction
Amidst the coronavirus pandemic that has left peoples and leaders reeling across the world thecontinuing dilemma of nuclear confrontation in Northeast Asia has received little recent
attention. Yet, as this paper discusses, the threats posed by the current confrontation, especiallyon the Korean Peninsula but also in the regional military confrontation between the US andChina, are extreme indeed, and could potentially escalate into a catastrophic nuclear conflict.
The paper will go on to propose that a solution does exist at a regional level to reduce the threatof nuclear weapons. Not perfect. Not universal. But a transitional ‘quarantining’ strategy thatcan be taken by any group in the exercise of their own sovereign rights. That is for states to takethe initiative to close their borders to the entry, stationing and acquisition of nuclear weapons;
and to collectively prevent assistance to any other state possessing, deploying, or threatening touse nuclear weapons. If you like, to establish quarantine systems on their borders and territories
designed to prevent the presence of nuclear weapons, to lessen the risk of themselves becoming
targets in any nuclear exchange, and to secure security guarantees from nuclear-armed states andthe UN Security Council.
This regional quarantining against nuclear threats is through the establishment of a legallybinding and international verified nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) under processes,
conditions and arrangements developed through UN disarmament forums, and recognised
through the UN General Assembly and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
There are already five such multi-nation nuclear weapon-free zones in populated regions (Latin
America, South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa and Central Asia), two single nation zones(Mongolia, New Zealand), and other spaces internationally recognised as such zones (Antarctica,
Outer Space, Seabed). Some 110 UN Member States belong to NWFZs. All have so far been
relatively successfully in preventing both nuclear weapon acquisition by zone states and nuclear
weapon stationing by external powers; and all the multi-nation NWFZs in populated regions
have secured, or are in the (often lengthy) process of securing 1, the relevant negative security

1 However, the Southeast Asian NWFZ has so far not succeeded in securing the required non-use or threat of use

security guarantees to the relevant protocol due to nuclear-weapon-state concerns over its extension of the zone
to cover EEZs and require an undertaking not to use nuclear weapons from within these EEZs.

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guarantees against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons from the five NPT-recognized
nuclear-armed states (US, UK, France, China, Russia).
Mexican diplomat, Alfonso Garcia Robles, the principal architect (along with the UN’s William
Epstein) of the first nuclear-weapon-free zone in a populated region (the 1967 Latin American
Tlatelolco Treaty) argued in 1974 that “Because of the reluctance of the nuclear Powers to adopt
effective disarmament measures” non-nuclear states should “resort to procedures similar to thosewhich apply in the case of an epidemic: to seek gradually to broaden the zones of the world fromwhich nuclear weapons are prohibited for all time so that the territories of the nuclear powers
will constitute something like contaminated islands, subject to quarantine”. 2 Robles’
highlighting of a parallel between the spread of nuclear weapons and a deadly pandemic waspercipient indeed, given such comparability as global impact, the invisible nature of deadly
radiation, the economic impacts, and not least the humanitarian consequences of millions ofdeath (even in the case of a limited nuclear exchange).
As a former New Zealand Prime Minister, David Lange, noted in an Oxford Union debate on his
country’s nuclear-free policy, “There is simply only one thing more terrifying than nuclear
weapons pointed in your direction and that is nuclear weapons pointed in your enemy’s
direction. The outcome of their use would be the same in either case, and that is the annihilationof you and all of us. That is a defence which is no defence”. 3

What is a NWFZ?
The UN General Assembly, in Resolution 3472B (1975) has defined a NWFZ as:“...any zone recognized as such by the General Assembly of the United Nations, which anygroup of States, in the free exercises of their sovereignty, has established by virtue of a treaty or

2 Alfonso Garcia Robles, speech, 29th Session General Assembly, Plenary Meeting, 8 October 1974,

A/PV.2261,p.559. Also see similar remarks in Robles’ speech to the UN General Assembly First Committee, First
Committee Provisional Verbatim Record of the Two Thousand and Eighteenth Meeting, UN document
A/C.1/PV.2018, 13 November 1974, p.32.
3 David Lange quotation cited in Veronika Meduna, New Zealand Set to Mark Anti-Nuclear Victory over the UnitedStates, Australian Broadcasting Commission News, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-13/new-zealandcelebrates-anti-nuclear-victory-over-united-states/7731644 (accessed 28/5/20).

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convention whereby: (a) The statute of total absence of nuclear weapons, to which the zone shallbe subject, including the procedure for the delimitation of the zone, is defined; (b) Aninternational system of verification and control is established to guarantee compliance with the
obligations deriving from that statute.”4
Resolution 3472B also carefully defined the obligations of nuclear-weapon States towards
NWFZs, including the need to respect all treaty provisions relating to the absence of nuclear
weapons within such zones, to refrain from any acts that would violate such treaties, and, mostimportantly, “To refrain from using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against the States
included in the zone”.5 The non-use or threat of use undertakings are usually referred to as
negative security guarantees, and embodied in legally binding protocols attached to the treaties.
The UN Disarmament Commission provided guidelines in April 1999 on the establishment ofsuch zones, specifying inter alia: the need to establish them on freely arrived arrangements byregional states; to be an initiative from within the region; to involve consultation with nuclearweapon states on protocols requiring them to provide “legally binding commitments to the statusof the zone and not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against States parties to the(NWFZ) treaty”; and to permit peaceful uses of nuclear energy. 6 In a recent statement on suchzones, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasized “First and foremost, nuclearweapon-free zones put a permanent end to the possibility of nuclear conflict in a given region…

4 UN Office of Disarmament Affairs, https://front.un-arm.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NWFZ-Fact-Sheet-

July2020.pdf
5 United Nations, General Assembly, Thirtieth Session, Resolution 3472B, New York, 11 December 1975,https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/3472(XXX)
6 The UN Disarmament Commission codified regional NWFZ requirements in its 1999 consensus report: United

Nations, Report of the Disarmament Commission, UN General Assembly Official Records, 54th Session,
Supplement No.42, A/54/42, Annex 1, 16 May 1999, UN, New York, 1999 pp. 7-10. The UNDC report specified,inter alia, that a NWFZ should: (a) provide for the effective prohibition of the development, manufacturing,
control, possession, testing, stationing or transporting by the states parties to the treaty of any type of nuclear
explosive device for any purpose, and should stipulate that parties do not permit the stationing of any nuclear
explosive devices by any state within the zone; (b) should provide for effective verification and compliance; (c)should have clearly defined boundaries; (d) should be respected by all states, including the nuclear weapon states,
who should be consulted in the negotiations and on protocols binding them not use or threaten to use nuclear
weapons against zonal states; (e) should not prevent peaceful uses of nuclear energy; and (f) should be initiatedby the states of the region concerned.

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At the same time, these zones can provide additional assurance to the global community of thepeaceful nuclear intentions of the countries in these regions”. 7
Key aspects of the NWFZ concept including seeking to constrain both horizontal proliferationand stationing of nuclear weapons within a particular geographic region, including not only land
but also sea and air spaces within that territory. Horizontal proliferation may be thought of as theacquisition of nuclear weapons by states within the zone. Vertical proliferation is an increase innuclear weapons of existing nuclear-armed states (NAS). Increases in the nuclear arsenals of
existing NAS may additionally be associated with their stationing or deployment of nuclear
weapons outside their own homeland territories, particularly in the case of tactical nuclear
weapons, short or medium range missiles, and gravity bombs.
The first NWFZ to be established in a populated region, the 1967 Latin American Tlatelolco
Treaty, illustrates the NWFZ role in the case of both vertical and horizontal proliferation. 8 The
initial impetus was the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which arose when the former Soviet Union
stationed nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba and an alarmed US Kennedy Administration
established a naval blockade around the island and forced Soviet nuclear-armed submarines tosurface. However, the same zone also served to constrain potential horizontal proliferation
between the two largest South American states, Argentina and Brazil. The Tlatelolco Treaty now
has universal membership within the zone, including Cuba, and enjoys binding negative security
guarantees from all five NPT-recognized nuclear weapon states. It is widely regarded as a modelfor other zones, not only in having insulated the region from becoming the site of future nuclear
7 UN Office of Disarmament Affairs, op.cit.
8 For studies and accounts of the Tlatelolco Treaty, see: Alfonso Garcia Robles, The Denuclearization of Latin

America (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1967); Alfonso Garcia Robles, The Latin
American Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (Muscatine, Iowa: The Stanley Foundation, 1979); Davis R. Robinson, “TheTreaty of Tlatelolco and the United States: A Latin American Nuclear Free Zone,” The American Journal ofInternational Law 64, no.2 (April1970), pp. 282-309; John R. Redick, “Regional Nuclear Arms Control in Latin
America,” International Organization 29, no.2 (Spring 1975), pp. 415-445; John R. Redick, “The Tlatelolco Regime
and Nonproliferation in Latin America,” International Organization 35, no.1 (Winter 1981), pp. 103-134; Monica
Serrano, Common Security in Latin America: The 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco (London: Institute of Latin American
Studies, London University, 1992); Monica Serrano, “Latin America: The Treaty of Tlatelolco,” in Ramesh Thakur,ed., Nuclear Weapons-Free Zones (London: Macmillan Press, 1998), pp. 35-58; John R. Redick, “Precedents andLegacies: Tlatelolco’s Contribution to the 21st Century,” in Pericles Gasparini Alves and Daiana B. Cipollone, eds.
Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones in the 21st Century (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research,
1997), pp. 39-48; Thomas Graham, Jr.,The Treaty of Tlatelolco: Its Role in the International Regime of NonProliferation (OPANAL, Articles on the 30th Anniversary of Tlatelolco Treaty, 1997),
http://www.opanal.org/Articles/Aniv-30/graham.htm.

6conflict between external nuclear powers, and having defused a potential source of regional
proliferation, but also in its establishment of a permanent body to oversee the denuclearization of
the zone, OPANAL (Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the
Caribbean), and in it being complemented by a bilateral verification and monitoring agency,
ABACC (Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials)
between Argentina and Brazil.
Another key feature of NWFZs is that, unlike the central non-proliferation and disarmament
instruments, they can be tailored to meet the specific conditions and needs within a particularregion. In the case of zones where either horizontal proliferation, or stationing by nuclear-armed
states, has already taken place, there can be specific provisions to prevent such activities
occurring again.
In the case of the second NWFZ to be established, the 1985 South Pacific Nuclear Free
(Rarotonga) Treaty (SPNFZ), the zone not only included the core requirements as set out in the
UN definition and guidelines but also includes specific provisions against nuclear weapons
testing and radioactive waste dumping in view of the 321 nuclear tests variously conducted by
the US, UK, and France in the Pacific over some six decades with tragic health consequences forindigenous peoples across the region. 9 The Rarotonga Treaty was noteworthy in that its Protocol
3 has successfully secured nuclear weapon state legally binding commitments against nuclear
testing even in the extensive international waters encompassed by the zone. In the case of the1996 African Pelindaba Treaty NWFZ, the provisions took particular account of the previous
apartheid-era South African nuclear weapons program to ensure dismantlement of the relevant
facilities.10 In Central Asia, the 2006 Central Asia NWFZ took special account of the previous
Soviet use of the region for nuclear testing and facilities in a provision calling for the

9 For detailed studies of the SPNFZ, see: Michael Hamel-Green, The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty: A

Critical Assessment Peace Research Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University,
Canberra, 1990 (available online at ANU Library, https://openresearchrepository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/111864); Gregory Fry, “Regional Arms Control in the South Pacific,” in Pitt andThompson, eds., Nuclear-Free Zones, Croom Helm, London, 1987, pp. 46-66; T.V. Paul, “Nuclear-free-zone in theSouth Pacific”, The Round Table, 75:299, pp.252-262, 1986.
10 Oluyemi Adeniji, The Treaty of Pelindaba on the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (Geneva: United Nations

Institute for Disarmament Research, 2002); Julius O. Ihonvbee, “Africa – the Treaty of Pelindaba,” in Thakur, ed.,Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zones, pp. 93-120.

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environmental rehabilitation of territories contaminated by the previous nuclear activities, andwas also more rigorous than other zones in requiring the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) Additional Protocol Safeguards. 11
A final key aspect of internationally recognized NWFZs is their binding requirement ofinternationally IAEA supervised verification and safeguards, together with compliancemechanisms involving either regional bodies and/or the United Nations.
As recognized in the UN guidelines, the NPT Article VI, and in the preambles of existing zone
treaties, NWFZs play a key pathway role between regional arms control to prevent or reverse
proliferation, and wider nuclear disarmament goals and strategies. They are by definition
geographically limited in their reach, therefore only partial measures. However, the more zones
that are established, the greater the restrictions on nuclear deployment by the existing nuclear
weapon states, and consequent reduction of risks of particular regions becoming ‘triggers” fornuclear conflagrations, whether as a result of conflicts between external nuclear-armed states or
as a result of nuclear proliferation and confrontation amongst states within a particular region.
The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was a prime example of how a Cold war rivalry between the US
and Soviet Union led to a potential nuclear conflagration that would have been unwanted andcataclysmic for the Latin America region itself and the whole world. As a partial measure,
NWFZs can and do play a crucial role in preventing or prohibiting nuclear deployment within
particular regions and thereby constraining the geographic boundaries in which nuclear-armedstates can deploy their deadly nuclear forces. This role is particularly important in seeking to
avoid possibilities of actual or miscalculated escalation of a regional conflict or crisis involving
overseas-deployed nuclear forces. Nuclear-armed states with overseas-deployed nuclear forces
may contemplate nuclear-war-fighting or battlefield use of nuclear weapons, or be involved in
accidental firing of such weapons, on the questionable assumption that such use would not
escalate into broader nuclear conflict.

11 Marco Roscini, “Something Old, Something New: The 2006 Semipalatinsk Treaty on a Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone

in Central Asia,” Chinese Journal of International Law 7, no.3 (2008), pp. 593-624; Jozef Goldblat, “Denuclearizationof Central Asia,” Disarmament Forum, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, no.4 (2007).

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Further, if leaders in nuclear-armed states assume that they can utilize such weapons in regions
outside their own territory, they may conceivably sacrifice populations in those regions in orderto pursue their own perceived “strategic” or “national security” interests, notwithstanding thenuclear umbrella extended nuclear deterrence rationale that is assumed to protect the umbrellastates. A recent example was the July 2017 statement by Lindsey Graham, one of the mostsenior US Republican Senators and a close ally of President Trump, in which he stated publicly(after North Korea conducted two international continental ballistic missile tests in July 2017):“There is a military option: to destroy North Korea’s nuclear program and North Korea itself. If
there’s going to be a war to stop [Kim Jong Un], it will be over there. If thousands die, they’regoing to die over there. They’re not going to die over here”. 12
Presumably, in pursuing any military option to “destroy…North Korea itself” that might involvethe use of nuclear weapons by either side, the US would take the time (minutes, days, weeks,months?) to consult with affected allies under nuclear “umbrella” arrangements orunderstandings, particularly South Korea and Japan, both with large centres of population wellwithin range of North Korean missiles, and would also assess the wider potential consequencesof any nuclear weapon use. Senator Graham’s statement was explicit in complacently assumingthat the casualties would be in the “thousands” rather than the hundreds of thousands, or the
millions; and in implying that, in any case, the consequent deaths would not be “over here” (i.e.
within the United States itself) but rather over there (i.e. in a distant land). It also ignored thepotential for escalation with nuclear-armed China, which has a bilateral defence alliancerelationship with North Korea and was clearly very ready to come to North Korea’s support
during the original Korean War.
Senator Graham’s statement illustrates the risk that in the case of regions outside their own
territories the leaderships in nuclear-armed states may well contemplate the use of tactical or
strategic nuclear weapons in the belief that the risks will only be experienced by the external
regional states rather than by their own populations. While nuclear umbrella extended nuclear
deterrence arrangements may appear to offer reassurance against nuclear attack, they assume
12 Erikj Ortiz and Arata Yamamoto, “Sen.Graham: Trump Says War with North Korea an Option”, NBC News,

August 1, 2017, https://www. Nbc-news.com/news/north-korea/sen-lindsey-graham-trump-says-war-north-koreaoption-n788396, cited in Ankit Panda, Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea, Hurst,
London, 2020, p.295.

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that the only risk to be “deterred” is a rational decision by an adversary to mount a nuclear
attack. However, the extended deterrence logic fails to take account of the need to avoid andprevent a plethora of risks that have very little to do with rational decision-making, including:uncontrollable nuclear escalation; computer error; erroneous radar data; cyber attacks from bothstate and non-state actors; imperatives to strike first when both sides are pursuing pre-emptive or
first strike strategies; uncertainties about whether a nuclear weapon state’s provision of extended
nuclear deterrence would actually be delivered in an situation where the nuclear state had toweigh up risking one of its own major cities to defend an ally’s city; and nuclear conflict
escalation to a wider conflagration resulting in long term climate disruption, crop yield reduction
and associated famines across the world.
NWFZs, with their binding security guarantees and removal of potential nuclear targets, clearly
offer an important security alternative for regional groups to prevent their regions becoming sitesof human incineration in confrontations between nuclear-armed states. At the same time,through cooperation between NWFZs, such zones can serve as stepping-stones towards wider
nuclear disarmament, and complement and reinforce central non-proliferation and disarmament
instruments and strategies.

Why a NWFZ in Northeast Asia is an Urgent Issue
Northeast Asia is a region where NWFZ arrangements are particularly relevant and urgent in thelight of the horizontal proliferation that has already occurred with North Korea’s testing andacquisition of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery, vertical proliferation in the form of
current deployment of nuclear-weapon-related forces and infrastructure on the part of the US andChina, a history of threats of using nuclear weapons, and the 2017 exchanges of nuclear use
threats between the Trump Administration and the DPRK.
In the case of the 2017 nuclear threats, President Trump warned on August 8th, in response to
DPRK criticism of the US, that “North Korea best not make any more threats to the UnitedStates…They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen”; and, in a subsequent
September 19th address to the UN General Assembly, that the US would “totally destroy North
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Korea” if the US were forced to defend itself.13 The day after the US “fire and fury” threat,
General Kim Rak Gyom, the North Korean Commander of the Korean People’s Army (KPA)
Strategic Force, issued a statement that it was “seriously examining the plan for an enveloping
strike at Guam through simultaneous fire of four Hwasong-12 intermediate-range strategicballistic rockets…to signal a crucial warning to the U.S.”.14 North Korea went on to conduct a
series of August and September 2017 long-range missile tests designed to show that its missiles
could now reach as far as Japan, Guam and even the continental US; and on September 3 rd 2017carried out a test of what it claimed was a thermonuclear bomb, with a yield of over 100 kilotons.
and threatened to conduct a hydrogen bomb test in or over the Pacific.15
The Trump Administration reciprocated by ordering flights of both non-nuclear and nuclearcapable strategic bombers near North Korea’s coast; and, for the first time in a decade, deployed
three of its carrier-strike groups to the Pacific.16 The Trump Administration’s Defense Secretary
at the time, General James Mattis, was working within a context in which the current US
strategic plans included a pre-emptive attack against North Korean under OPLAN 5027
involving the use of up to 80 nuclear weapons. 17 Mattis has recently stated that “only the
President could authorize the use of nuclear weapons” but believed any decision to do so would
be on his recommendation.18 He noted further that he had asked himself at the time “What doyou do if you’ve got to do it? You’re going to incinerate a couple million people. No person has
the right to kill a million people as far as I’m concerned, yet that’s what I have to confront”. 19 He
recalled that during this crisis, “I had to consider ever day this [nuclear strike] could happen.
13 Ankit Panda, Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea, Hurst, London, 2020, p.254-5.

Panda provides a detailed account of the exchange of threats by both sides. He notes “During 2017, the UnitedStates and North Korea came close to nuclear disaster…throughout 2017, the US deployed both non-nuclear andnuclear-capable strategic bombers to airspace around the Korean Peninsula as part of allied reassurance for Japanand South Korea. The North Koreans, as in the past, viewed these aerial operations as highly threatening. Thesesigns could easily have been interpreted as an American threat of first-use, given the president’s over-the-top
language, which departed from more standard US deterrence rhetoric towards North Korea. In September, Trumpstood before the world’s gathered leaders at the UN General Assembly and threatened to ‘totally destroy’ North
Korea.”
14 Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), “KPA Will Take Practical Action: Commander of Strategic Force”, 10 August
2017, http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Bob Woodward, Rage, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2020, p.74
18 Ibid., p.72.
19 Ibid., p.72.

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This was not a theoretical concern”. 20 As Bob Woodward concluded in his summary of the crisis
based on direct interviews with Trump and Mattis: “The American people had little idea that Julythrough September of 2017 had been so dangerous”. 21 Compared to Americans, many Koreans,
Japanese and others in the region probably had somewhat greater awareness of the dangers of thecrisis as the ones most likely to be amongst the millions who would die or suffer injury. Even
more disturbing in these post-crisis reflections by one of the key Trump Administration nuclear
decision-makers is that Mattis made quite clear that, despite his misgivings, he would have been
prepared to carry out a presidential order to use nuclear weapons: “I was focused completely on
how to prevent this [a nuclear conflict] or stop it as quickly as possible. Recognizing that theworst possible situation might dictate the use of nuclear weapons, with all that means in terms not just that war, but the way it would change the shape of the world. That now nuclear weapons
can be used again”. 22 The 2017 July to September North Korean nuclear crisis was far frombeing a storm in an Asian teacup but rather a narrowly averted regional and global catastrophe.
The 2017 exchange of nuclear threats prompted global alarm and the imposition of new UN
Security Council sanctions on North Korea. Fortunately, in no small part due to the intercessionof the new South Korean President, Moon Jae-in, the crisis was lessened through direct talks
with North Korea. These culminated in a series of leader summits and declarations between
Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un and between President Trump and Kim Jong Un.23
These summits produced a number of in-principle agreements on key aspects of denuclearizationand normalization of relations. However, there was little further progress during 2020. In this
impasse, the continuing development and reach of North Korean nuclear weapon systems, andthe US deployment of nuclear and conventional forces in the region targeted on both North

20 Ibid., p.74.
21 Ibid., p.80.
22 Ibid., pp.74-75.
23 2018 Panmunjom Declaration between Chairman Kim Jong-un and President Moon Jae-in ,http://www.korea.net/Government/Current-Affairs/NationalAffairs/view?subId=641&affairId=656&pageIndex=1&articleId=3412; Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trumpof the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at theSingapore Summit, 12 June 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/joint-statement-presidentdonald-j-trump-united-states-america-chairman-kim-jong-un-democratic-peoples-republic-korea-singaporesummit/.

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Korea and China, create an ever present and escalating threat of nuclear conflict, whether
deliberate, miscalculated or accidental (due to the shortness of response times for incoming
missiles and uncertainty about whether dual capable missiles are nuclear-armed or not).
Considering first the nuclear weapon deployment and capabilities of North Korea, it is now
estimated that North Korea possesses some 30-40 nuclear warheads as at January 2020. In termsof potential delivery systems, it has successfully tested a range of short, medium and long-range
missiles, including: the Hwasong-7 (Nodong), Hawasong-9 (Scud-ER), and Bukkeukjseong-2
missiles with a range of around 1,000km; the Hwasong-10 and Hwasong-12 missiles with arange of over 3,000km; the Hwasong-13 missile with a range of over 5,000km; the Hwasong-14,
Hwasong-15 with ranges from 6,700km to 13,000km; the Taepodong-2 space launch vehicle
with a range of 12,000km; and the Bukkeukseong-3 submarine launched missile first tested in
October 2019.24 While the various missile systems have potential nuclear capability, there issome uncertainty as to whether North Korea has actually developed small enough warheads to be
used on them, although the Hwasong-7 is believed to be the type that is most likely to be chosen.
A recent interim UN report submitted to the 15-member UN Security Council North Korean
Sanctions Committee has assessed that North Korea has “probably developed miniaturised
nuclear devices to fit into the warheads of its ballistic missiles”, that its processing of highly
enriched uranium is continuing, and that it is continuing to produce nuclear weapons.25 A US
intelligence assessment in 2017 also concluded that North Korea has developed nuclear weapons
small enough to fit inside missiles. Defence analysts, however, have questioned whether North
Korea as yet possesses the necessary guidance and warhead activation capabilities for relevant
missile delivery systems.26
In the absence of any agreements with North Korea on either denuclearization arrangements, or afreeze on current nuclear weapon acquisition and development programs, it is reasonable toassume that the DPRK will continue to increase its nuclear warhead stockpile and ability to
24 Shannon Kile & Hans Kristensen, “World Nuclear Forces”, SIPRI Yearbook 2020, SIPRI Yearbook 2020:

Armaments, Disarmament and International Security www.sipriyearbook.org.
25 The Guardian, “North Korea has ‘probably’ developed nuclear devices to fit ballistic missiles – UN”, 4 August

2020, www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/04/north-korea-has-probably-developed-nuclear-devices-to-fitballistic -missiles-un.
26 Ibid.

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deploy nuclear warheads on missiles with expanding range (even extending to Guam and the US
mainland). In terms of potential casualties if even a single DPRK nuclear weapon of 250 kilotons
were to be detonated over Seoul or Tokyo, one scenario has estimated over 700,000 deaths and2.4 million other casualties from the initial impacts, not taking into account any aftermath
effects.27 In terms of aftermath effects, a scientific study of the likely impact of the explosion ofsome 100 relatively small 15kt nuclear bombs in the adjoining region of South Asia, suggeststhat such explosions would create massive global ozone layer losses, associated reductions infood crops and create a global nuclear famine lasting for up to two decades.28
The United States for its part has created an encircling ring of nuclear-weapon-related bases,
infrastructure, and mobile platforms within range of both North Korean and Chinese territory andcoastlines; and continues to test long-range missiles fired from Vandenberg Base in California to
the Kwajalein Atoll test site in the mid-Pacific. As at 2020, it maintains air and naval bases
relevant to nuclear weapon capabilities in Japan, South Korea, Guam, Hawaii, and Australia, as
well as: nuclear-weapon-related electronic C3I bases in Australia; THAAD (Terminal High
Altitude Area Defense) missile defence radar installations at Seongju in South Korea, Wake
Island (in Micronesia), Guam, and Hawaii; and two missile tracking radar bases at Shariki andKyogamisaki in Japan.
The US stockpile of nuclear warheads is currently around 3,800, of which 1,750 are deployed,
including air launched cruise missiles and gravity bombs at US bomber bases. Nuclear-capabledelivery systems include not only B-52H Stratofortress and B-2A Spirit bombers but also SLBM
and SSBN nuclear powered submarines armed with Trident II ballistic missiles, and fighter
aircraft armed with tactical lower yield nuclear bombs.29 Delivery platforms relevant toNortheast Asia include strategic bombers based at Guam, fighter planes equipped with nuclear-

27 Michael Zagurek Jr., “A Hypothetical Nuclear Attack on Seoul and Tokyo: The Human Cost of War on the Korean

Peninsula”, 38 North, October 4, 2017, www. 38north.org/2017/10/mzagaruk100417/ (cited in Panda, op.cit.,
p.295).
28 O.Toon, C.Bardeen, A.Robock, L.Xia, H.Kristensen, M.McKenzie, R.Petersen, C.Harrison, N.Lovenduski, R.Turco,“Rapidly expanding nuclear arsenals in Pakistan and India portend regional and global catastrophe”, Science
Advance, 5, eaay5478.10.1126/sciadv.aay5478, 2019.
29 SIPRI Yearbook 2020, op.cit.

14armed air launched cruise missiles and tactical nuclear bombs, and submarines in Pacific waters
equipped with ICBMs.30
A recent development is that from late 2019 the US Navy has begun deploying a new low-yield
warhead on D5 missiles, the W76-2 8kt bomb on SSBNs.31 As Kile and Kristensen note:“According to US military officials, the W76-2 has also been deployed in the Pacific Ocean and
it is believed that at least two of the SSBNs on patrol in each of these oceans will normally carry
one or two D5 missiles, each with one W76-2”.32 There is also the possibility that under the
Trump Administration’s 2020 Nuclear Posture Review, dual capable aircraft equipped withtactical nuclear bombs may potentially be deployed in Northeast Asia.
The US, also, of course, has its land-based ICBMs and strategic bombers that are capable ofdelivering nuclear weapons to targets across the globe. It also conducts regular exercises with
South Korea forces on and in the surrounding waters of the Korean Peninsula, sometimes
involving nuclear-capable aircraft, although some of these annual exercises were suspended orscaled down in the context of the recent 2018-2020 US-ROK-DPRK negotiations.
The US has also instituted a program of military patrols in the South China Sea, even on
occasion sailing within the twelve-mile limits of disputed Chinese-claimed or artificiallyconstructed islands. The patrols are justified on the grounds of preserving freedom of navigationrights, although China has not sought to deny or prevent such South China Sea rights beyond theislands’ 12-mile limits.
China, against whom the US nuclear encirclement is primarily oriented, has steadily increased its
nuclear weapon stockpile over the past five years. As of January 2020, it now has an armoury ofsome 320 nuclear warheads, an increase of 60 since 2015.33 Of these, 240 are deployed fordelivery on land and sea-based ballistic missiles, and to nuclear-capable aircraft. It has currently
deployed 90 ICBMs in both land silos and on road-based launchers, with ranges of up to
12,000km, and some with MIRVed (multiple independently targetable re-entry) warheads. It has
deployed four nuclear powered submarines, each of which can carry up to 12 sea-launched
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.

15

ballistic missiles with ranges of up to 7000km and warheads of 200-300kt.34 It has 20 nuclear
capable H-6K bombers that can deliver one bomb each, as well as potential plans for an airlaunched nuclear armed cruise missile. China has also begun from 2018 deploying a new dualcapable DF-26 intermediate range ballistic missile with a range of up to 4000km that can reachtargets across the whole western Pacific, including Guam. 35 It is also developing a new longrange strategic bomber with a range of 6,500km and comparable to the US B-2 bomber.
The above pattern of nuclear confrontation between the US and its regional allies on the one
hand, and China and North Korea on the other, has a number of disturbing implications for an
increased risk of nuclear war in Northeast Asia.
It is clear that all sides are being drawn into increased reliance on nuclear weapons, including
regional states, such as South Korea and Japan, who have alliances and defence agreements with
the US and are hosting various bases and installations that are part of the US forward nuclear war
fighting deployments in the region. The US, Japan, and other US allies have, of course, argued
the necessity of these deployments on the basis of either direct deterrence against either North
Korea or China, or extended nuclear deterrence in relation to a more limited North Korean
nuclear attack on either South Korea or Japan.
Unfortunately, however, there are a number of assumptions in this traditional deterrence
rationale that would mean that the current reliance on nuclear weapons is more likely to increase
rather reduce the chances of a catastrophic nuclear conflagration.
To begin with, it seems unnecessary for the purpose of deterrence for there to be forward
deployment of short or medium range nuclear weapon systems when all three of these nucleararmed states (US, China and North Korea) now possess long-range capabilities sufficient for
deterrence purposes. The increasing deployment of short and medium range missiles suggests
nuclear-war-fighting intentions, including first strike capabilities, and may well be expected toincrease adversary motivation to engage in pre-emptive strikes. Such weapons, at lower levels in
military chains of command, may also be prone to unauthorized launches from forces based in
the field.

34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.

16

Secondly, as already noted, the deterrence logic assumes that the adversary is responding
rationally. However, in cases of poor communication between adversaries, there may simply be
responses based on misinterpretation or misinformation concerning adversary intentions, andthere is certainly ample scope for this in Northeast Asia given existing issues in communication,
language issues, and rapidly diminishing reaction times for checking on data before responding.
Thirdly, the deterrence rationale ignores the many ways in which a nuclear war can start (and hasnearly started on a number of occasions in the past) through sheer accident36). The THAADS(Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) radars that the US has installed in South Korea andGuam to detect North Korea and Chinese missiles not only have the purported purpose of being
able to detect and intercept incoming missiles but also the purpose of triangulating (inconjunction with other missile defence systems) target data in real time to launch a potential firststrike nuclear attack, something that is most certainly of great concern to China itself, which isnow, with Russian assistance, rapidly putting in place its own early warning systems. 37 The
problem here, as has already happened on occasion with US and Russian radars, is the difficultyof distinguishing between radar detection of false rather than actual missile attacks, coupled withthe extremely short times (in minutes) for launching one’s own nuclear weapons before they aredestroyed: “Use them or lose them”. Both Russian and US nuclear missiles are on hair-trigger
alerts, with US land-based missiles able to be launch within 5 minutes of a presidential decision,and Russian missiles able to be launched within seconds.38 Such short reaction times put thewhole fate of millions of people at the mercy of extremely brief real-time decisions subject to

36 Patricia Lewis, Heather Williams, Benoit Pelopidas and Sasan Aghlani, Too Close for Comfort: Cases of Near

Nuclear Use and Options for Policy, Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2014,
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/
chathamhouse/home/chatham/public_html/sites/default/files/20140428TooCloseforComfortNuclearUse
37 Matt Korda & Hans Kristensen, ‘US ballistic missile defences”, 2019, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 75:6, 295
306, DOI: 10.1080/00963402.2019.1680055, note China’s claims that THAAD’s AN/TPY-2 radar could penetrate
deep into China’s territory, and that there are plans to make THAAD “increasingly interoperable with the Patriot
missile defense. In theory, this would allow the shorter-range Patriot system to utilize THAAD’s long-range AN/TPY2 radar for its own targeting purposes, thus vastly increasing its battlespace”; also see Veterans for Peace,
Statement Opposing U.S.THAAD ‘Missile Defense’ System Deployment in South Korea, 2017,https://www.veteransforpeace.org/our-work/position-statements/vfp-board-statement-opposing-us-thaadmissile-defense-system-deployment-south-korea
38 Union of Concerned Scientists, “Frequently Asked Questions about Taking Nuclear Weapons Off Hair-Trigger

Alert”, https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/01/Hair-Trigger%20FAQ.pdf.

17

computer or sensor detection errors, cyber-attacks, and insufficient time for considered decisionmaking.
Another problem of deployment of such missile ‘defence’ systems is that they serve to intensify
a regional nuclear arms race, with targeted adversaries fearing a first strike embarking on rapid
expansion of nuclear warhead production, missile MIRVing (equipping with multiple
independently targetable re-entry vehicles), and deployment across a range of platforms,
including on submarines at sea. 39 This pattern is certainly evident in the case of China and North
Korea in their current moves to expand their nuclear warhead stockpiles and create new delivery
systems less vulnerable to pre-emptive strikes. In the case of North Korea there will also be
every financial motivation to export some of its warheads to other countries or non-state actors tooffset the economic dilemmas caused by the current sanctions against it.
Yet another new source of accidental nuclear war will stem from the deployment of North Korea
and US missiles that are dual capable, and if launched at or over another country’s territory, areassumed to be nuclear armed, thereby precipitating a nuclear counter attack. And still anotherpossibility of inadvertent nuclear war is the increasing possibility of cyber attacks on nuclear
weapon facilities, whether by adversary states or by non-state actors, leading to counterattacks
on supposed authors of the attack.
Finally, not least, there is the possibility of escalation from a conventional military conflict into
the use of nuclear weapons, something that is ever present in regions with existing and historicalsources of conflict. In the case of the Korean Peninsula, there is the ever-present fear of invasion
due to the failure to reach a permanent peace settlement of the Korean War. In the case of North
Korea, there is the particular traumatic historical experience of having almost every town and

39 Korda & Kristensen, op.cit. note that, according to the Trump Administration’s recent Missile Defense Review,

the US will “continue to enhance its four primary [including THAADS] missile defense systems – one for homeland
defense and three for regional defense – without ‘any limitation or constraint’. Doing so is likely to be destabilizing,as potential adversaries will attempt to build offensive systems to offset the United States’ defensive systems. This
dynamic is currently on display with Russia and China, both of which are developing missiles that are specificallydesigned to counter US missile defences”; also see Veterans for Peace, Statement Opposing U.S.THAAD ‘Missile
Defense’ System Deployment in South Korea, 2017, https://www.veteransforpeace.org/our-work/positionstatements/vfp-board-statement-opposing-us-thaad-missile-defense-system-deployment-south-korea

18

village throughout North Korea obliterated by US bombing during the Korean War.40 Given suchheightened regional tensions, any conflict in which there is a fear that one’s own country might
be invaded could spark escalation, including potential “across the bow” warning nuclear attacks
on one or more adversary cities.
The present impasse in direct negotiations between North Korea and the US, following the
failure of the February 27-28, 2019 Hanoi Summit between Kim Jong Un and President Trump,has now once more reduced expectations of an early diplomatic resolution of regional nuclear
threats, and increased the risk of renewed reliance on nuclear weapon deployment and nuclear
threats by the adversaries.
At the same time, the Covid-19 global pandemic that spread across the world in early 2020 andcontinues unabated at time of writing can also be assumed to increase reliance on nuclear
weapons as the pandemic reveals the vulnerability of conventional forces to such pandemics,
particularly conventional forces based on the Korean Peninsula. US forces based in South Korea
have already been seriously affected by rising Covid-19 infection cases amongst forces based atCamps Humphreys, Carroll, Henry, Walker, Casey and at Osan Air Base; and the US and South
Korea cancelled joint military exercises scheduled for March 2020 due to the risk of infection. At
the same time, there are domestic pressures to use national conventional forces for domestic
tasks in bringing the pandemic under control. As Wilfred Wan has noted in a recent analysis of
the impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on nuclear risks, Western military leaders are continuing toprioritize nuclear deterrence operations despite evidence of confirmed cases of infection at

40 Michael Pembroke, Korea: Where the American Century Began, Hardie Grant Books, London, 2018, pp.147-8,

156-8. In this meticulously documented new history of the Korean War and its aftermath, Pembroke notes that
“Not only were more bombs dropped on Korea than in the whole of the Pacific theatre during World War II –635,00 tons as against 503,500 tones – but more of what fell was napalm in both absolute and relative terms”;
that, according to a report from the US Embassy in Seoul, “air bombing was so devastating that everything was
flattened…little remained standing”; that some three million Koreans were killed, wounded or missing, mainly noncombatants; that the damage to the people of North Korea was “incalculable – in lives lost, families broken,
property destroyed and psychological dysfunction”; and that by the end of the 3-year war the total population had
declined by 1.3 million people.

19

almost every nuclear base in the US and consequential increased risk that maintenance tasks
essential to ensuring safety of nuclear weapons systems are not adequately carried out. 41

Critical Issues in Tailoring a NWFZ for Northeast Asia
NWFZs require a core set of prohibited nuclear weapon activities, including bans on thedevelopment or acquisition of nuclear weapons by zone states as well as the stationing of nuclear
weapons within the zone by external nuclear-armed states. At the same time, they enable zones
to be tailored to the specific conditions within a particular region, including the nature andhistory of past nuclear activities in the region, and the security needs and interests of regional
states.
Northeast Asia has its own conditions that make the tailoring of a NWFZ particularly crucial if
such a zone is to be effective and ensure regional security throughout all stages of its
establishment and implementation.
Firstly, regional proliferation has already occurred with North Korea having withdrawn from the
NPT, conducted six nuclear tests, including one thermonuclear test, estimated to possess some
30-40 nuclear warheads, and a developing capacity for short, medium and long-range missile andsubmarine delivery systems. The stakes associated with this proliferation are high indeed,
including the potential for nuclear strikes through pre-emption, miscalculation or sheer accident.
North Korean proliferation also increases incentives for other regional states to acquire nuclear
weapons, especially South Korea and Japan, where some military and ideological ‘hawks’ arealready calling for such acquisition, particularly given doubts as to whether an “America First”
Administration would really deliver on purported extended deterrence obligations if it became achoice between coming to the aid of Seoul or Tokyo or the risk of a nuclear attack on a US city.
Given such proliferation, any NEANWFZ would obviously need to include rigorous andinternationally verified provisions for the dismantlement of existing nuclear weapon and nuclear-

41 Wilfred Wan, Nuclear Risks are laid bare by COV ID-19, European Leadership Network, 11 June 2020,

https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/commentary/nuclear-risks-are-laid-bare-by-covid-19/(accessed
21/8/20).

20

weapon-related production facilities on the Korean Peninsula. There are precedents in previous
zones where proliferation has already occurred, such as the African Pelindaba NWFZ, forprovisions covering such verification and dismantlement. However, it might well be the case in
the context of previous breakdowns in denuclearization agreements on the Korean Peninsula,that a NEANWFZ would need to include a subsidiary verification and monitoring regional
denuclearization monitoring agency similar to the complementary role of ABACC in relation to
the Latin American Tlatelolco NWFZ. It would also need to follow the example of the Central
Asian NWFZ in requiring the imposition of IAEA Additional Protocol safeguards involving
more stringent inspection provisions that the standard IAEA safeguards.
Northeast Asia has not only experienced horizontal proliferation but also overseas nuclear
stationing in the form of US deployment of nuclear weapons and mobile nuclear-capable or
nuclear-armed forces within the region, including during regular major exercises. From 1957
until late 1991, the US stationed tactical nuclear weapons at its bases in South Korea, and there
have been recent calls from some voices within South Korea for such weapons to be repositioned
there. China and Russia have also been conducting joint major exercises in or close to the region
involving nuclear capable platforms, no doubt seeking to counter US military expansion in theregion. Since 2012, China and Russia have conducted major exercises in the East China Sea, theSea of Japan, and the South China Sea, In such a context, it will be important that any
NEANWFZ include protocols that would legally bind nuclear-weapon-states not to introduce
nuclear weapons into the region either on land or in designated sea areas within the zone,
whether on land territory, territorial waters, and potentially the Exclusive Economic Zones(EEZs). Although it has yet to secure NWS agreement to the protocol, the 1995 Southeast Asian
Bangkok NWFZ is seeking in its protocol to gain agreement that its EEZs should not be used forthe launch of nuclear weapons, whether directed within or beyond the zone.
Given the division of Korea into North and South, the failure to conclude a Korean War peace
settlement, continued fears of invasion on both sides of the 38th Parallel (especially on the part ofNorth Korea), and the absence of a permanent regional forum or organization to negotiate
regional security issues, a NEANWFZ would need include legally-binding security guarantees
and arrangements from the five NPT-recognized nuclear-armed-states against nuclear attack or
threat of attack. These guarantees would need to go beyond those provided to the existing five21

other NWFZs to ensure their credibility, perhaps involving proscription of any military exercises
within the zone region that involve nuclear-capable platforms. In the absence of a regional forum
for security issues, a NEANWFZ would also need to establish a permanent regional body(comparable to OPANAL in the case of the Latin American Tlatelolco Treaty) to oversee thezone arrangements and monitor compliance, including through inspections on demand, and withpowers to refer compliance issues to the UN Security Council.
Further, the special obligations of nuclear-armed states allied to regional states, such as the US in
relation to South Korea and Japan, and China and Russia in relation to North Korea, to respect
the provisions of a NEANWFZ would need to be incorporated into a legally binding protocol for
the NWS to sign and ratify.
There is also a special problem in this region in that both North and South Korea claim
sovereignty over the whole of the Peninsula, so accession to the treaty in each of their cases
might need to include a similar caveat to that of signatories to the Antarctic Treaty in which
Article IV specifies that “Nothing contained in the present treaty shall be interpreted as: (a)renunciation by any Contracting Party of previously asserted rights or of claims to territorial
sovereignty in Antarctic”.42 Of course, in the event of future reunification, this problem would beovercome, and the possibility of this could also be acknowledged in the treaty.
A particular feature of the Northeast Asian region, one that it shares with the Middle East, is thehistorical and continuing high levels of distrust between countries within the region, and in theirrelations with external NWS. This is, of course, most evident in the relations between North
Korea, South Korea and Japan, between North Korea and the US, and between Japan and both
China and Russia. There are also continuing issues between South Korea and Japan, including: afailure to adequately address the historical legacy associated with Japanese Second World War
occupation of Korea; compensation issues; abduction issues; human rights issues of residents-inJapan; and economic competition issues. The historical and ongoing levels of distrust will
require any NEANWFZ to be designed and implemented in a carefully phased way that
progressively allows trust and confidence to grow while maintaining their respective security

42 United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, Treaties, Antarctica, Treaty Text,

http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/antarctic/text.

22

needs, perhaps through special provisions on entry into force and through mechanisms of
economic cooperation and support.
It is noteworthy that several of the existing NWFZs that have been successfully established inother region have offered precedents for such phased introduction of NWFZs. The pioneering
Latin American Tlatelolco NWFZ, for example, was negotiated at a time of intense nuclear
rivalry between military regimes in Argentina and Brazil, both with the capability of developing
nuclear weapons. However, the 1976 Tlatelolco Treaty had an innovative Article 28 (29 in thelater amended treaty) entry-into-force mechanism that allowed signatories to waive therequirement for entry into force for their own territories until they were sufficiently confident of
their security needs to be ready to do so. As a result the Treaty came into force within the wholezone boundaries in a gradual way over three decades, with several states, including Argentina,
not bringing the treaty into force until the early 1990s, and Cuba not until 2002. As Latin
American regional analyst, John Redick has observed: “The Tlatelolco negotiating process…hada subtle but important impact on Argentine-Brazilian relations in the nuclear policy area. For the
first time, two suspicious rivals discussed fully and frankly the most sensitive issues of nuclear
policy and reached common positions…The coordination of nuclear policy by Argentina andBrazil relative to the NPT and during the Tlatelolco negotiations was a first substantive step in alengthy nuclear confidence-building process.”43 There is a particular relevance here for Northeast
Asia in suggesting that NWFZ arrangements can serve a normative role in nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament over an extended period of time rather than needing to be an allat-once fix for everything at the very outset. Given that several states in the region, includingSouth Korea, Japan and Mongolia do not already possess nuclear weapons, it becomes feasible toestablish a NWFZ as a normative framework with legally binding security non-use or threat ofuse guarantees to which North Korea might be encouraged to sign up to but not necessarily bring
into force until it was ready to do so based on a reassessment of the perceived nuclear threats andthe incentives to be provided by legally binding security assurances under Treaty protocols andwider comprehensive regional security initiatives.

43 John R. Redick, Nuclear Illusions: Argentina and Brazil (Washington D.C.: The Henry L.Stimson Center, Occasional

Paper 25, December 1995), p. 19.

23

One further issue for a NWFZ designed and tailored for the Northeast Asian region is thequestion of what states and territories might be designated as part of the zone. The two Koreas
and Japan would obviously be the most important to seek to include, particularly in view of theNorth Korean proliferation that has already occurred and the technical capacity of both South
Korea and Japan to rapidly develop nuclear weapons if they chose to do so, with Japan alreadypossessing a large stockpile of plutonium that could potentially be weaponized.
Beyond these three states, Mongolia, although not sharing a border with North Korea, is a close
regional neighbour that is already internationally recognized as a single state NWFZ and could
potentially be included in the zone. 44
Also, in close proximity to Japan, Taiwan is a potential member, also possessing the technicalcapacity for nuclear weapon capacity, but of course facing the obstacles posed by Chinese
sovereignty claims.
Further afield still is the island of Guam, part of the Northern Marianas island territory of theUnited States and the site of a major US military airbase with nuclear-capable forces able tothreaten or actual launch nuclear strikes against targets across Northeast Asia. The distance from
Guam to Pyongyang (3,402km) is only 1469 km more than the distance from Cuba to
Washington DC (1933km), yet at the time of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis such a degree ofproximity was of sufficient concern for the US to demand that the Soviet Union withdraw its
nuclear missiles from Cuba even at the risk of triggering a global conflagration. Currently, there
is concern over North Korea’s newly acquired potential to reach Guam with nuclear-armed
missiles, but equally, from the North Korean perspective, there is a perceived nuclear threat
posed by US nuclear forces on Guam. A Northeast Asian NWFZ might therefore seek to include
Guam within the zone to prevent any nuclear weapon stationing or presence on the island, but
still, of course, permitting conventional US military deployment on the island. There is mostcertainly precedent for this in other established NWFZs. In the case of the Latin America
Tlatelolco NWFZ Treaty, the US has under Protocol 1 unreservedly accepted the inclusion ofsuch US territories as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, with the former including the US

44 Thomas Graham & Damien LaVera, Mongolian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, Cornerstones of Security: Arms

Control Treaties in the Nuclear Era, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2003, pp.91-96.

24

Army Base of Fort Buchanan.45 No doubt the US would be concerned to argue that its nuclear
forces on Guam are necessary for nuclear deterrence against China but of course this would notin any way lessen the deterrence provided by US SLBN and land-based ICBMs that are mostcertainly already targeting both China and Russia, while relinquishing nuclear-related strike
forces on Guam may lessen both Chinese and North Korea concerns about US preparations fornuclear-war-fighting and pre-emption strikes. There could also be a possible quid pro quo with
China on the possibility of including Taiwan in a regional NEAMWFZ to reassure China that
Taiwan too does not become a site for launching or assisting in the launch of nuclear strikes.
In drawing the boundaries of a NEANWFZ, there is also the issue of whether to include EEZs
and international waters within the proposed zone. Given the presence of mobile platforms in thewaters of the region, including submarines and naval craft of major nuclear states (US, China
and Russia), it would seem important from the viewpoint of all the regional states to include
provisions against any deployment, testing or use of any nuclear weapons and nuclear capabledelivery systems within at the least the EEZs of zone states, but perhaps also extending into
international waters to meet up with the boundaries of the Southeast Asian NWFZ zone and theEquator boundary of the South Pacific NFZ, thereby encompassing parts of the Sea of Japan,
Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and northeast Pacific international waters. The Southeast Asian
Bangkok Treaty’s Protocol has certainly provided a precedent for seeking to establish NWFZ
restrictions in EEZs46; while the South Pacific NWFZ’s Protocol 3 (ratified by four out five
NWS and signed but not yet ratified by the US) has successfully secured binding NWS
guarantees to respect its nuclear test ban across a wide expanse of not only EEZs but alsointernational waters that extend from the Latin American Zone to the east, the Equator to thenorth, and the Antarctic Treaty zone to the south.47

45 United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, Treaties, Treaty of Tlatelolco, Additional Protocol I, text,

http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/tlateloco_p1/text.
46 United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, Treaties, Bangkok Treaty, Protocol, text,
http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/bangkok_protocol/text.
47 United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, Treaties, South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. Protocol 3, text,
http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/rarotonga_p3/text25

Proposed NEANWFZs
There has been a long history of proposals to establish a NWFZ on the Korean Peninsula orwithin the wider Northeast region. These have been variously advanced by governments,
epistemic communities concerned with nuclear and security issues, political parties withinregional states, and civil society disarmament groups. Such proposals date from as early as thefirst decade after the 1950-53 Korean War, and have continued until the present.
A very early proposal was that advanced in 1959 by the Soviet Union in the context of wider
denuclearization zone proposals, including Poland’s Rapacki proposal for a Central European
NWFZ. Nikita Krushchev proposed a NWFZ for the whole Asia Pacific region, including the
Korean Peninsula.48 As in the case of the Rapacki proposal, the idea was rejected by Western
powers on the grounds that the communist states had numerically superior conventional forces
and that nuclear weapons were needed to counter such forces. China, also proposed an Asia
Pacific NWFZ in the late 1950s. This also was rejected at the time by the Western powers, and a
few years later, in 1964, China was itself to develop nuclear weapons, no doubt mindful of boththis rejection of the NWFZ idea, and the explicit nuclear threats made against it by the US during
the Korean War, which went to the extent of contingency planning for actual nuclear use if
China did not agree to the Korean Armistice, and US stationing of nuclear weapons in South
Korea from as early as 1957. So began the Asia Pacific nuclear weapons proliferation spiral,from US nuclear threats and deployment in the 1950s, to Chinese nuclear acquisition in 1964, toIndia and Pakistan acquiring the bomb in 1998, and then North Korea in 2006. At each stage inthis spiral, each nuclear armed state justified its acquisition in terms of “deterrence” but theactual resulting spread of nuclear weapons has created greater and greater nuclear threats faced
across the region, an outcome that would have been obviated if the regional states had seriously
pursued and reached agreement on the Asia Pacific NWFZ proposed during the 1950s,
something which was to be successfully achieved a few years later in another region, Latin
America in the form of the 1964-67 Tlatelolco Treaty negotiations.

48 Koo, Bon-Hak, “A Northeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone: A Korean Perspective” in Thakur, Ramesh (ed.,),Nuclear Weapons-Free Zones, Macmillan/St Martin’s Press, London, 1998, pp.129-130.

26

Oddly enough, and perhaps partly inspired by the success of the 1967 Latin American Tlatelolco
Treaty in preventing Soviet nuclear weapon stationing in America’s own back door, it was to bea US Government body, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) thatcommissioned a study from the Institute for Defense Analyses, that recommended the US
Government consider a Korean NWFZ as part of a wider set of confidence-building measures forinter-Korean and Four Party (US, USSR, China and Japan) talks. The study argued:“The ROK should…be encouraged to introduce the question of nuclear weapons into the
dialogue with the North, as part of the discussion of the US military presence. The
question of a possible Korean agreement to ban the introduction of nuclear weapons into
Korea has particularly interesting ramifications. There are no nuclear weapons in North
Korea, nor does it appear likely that either the Soviet Union or China has plans to
introduce such weapons there…[deletion - classified material]…Denuclearization might
be for Pyongyang a particularly meaningful achievement, short of complete military
withdrawal, for which the North might make appropriate concessions in other areas. A
denuclearization agreement between the two Koreas in a suitably balanced package could
provide a format for great-power endorsement through appropriate protocols.” 49
The study went on to note that China “might be particularly interested in an NFZ agreement
pertaining to Korea”, and that the “diplomatic groundwork for the agreement could be laid inbilateral US-Chinese talks, with each country undertaking to persuade its Korean ally”. 50 The
study argued: “The precedent of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which established a Latin American
nuclear-free zone, is important. The Treaty provides for appropriate verification, including IAEA
safeguards”. In its specific recommendations, it identified as one of an inventory of 73
confidence-building measures “Restrictions on the deployment or utilization of nuclear weapons,
i.e. nuclear-free-zone (NFZ) or no-first-use (NFU) agreements”. 51 The ACDA study further
argued that the diplomatic groundwork “could be laid in bilateral US-Chinese talks, with eachcountry undertaking to persuade its Korean ally”. It presciently concluded by warning that
49 Colm, Peter W., Hayes, Rosemary, Spielmann, Karl F. & White, Nathan N., “The Reduction of Tension in Korea”,

Institute for Defense Analyses, Technical Report (Secret) prepared for the US Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency, distributed by the Defense Logistics Agency, Arlington, Virginia, Vols. 1 and 2, June 1972. [Declassified
1977].
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.

27

“failure to take additional tense-reducing initiatives in Korea could lead to a deterioration of
North-South relations that would involve far greater dangers’.52
Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, the US Nixon Administration, despite its 1971-72
diplomatic opening to China, did not grasp the nuclear nettle and go on to pursue the Korean
NWFZ proposal recommended by its own ACDA experts. A path not taken in the past, aregional and global nuclear nightmare today.
North Korea itself was to propose a NWFZ during the 1980s. In 1980, the North Korean
President, Kim Il Song proposed a Korean NWFZ in which “the testing, stockpiles, and use of
nuclear weapons must be prohibited”; and then in 1981, the North Korean Government voiced
support for a non-nuclear and peace zone in Northeast Asia as called for in a joint declaration by
the Japanese Socialist Party and the Korean Workers’ Party. The declaration, inter alia, called
for the establishment of a NWFZ covering the Korean Peninsula, Japan and surrounding waters,with bans on the development, testing, production, possession, transport, import or use of nuclear
and biochemical weapons within the region” 53
Also during the 1980s, Mikhael Gorbachev made a major speech in Vladivostok in May 1985 inwhich he proposed an “All Asian Conference” to discuss a range of regional Asia Pacific arms
control initiatives, including NWFZs on the Korean Peninsula and in Southeast Asia andprovision of negative security assurances from the major nuclear powers to the non-nuclear
states of the region.54 As in the case of the earlier proposals, the United States and the Western
nuclear powers rejected these proposals on the basis of a relatively greater disadvantage for US
military deployment, and a more general resistance to NWFZ-establishment as a threat to the US
military freedom of movement and deployment, particularly sea-based transit—then already asensitive issue for the United States due to the New Zealand government’s move to prohibit US
nuclear-armed ship visits at this time and the rise of the Nuclear Freeze movement against new
forward-deployed intermediate range missiles in Europe.

52 Ibid.
53 For a discussion of early proposals for Northeast Asian and Korean NWFZs see: Koo, Bon-Hak, “A Northeast Asian

Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone: A Korean Perspective” in Thakur, Ramesh (ed.,), Nuclear Weapons-Free Zones,
Macmillan/St Martin’s Press, London, 1998, pp.129-130.
54 Ibid.

28

In the early 1990s, following the end of the Cold War, there were some very promising Korean
NWFZ developments. The US withdrew its tactical and theatre nuclear weapons from Korea
from late 1991 to early 1992. During the same period, North Korea advanced a July 1991
proposal at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva to establish a Korean NWFZ and sought
joint North and South Korean negotiations on the legal and practical aspects of establishing sucha zone, with a joint declaration on this to be agreed by the end of 1992. 55 South Korea responded
very positively, with President Roh Tae Woo declaring in December 1991 that South Korea wasfree of nuclear weapons and indicating a new willingness to enter into negotiations with theNorth on the concept. The negotiations took place in the same month, and the outcome was the
December 31 1991 agreement on a draft Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula. The Joint Declaration was signed by the parties on January 20th 1992 andcame into force on February 20th 1992.56
The Joint Declaration emerged at a particularly propitious time following the end of the Cold
War in 1989. There were greatly improved relations and exchanges between North and South
from October 1991. Having removed its nuclear weapons deployed in South Korea, the US
decided to engage more directly with North Korea. During the same period, North Korea agreed
to sign up to IAEA nuclear safeguards (following an earlier 1985 decision to join the NPT.
The Joint Declaration included some but not all of the core elements of other NWFZs, includingprohibitions on the testing, manufacture, production, receiving, possession, storing, deployment
or use of nuclear weapons, and set up a verification mechanism in the form of a South-North
joint nuclear control commission that “shall conduct inspections of the objects selected by theother side and agreed upon between the two sides, in accordance with procedures and methods tobe determined by [the commission]”. 57 In one respect, it went significantly further than any other

55 Koo, Bon-Hak, ibid.
56 “Joint Declaration of South and North Korea on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”, February 19,

1992. In the declaration, the item 3 states that South and North Korea shall not possess nuclear reprocessing anduranium enrichment facilities. https://2001-2009.state.gov/t/ac/rls/or/2004/31011.htm; Goldblat, Jozef, Arms
Control: The New Guide to Negotiations and Agreements, PRIO/SIPRI/Sage, London, 2003. [Part II Agreements andParties, CD ROM section, 1992]
57 Ibid.

29

zones, before or since, in that it also banned the possession of “nuclear reprocessing and uranium
enrichment facilities”. 58
The significance of the Declaration was that it held the promise of preventing nuclear
proliferation in both North and South Korea, while simultaneously preventing further stationingof nuclear weapons anywhere on the Peninsula. The threat of nuclear proliferation was relevant
on both sides of the 38th Parallel. The South Korean Park Government had instituted a secret
nuclear weapons program during the period 1969-75, only terminating it after the United States
threatened to withdraw from its bilateral security arrangements 59; and since then successive
South Korean governments continued to support nuclear-weapon-related research activities until
they were terminated decisively in 2005. 60 North Korea, for its part, motivated by its sense of
nuclear encirclement, its Juche (self-reliance) ideology, and its militarized social system
maintained in a high state of war readiness since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, had even
earlier shown signs of moving towards acquiring a nuclear weapon capability, with its
establishment of the Yongbyon nuclear research complex in the late 1950s, its delayed signing
the NPT (1985), and its initial reluctance to accept IAEA safeguards. These indicators were
followed rapidly by continuing evidence that the DPRK’s non-nuclear commitments werequestionable, even as the Joint Declaration was signed.
Unfortunately, the brief moment of inter-Korean denuclearization consensus evidenced in the
1992 Joint Declaration did not last. The Declaration was never successfully implemented. Thiswas because of weaknesses in the Declaration itself, bad faith on the part of both Koreas, andsubsequent US attitudes towards it.
One weakness in the Joint Declaration was the fact that it did not develop a fully-fledged NWFZ
treaty structure under which there would not only be verification provisions but also compliancemechanisms. Another weakness was the absence of protocol mechanisms for locking nuclear
weapon states into nuclear non-use or threat of use guarantees as part of the zone arrangements.
The latter was crucial in terms of reassuring North Korea about its participation in the zone.

58 Ibid.
59 Hayes, Peter, “The Republic of Korea and the Nuclear Issue” in Mack, Andrew (ed.), Asian Flashpoint, Allen &Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1993, p.52.
60 Hayes, Peter, et. al, “South Korea’s Nuclear Surprise,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, V.61 1, Jan-Feb 2005.

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After the failure of the Agreed Framework, the proliferation crisis worsened, with North Korea
expelling IAEA inspectors in 2002, and then in 2003 becoming the first country to withdraw
from the NPT.61 The further response of the US Bush Administration was to institute the SixParty Talks process, involving the two Koreas, Japan, Russia, China and the US, with China as
the Chair.62 The first round of Six-Party Talks was held in August 2003. As the talks continued
fitfully, North Korea conducted its first underground nuclear test on October 9th 2006 in the formof a half-kiloton plutonium-based bomb, provoking worldwide alarm and condemnation.
An apparent breakthrough was achieved at the Six-Party Talks on February 13 2007 (following
an earlier 19 September 2005 agreement on Principles aimed at “verifiable denuclearization of
the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner”). The new 2007 agreement committed the parties toan Action Plan for “early denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula” and a series of concrete
actions that would be taken within 60 days, including a shut-down of North Korea’s Yongbyon
nuclear facility to be monitored by the IAEA, discussion of a list of all North Korea’s nuclear
programs, including plutonium holdings; bilateral US-DPRK talks to resolve bilateral issues,
with the United States beginning the process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a statesponsor of terrorism and termination of its trade sanctions against DPRK; bilateral Japan-DPRK
talks aimed at normalizing relations and settling unresolved matters from past conflicts; andeconomic, energy, and humanitarian assistance to the DPRK, including an initial shipment of
50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.63 The agreement also involved the setting up of working groups insuch areas as: (1) denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula; (2) normalization of DPRK-US
relations; (3) normalization of DPRK-Japan relations; (4) Economy and Energy Cooperation;and (5) a Northeast Asia Peace and Security Mechanism.
This agreement, like its predecessor, also began to encounter serious difficulties. This was
despite what appeared to be major progress by May 2008. According to a US State Department
assessment at this time, North Korea had provided 18,000 pages of documentation relating to its
nuclear programs; carried out 8 out of 11 agreed disablement activities at its three core facilities;

61 Solingen, Etel, Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East. Princeton University Press,

Princeton, 2007, p.123; Chinoy, op.cit., pp.103-174.
62 Chinoy, op.cit., pp.175-365
63 Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Initial Actions for the Implementation of the Joint Statement”, 13 February
2007, www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t297463.htm; Kile, op.cit.

31and was continuing with work on the remaining three, including the shutting down of the
Yongbyon nuclear facility in July 2007. 64 But disputes occurred over delays in US unfreezing
North Korean assets and US-Japanese-ROK insistence on intrusive verification of North Korea’s
declaration of its plutonium-related programs.65 North Korea denied that it had reachedagreement on any inspection arrangements other than at its Yongbyon declared sites. 66
In late 2008 and early 2009, the agreement unravelled further as North Korea reacted to theperceived US reneging on previous agreements and US-Japanese-South Korea threats to suspend
shipments of energy aid. The North Korean response took the forms of reprocessing fuel fromthe Yongbyon reactor; testing a ballistic Taepodong-2 missile in the guise of a satellite launch;and then conducting a second underground nuclear weapon test on May 25 2009. 67 Defeat had
once again been snatched from the jaws of victory.
Following the failure of the Six-Party Talks, there was little substantive progress at agovernmental level on denuclearization initiatives until the short-lived “Leap Day” February 29th
2012 agreement in which the DPRK agreed to return to Six-Party Talks and the US undertook tocease hostilities and provide food assistance. The Leap Day agreement foundered two weeks
later when the DPRK conducted an ostensible weather satellite launch utilizing intermediate
range ballistic missile vehicles and the US responded by halting its food aid program. The
stalemate in denuclearization negotiations with the DPRK continued into 2016, the last year of
the US Obama Administration.
It was during 2017, the first year of the new US Trump Administration, that the globallyunnerving 2017 exchange of nuclear threats between the North Korea and the US Trump
Administration took place. Fortunately, amidst global expressions of alarm, the adversaries
stepped back from the brink and entered into negotiations. These culminated in the 2018-2019
series of summit meetings between Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jai-inn

64 US Department of State, “Update on the Six-Party Talks”, Fact Sheet, 10 May 2008, http//2001-

2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/may/104558.htm.
65 Kile, Shannon, “Nuclear Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, SIPRI Yearbook 2009, Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 2009, pp.397-402.
66 Ibid.,p.402.
67 Snyder, Scott, “What’s Driving Pyongyang?”, Nautilus Institute Policy Forum Online, 09-055A, July 7 2009.

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(April 2018, May 2018 , September 2018), and between Kim Jong Un and President Trump(June 2018 in Singapore, February 2019 in Hanoi).
The June 2018 Summit was particularly important for its signing of a Joint Declaration agreeing
to "establish new US-DPRK relations," "build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean
peninsula” and a joint commitment to "work toward complete denuclearization on the Korean
peninsula", with Trump committed to providing security guarantees for North Korea.
Unfortunately, the further 2019 Hanoi Summit collapsed, primarily over the issue of continued
US/UN imposition of full sanctions in the face of North Korea efforts to secure a partial
reduction of sanctions as a basis for progress. The June 2018 Joint Declaration, however,remains a significant expression of how close the sides were able to come in agreeing on some of
the main principles and elements that could provide a basis for establishing a NWFZ on the
Korean Peninsula.

Detailed Proposals for NEANWFZs
In addition to the various proposals advanced at governmental levels or through governmental
agencies and negotiations, there has been much work on, and advocacy for, NEANWFZ
proposals advanced through epistemic communities of experts and academics, political parties
within the region, and civil society disarmament bodies.
Specific proposals include but are not confined to: Maeda (1966, Whiting (1972), Cunningham(1975), Halperin (1975), Hayes, Zarsky and Bello (1986), Endicott (1991, 1995, 1997, 2008),
Shim (1991), Mack (1995), Kaneko (1995, 1996) Koo (1998), Xia (1999), Suzuki (2000),
Umebayashi (1996, 2004, 2005) Peace Depot (2005) Hayes (2008), Asahi Shimbun (2009),
Research Center for Nuclear Abolition (RECNA)(2015), and Halperin, Hayes, Pickering &Sigal(2018), and Tong Kim (2020).68

68 For the early proposals of Maeda, Hayasi, Whiting, Allen , Cunningham, William and Halperin, Morton see Koo,

Bon-Hak, “A Northeast Asian NWFZ: A Korean Perspective” in Thakur, Ramesh (ed.), Nuclear Weapons-Free Zones,
Macmillan/St Martin’s Press, London, 1998, pp.131-132. Hayes, Peter, Zarsky, Lyuba and Bello Walden, American
Lake: Nuclear Peril in the Pacific, Penguin Books, Ringwood, Victoria, 1986, pp.395-398; Endicott, John andGorowitz, “Track-II Cooperative Regional Security Efforts: Lessons from the Limited-Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone

33

These contributions variously offer a number of innovative approaches to the processes, scope,boundaries and special requirements that would be important either in a Korean Peninsula or
wider Northeast Asia NWFZ.
Some of the most developed proposals have been those put forward by Hiro Umebayashi, John
Endicott, the Nautilus Foundation, and regional gatherings of Northeast Asian specialists andexperts convened by the Nagasaki University Research Center for Nuclear Weapon Abolition
and its associated regional Panel for Peace and Security of Northeast Asia (PSNA).
Umbeyashi, in association with Peace Depot, has developed a Model Northeast Asian NWFZ
that would cover the two Koreas and Japan, with a supportive role for China, the United States
and Russia. The Model Treaty incorporates core denuclearization provisions and negative
for Northeast Asia”, Pacifica Review, 11, 3,1999, pp.3293-3324; Endicott, John, “Limited Nuclear-Weapon-Free
Zones: The Time Has Come”, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, vol.20, no.1, March 2008, pp.13-26; also see
following website for further details of this initiative:
http://www.cistp.gatech.edu/programs/nuclearnonproliferation/weaponsfreezone.ht; Shim, Jae-Kwon, A Korean
Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone: A Perspective”, Peace Research Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian
National University, Working Paper No.110, Canberra, 1991; Mack, Andrew, “A Northeast Asia Nuclear-Free Zone:
Problems and Prospects” in Mack, Andrew (ed.), Nuclear Policies in Northeast Asia, UNDIIR, Geneva, 1995, pp.97126; Kaneko, Kumao “Circular NWFZ”, 2005 www.nautilus.org/napsnet/sr/2005/0566NEANWFZ.pdf ; Kaneko,
Kumao “Japan Needs No Umbrella,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, March/April 1996.; Koo, Bon-Hak, “A Northeast
Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone: A Korean Perspective” in Thakur, Ramesh (ed.), Nuclear Weapons-Free Zones,
Macmillan/St Martin’s Press, London, 1998, pp.123-151; Xia, Liping. "Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones: Lessons for
Nonproliferation in Northeast Asia." Nonproliferation Review 6, Fall 1999.; Suzuki, Tatsujiro, A Proposal for
Tripartite Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in Korea and Japan: Possible Alternative for TMD? Tokyo, 2000,
www.docstoc.com/docs/4227893/A-PROPOSAL-FOR-TRIPARTITE-NUCLEAR-WEAPON-FREE-ZONE; Hiro
Umebayashi: “A Northeast Asia NWFZ: A Realistic and Attainable Goal,” INESAP (International Network ofEngineers and Scientists Against Proliferation) Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden, May 30-June 2,1996,
http://www.inesap.org/sites/default/files/inesap_old/bulletin10/bul10art03.htm; Umbayashi, Hiromichi,“Proposal of a Model Northeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty”, paper presented at Workshop on
Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone and Missile Control in Northeast Asia, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, July 16-18,
2004; Umbayashi, Hiromichi, “Towards a Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone”, Japan Focus, August 11
2005, http://japanfocus.org/products/topdf/1784; Peace Depot, A Model Treaty on the Northeast Asia NuclearWeapon-Free Zone, Peace Depot, Yokohama, November 2005, http://www.peacedepot.org/wpcontent/uploads/2016/12/workingpaper1.pdf; Hayes, Peter, A Sustainable Korean Nuclear Weapons Free Zone
Concept, 2010, presentation to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Norway Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament and NonProliferation, Washington DC, 17 December 2008.; Asahi Shimbun, “64 Years and Counting”, editorial, 20 August
2009, reprinted at http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2009/08/20_asahi; RECNA, “Proposal: A Comprehensive
Approach to a Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone,” March 2015 http://www.recna.nagasakiu.ac.jp/recna/bd/files/Proposal_E.pdf; Morton Halperin, Peter Hayes, Thomas Pickering, Leon Sigal, “General
Roadmap and Work Plan for Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea, NAPSNet Special Reports, April 10, 2018,https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/general-roadmap-and-work-plan-for-nuclear-diplomacywith-north-korea; Tong Kim, “New Approach to North Korea”, The Korea Times, September 20, 2020,
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2020/09/638_296347.html.

34

security assurances but also goes further than other established NWFZs by explicitly asking thatzone members discard their dependence on extended deterrence (the nuclear umbrella). As
Umbeyashi notes, there was agreement at the NPT 2000 Review Conference that NPT parties
would seek “a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies”. 69
John Endicott’s proposal, initially stimulated by the 1991 US decision to remove tactical nuclear
weapons from Korea, led to a series of Track 2 discussions between academics and officials fromboth the region and other relevant countries. It focuses on the possibility of establishing acircular or elliptical limited nuclear weapon free zone taking in the two Koreas, Japan, andsurrounding land territories of China and Russia, and sea areas within the zone. This would be an
important reassurance and confidence building measure for all the countries within the zone, anddemonstrate the commitment and good faith of the relevant nuclear weapon states whose support
is needed for Korean denuclearization. As one aspect of a newly negotiated Korean NWFZ, an
additional protocol could embody the main benefits of the LNWFZ by requiring the nuclear
weapon states not to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on either sea or land within a specified
circular or elliptical zone, even within their own land territories falling within the zone.
Besides the critical need for major powers like the US, China and Russia to facilitate
negotiations for a Korean Nuclear Free Zone, there is also the question of what role Japan mightplay as a key country within the region; and, within the wider Asia Pacific region, what role
Australia and the ASEAN group might play.
While the Japanese Government has yet to embrace or advocate for a NEANWFZ (despite its
own experience of nuclear attacks and its important role in facilitating the establishment of a
NWFZ in the neighbouring region of Central Asia), the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) (later
succeeded by the Social Democratic Party of Japan) advocated strongly for the establishment of
a NEANWFZ. In a joint communiqué with North Korea in 1981, the JSP proposed the abolitionof nuclear weapons in Northeast Asia, withdrawal of foreign troops, ending of military allianceswith external countries, and establishment of a NWFZ on the Korean Peninsula and around theEast China Sea. Its successor Social Democratic Party continued to advocate for the

69 Umebayashi, Hiromichi, “Proposal of a Model Northeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty”, paper

presented at Workshop on Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone and Missile Control in Northeast Asia, Fudan University,
Shanghai, China, July 16-18, 2004.

35

establishment of a NEANWFZ in 2014. Also, during the brief period of office of the Democratic
Party of Japan in 2009-10, the government led by Yukio Hatoyama was a strong supporter ofdenuclearization globally and regionally, and expressed interest in the establishment of regionalorganizations that might address security issues.
One of Japan’s national daily newspapers, Asahi Shimbun, has also strongly advocated in a 2009
editorial that Japan should move to establish a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone:“One worthwhile idea would be a nuclear-free zone treaty for Northeast Asia. Japan and South
Korea could take the initiative by signing such a treaty first and putting it into force. If theUnited States, China and Russia all ratify a protocol that bans them from launching nuclear
attacks against Japan and South Korea, a non-nuclear umbrella would be raised for the region.
North Korea should be able to join the treaty for protection under the non-nuclear umbrella after
it abandons its nuclear program and returns to the NPT. This prospect would give North Korea astrong incentive to abandon its nuclear ambitions”.70
Within Japanese civil society disarmament forums and networks, there has also been strong
support for establishment of a NEANWFZ. The Japan Peace Committee. which convenes annual
anti-nuclear forums, has called for the establishment of such a NWFZ. The Research Center for
Nuclear Weapons Abolition at Nagasaki University and its associated regional panel of experts(PSNA) has organised a series of conferences and working papers specifically to research, andadvocate for, a NEANWFZ; and Japan Peace Depot has been a major source of research andadvocacy for a NEANWFZ, including monthly bulletins analysing diplomatic developments andissues associated with establishing such a zone 71.
While many of these Northeast Asian denuclearization proposals have focused either on the
Korean Peninsula itself, on the creation of a NWFZ covering the whole Northeast Asian region, 72
or on a “limited” nuclear weapon free zone that would initially cover tactical nuclear weapons

70 Asahi Shimbun, “64 Years and Counting”, editorial, 20 August 2009, reprinted at

http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2009/08/20_asahi
71 Peace Depot (Japan), Citizens’ Watch Project, Watch Report on the Implementation of Korean Denuclearization
Agreements, https://nonukes-northeast-asia-peacedepot-eng.blogspot.com/.
72 See, for example, Umebayashi, Hiromichi, “Proposal of a Model Northeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone
Treaty”, paper presented at Workshop on Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone and Missile Control in Northeast Asia, Fudan
University, Shanghai, China, July 16-18, 2004; Umebayashi, Hiromichi, “Towards a Northeast Asia Nuclear WeaponFree Zone”, Japan Focus, August 11 2005, http://japanfocus.org/products/topdf/1784.

36

(potentially including not only Northeast Asian countries but also adjacent nuclear weapon state
territories) as a confidence-building approach that could then progress to more extensive
denuclearization73, an alternative way forward was proposed by the Nautilus Institute in its 2010
concept paper, Korea-Japan Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (KJNWFZ) Concept Paper. 74 This
proposed the initial establishment of a nuclear weapon free zone between Japan and South
Korea, with North Korea encouraged to join at a later date. The paper notes that a KJNWFZ, in
addition to meeting such core aspects of NWFZ arrangements as prohibiting possession,
stationing or transporting of nuclear weapons, effective verification and compliance, clear
boundaries, negative security guarantees, or use of the zone for firing against third parties, would
need to address a number of issues specific to the Northeast Asia region. The latter would
include: current arrangements and understandings on nuclear transit and nuclear extended
deterrence; potential inclusion of a denuclearized North Korea at a later stage; and alliancerelationships in the region, particular China’s relationships to regional states, and the US bilateralrelationships with South Korea, Japan and Taiwan; missile delivery systems and associateddifficulties in distinguishing military from space-launch missiles; and issues associated with thenuclear fuel cycle, particularly enrichment and reprocessing. The KJNWFZ proposal envisaged
immediate confidence-building benefits in finding ways through the impasse with North Korea;
and longer-term security benefits in reducing or even preventing potential nuclear rivalry
between Japan and the two Koreas.
In 2018, several experts, including Peter Hayes from Nautilus, Morton Halperin, Thomas
Pickering, Leon Segal, and Philip Yun, proposed some specific ways forward for Korean
denuclearization.75 They emphasized the critical importance of seeking a comprehensive security
settlement. This would involve: replacing the Korean Armistice with a peace declaration ortreaty; declaring non-hostility between the parties and normalizing relations; gradually relaxing
sanctions; providing humanitarian, economic and energy assistance to North Korea; setting up a
73 Endicott, John, “Limited Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones: the time has come”, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis,v.20 n.1, March 2008, pp.13-26; Endicott, John and Gorowitz, Alan, “Track-II Cooperative Regional Security Efforts:
Lessons from the Limited Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone for Northeast Asia”, Pacifica Review,v.11 n.3, October 1999,
pp. 293-323.
74 Nautilus Institute, Korea-Japan Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (KJNWFZ) Concept Paper, February 15, 2010.
75 Morton Halperin, Peter Hayes, Thomas Pickering, Leon Sigal & Philip Yun, From Enemies to Security Partners:

Pathways to Denuclearization in Korea, Nautilus Institute, July 6, 2018, https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnetpolicy-forum/from-enemies-to-security-partners-pathways-to-denuclearization-in-korea/.

37

Six Party Northeast Asia Security Council (that the original but unsuccessful Six Party Talks
might have sought to establish); and establishing a NWFZ “in which to re-establish DPRK’s
non-nuclear commitment in a legally binding manner that provides a framework to dismantle its
nuclear facilities and weapons and to manage the nuclear threat in the region in a manner thattreats all parties, including North Korea, on an equal basis.”

Pathways to a NEANWFZ
A recent regional June 2019 workshop of 25 regional experts, convened by the Nagasaki
University Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition and the Sejong Institute in South
Korea, explored in depth some key policy directions and pathways for regional denuclearization,
including establishment of a NEANWFZ. The report of workshop recommendations presented anumber of key conclusions for pathways towards denuclearization and NEANWFZ
establishment, including some of the wider steps and confidence-building measures that would
need to precede or accompany zone negotiation and establishment. 76
A major recommendation of the experts was to conclude a final peace settlement of the Korean
War as “a crucial first step towards establishing the conditions for trust, peace anddenuclearization on the Korean Peninsula” and to negotiate a Treaty of Amity and Cooperationin Northeast Asia that would initially include the US, Japan, ROK and DPRK. A further
recommended crucial step in enabling regional cooperation nuclear and other security issues wasto establish a permanent Northeast Asian Regional Security Forum. This would “promotedialogue and negotiations on peace and denuclearization in the region”, “advance and develop
cooperative security approaches”, and “Advance the establishment of a Northeast Asia NWFZ”.
Based on the cooperative approaches envisaged in the Pyongyang Joint Declaration of
September 2018 between North and South Korea, the experts’ workshop recommended seeking
changes in both ROK and DPRK conventional force postures that would reduce reliance on

76 Fumihiko Yoshida, Haksoon Paik, Michael Hamel-Green and Peter Hayes, From Peace on the Korean Peninsula toa Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone: Policy Proposal, Sejong Institute and Research Center for Nuclear
Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University, September 18, 2019, http://www.recna.nagasakiu.ac.jp/recna/bd/files/Policy-Proposal-2019.pdf (accessed 30/8/2020).

38

extended nuclear deterrence and facilitate negative nuclear security guarantees that would
underpin a NEANWFZ. The experts highlighted the positive role of new ways to reduce militaryconfrontation between North and South that were part of or could emerge from the September
2018 agreement, including ceasing live-fire drills, designating no-fly zones, consultations at theInter-Korean Joint Military Committee on planned exercises and establishment of a West Sea
Peace Zone, demilitarization of the Panmunjon Joint Security Area, and withdrawing guard posts
within one km of the DMZ.
In terms of fostering further cooperation between North and South, additional ways forward
identified in the expert’s report were to: continue the summit meetings between the leaders,
expand sovereign control of ROK military forces by transferring operational wartime control
from the US to the ROK, and to replace the 1953 Armistice Agreement with an expanded
arrangement that would involve not only the two Koreas, China and the US but also Russia,
Japan and UN Command allies. In terms of fostering an early breakthrough in the current
diplomatic impasse, the report strongly recommended moving toward gradual lifting of sanctions
in return for calibrated denuclearization steps.
The experts noted a number of positive trends that could open a “window of opportunity” forsecuring regional peace and security on both the Korean Peninsula and wider Northeast AsianRegion. Firstly, Kim Jong Un’s focus on economic reconstruction and apparent view that theexisting level of nuclear weapons capability is sufficient to deter US or other external attacks.
Secondly, the rise of the “progressive and pragmatic” leadership of President Moon Jae-In in
South Korea and evident willingness to pursue diplomatic initiatives to address North South
nuclear and other tensions. Thirdly, the willingness of President Trump to engage in direct talks
with Kim Jong Un. And fourthly, the potentially positive role that China and Russia can and areplaying in fostering a resolution of the issues.
While there is much uncertainty associated with the forthcoming US Presidential Election andthe reluctance on the part of North Korea to engage in further negotiations until the outcome ofthe election is known, coupled with the change in Japan’s leadership following the retirement of
Shinzo Abe, the urgency of finding a solution to the Korean nuclear dilemmas can be expected tocontinue to exercise US and Northeast Asian regional leaders. If there is a Biden Administration,
39

there may still be continuing uncertainty if Republicans retain control of the Senate (as, indeed,
was the case during the Obama Administration, with resulting severe constraints on pursuingarms control and disarmament initiatives).
Assuming there is a willingness on the part of the key players to re-engage on Northeast Asian
nuclear issues following the US November election, the Sejong/RECNA workshop report
proposed a “dual-track approach to establishing both a comprehensive security framework and anuclear-weapon-free zone in Northeast Asia.
The report recommended a comprehensive regional security approach requiring the following six
steps:
1. Termination of the state of war, with opening of the border between North and South andpull back of military forces from the DMZ area;
2. Creation of a permanent Northeast Asia Security Council, and negotiation of a Treaty ofAmity and Cooperation in Northeast Asia, comparable to that of the 1976 Treaty ofAmity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia77;
3. Mutual declaration of no hostile intent, something of key concern for the DPRK andwhich would need to be covered in the Treaty of Amity;
4. Provisions of energy assistance to the DPRK, including nuclear power;
5. The gradual, phased, lifting of sanctions, with reservation of the right to re-impose
sanctions in the event of violations of theTreaty of Amity;
6. Establishment of a NWFZ for the Northeast Asian region.
In relation to NWFZ, the experts’ policy recommendation was that it should be legally binding
and contain the core UN-required provisions for international IAEA verification and the security
guarantees not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against zone parties on the part of the
NPT- recognized nuclear-armed states (US, Russia, China, France and UK).
The experts’ policy recommendations went more deeply into addressing some of the specificprovisions that would be necessary to establish an effective and credible NWFZ tailored to theparticular conditions and needs of Northeast Asia. These provisions would be:•

Verified dismantlement of the any nuclear weapons and related facilities within a time

77 ASEAN, Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia Indonesia, 24 February 1976,

https://web.archive.org/web/20180810232530/http://asean.org/treaty-amity-cooperation-southeast-asiaindonesia-24-february-1976/.

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•
•
•
•
•

period of 18 months from treaty entry into force (consistent with similar provisions in the2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW);
Prohibition of conventional or other attacks on civilian nuclear facilities;
Prohibition of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles;
Establishment of a regional verification agency similar to the Argentina-Brazil ABACC
agency;Multilateral control of enrichment facilities and fissile materials and stockpiles, including
a control or ban on reprocessing of irradiated uranium and thorium;
Full transparency on all past and present nuclear-weapon facilities and programs.

A particular diplomatic initiative suggested by the experts at the present juncture would be forthe regional states (the two Koreas, Japan and Mongolia) to come together in a regional summit
to discuss a regional roadmap for denuclearization, non-proliferation and reduction of nuclear
risks in the Northeast region. Japan and South Korea might take the leading role in convening
such a summit. Other confidence-building measures deemed likely to achieve denuclearization
progress in the region were to adopt “a reciprocal approach rather than an all-or-nothing
approach” in relation to concrete steps to be undertaken by both sides; study tours of otherregions where NWFZs have been successfully established; Track 1.5 and Track 2 regional
consultations on NWFZ options; negotiation of secure regional real-time military communication
systems within and between adversaries; unilateral gestures to show commitment to cooperation;and further reconciliation measures as envisaged in the Panmunjom Declaration.

Champions for a NEANWFZ
The established five regional NWFZs have all involved champions at various levels, whether
within governments, regional organizations, international bodies (especially the UN), politicalparties, or civil society groups. In the case of the Antarctic Treaty, US President Eisenhower andAmbassadors Herman Phleger and Paul Daniels were key advocates and leaders in creating thezone. In Latin America, it was the Mexican diplomat, Alfonso Garcia Robles and the UN’s
William Epstein, who were the foremost advocates, with strong support from then US VicePresident Hubert Humphrey. In the South Pacific, grassroots organizations opposed to Pacificnuclear testing were able to galvanize support amongst Labour parties in New Zealand andAustralia and amongst several island governments, with the governments of Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua
New Guinea and New Zealand key advocates, and New Zealand and Fiji securing support for the41

idea at the UN General Assembly. In the case of Southeast Asia, Indonesian Foreign Ministers
Mochtar Kusuma-Atmadja and later Ali Alatas played pivotal roles in advocating for a NWFZ as
a way of implementing ASEAN’s 1971 Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN)
agreement. The African NWFZ went through a long period of gestation from its first proposal in
the early 1962s to its negotiation in 1996, with Nigerian Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji being
credited as the driving force for the eventual negotiation of the treaty. The Central Asian NWFZ
was first advocated by Mongolian President Punsalmaagin Ochirbatthe at the UN General
Assembly in 1992, while the Usbekistan President Islam Karimov was the first to call for the fiveformer Soviet Central Asian states to establish a NWFZ. The UN then played a crucial role infacilitating the negotiations of the zone through the efforts of Tsutomu Ishiguri, Director of the
UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific. 78
Looking first at the governmental level, there have been several past government or government
agency proposals for establishment of a Korean or wider Northeast Asian NWFZ, including, as
discussed, the study commissioned by the US Government Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency. Current regional governments have long been constrained by their bilateral military
alliances with nuclear-armed states, offering (or assumed to be offering despite the uncertain
calculus involved in an actual nuclear conflict) extended nuclear deterrence; and by prematureassumptions about the irreversibility of the North Korean proliferation that has already occurred.
However, in the case of South Korea, it seems likely, given the principles evident in the 20182019 joint declarations with North Korea, that the ROK Moon Jae-In Administration could be
open to pursuing either a Korean NWFZ arrangement or a wider such arrangement that might
include Japan.
The Japanese Government, while continuing to express support for global nuclear disarmament,
declined either to join the new 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or to actively
promote a NWFZ in its own region, despite the crucial role it played in supporting a NWFZ inCentral Asia. However, the former Japanese Foreign Minister, Fumio Kishida, did establish a
78 For a detailed discussion of the role of advocate leaders in NWFZ establishment, see Michael Hamel-Green,“Cooperating Regionally, Denuclearizing Globally: Multilateral Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone Initiatives”, in Jeffrey W.
Knopf, (ed.), International Cooperation on WMD Nonproliferation, University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia,
2016, pp.212-214.

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Group of Eminent Persons for Substantive Advancement of Nuclear Disarmament to advise theJapanese Government on rebuilding trust between non-nuclear and nuclear-armed states andbuilding bridges towards a nuclear-weapon-free world. While the Group has not specifically
recommended a Northeast Asian NWFZ, it has issued a 2019 Kyoto Appeal statement, publishedby the Japanese Foreign Affairs Department, in which it spoke of the need for “all states to takemeasures to demonstrate how peace and security can be maintained with reduced reliance on, orwithout, nuclear weapons”, and welcomed the November 2019 conference on a Middle Eastzone free of weapons of mass destruction convened under NPT auspices. 79 While the Eminent
Persons Group has been focused on global nuclear issues associated with the upcoming NPT
Review Conference (now postponed till 2021), it seems feasible and consistent with its brief, andown general recommendations, that it might act as an advocate for greater exploration of a
NWFZ in Japan’s own region.
At the civil society level, as already discussed, there have been a number of civil society
disarmament groups and academic experts in regional security and non-proliferation currently
advocating for establishment of a NEANWFZ, including most prominently Nagasaki
University’s RECNA, the regional Panel on Peace and Security of Northeast Asia (PSNA)
involving experts from Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, Europe, US and Australia, specialists
from South Korea’s Sejong Institute, Japan’s Peace Depot, the US and Australia-based Nautilus
Foundation, and a number of individual security and disarmament specialists, including former
security advisors to US Administrations, Leon Segal, Morton Halperin and Frank von Hippel.
Beyond these current champions of the NEANWFZ alternative, or variants thereof, there is now
a greater potential for wider advocacy of such an alternative through a range of both regional andinternational networks concerned with disarmament and non-proliferation issues, including the
Asia Pacific Leaders Network (APLN) and the European Leaders Network (ELN), the Japan
Peace Committee’s annual forums, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons(ICAN) networks (currently focused on seeking the last few ratifications to bring the 2017 Treaty
to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons into force), and potential working papers or civil society

79 For the Kyoto Appeal, see: https://www.mofa.go.jp/files/000469293.pdf.

43submissions made as part of the upcoming 2021 NPT Review Conference.

Conclusion: The Global Context for Establishing a NEANWFZ
A move to establish a NWFZ in the Northeast Asian region would be an immensely important
step in preventing and insulating one of the regions most at risk in the world of becoming a
nuclear trigger and unleashing a nuclear catastrophe, whether through a deliberate nuclear strike,miscalculated pre-emptive use, or sheer accident through computer errors in nuclear weapon andrelated radar systems that give too little time to check and correct such errors.
As discussed above, Northeast Asia is riven with current tensions between North Korea, China
and Russia to the north, and South Korea, Japan and the US to the south. Only a comprehensive
settlement of the Korean War and the creation of security guarantees not to use or threaten to use
nuclear weapons against any regional state will avert the growing horizontal and nuclear
proliferation in the region, and the increasing probability of any use of nuclear weapons
becoming a longer term certainty. While there would undoubtedly be nervousness amongst somequarters within both South Korea and Japan about relinquishing reliance on extended nuclear
deterrence as a result establishing a NWFZ, there remains the conventional deterrence affordedby the very formidable conventional forces of both countries and their US ally. In any case, any
major violation of such a NWFZ would automatically release guarantor nuclear weapon statesfrom their negative security assurances under the treaty, thereby enabling the extended nuclear
deterrence arrangements to be re-activated.
Such a Northeast Asia NWFZ would serve to link up with the existing Southeast Asian NWFZ,
the Mongolian NWFZ, and the South Pacific NWFZ to dramatically expand the reach of NWFZs
across the world, and enable the Northeast Asian region to play a much bigger role incooperating with other NWFZs at the UN and in other international forums to achieve theuniversally agreed goal of nuclear weapon elimination. It would also be a major inspiration for
countries in the Middle East region, where nuclear weapon proliferation has already occurred in
Israel and where there is now possible proliferation to other states in the region, including Iranand Saudi Arabia.

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The features of a Northeast Asian NWFZ, as advanced by most proponents discussed above,
would be broadly consistent with the core principles and provisions of the five existing zones
and the requirements set down in the UN guidelines on such zones. However, it would need to
go beyond these core provisions to address the specific conditions and requirements within thisregion. It would certainly need to have a flexible entry into force mode that would allow time forNorth Korea to become confident in the negative security guarantees that would be provided by
the nuclear powers, especially the US, and through comprehensive security agreements toaddress the long standing fears of invasion and regime destabilization that are legacies of the
Korean War and have been exacerbated by major nuclear-capable exercises close to the DMZ. In
view of the proliferation that has already occurred, a NEANWFZ would also certainly need toinclude rigorous and intrusive means of verification for the dismantlement of all nuclear
weapons and nuclear weapons related facilities in the region.
In the context of global preoccupation with the current Covid-19 pandemic, and a parallel media
pandemic of 24/7 news bites and twitter feeds that privilege moments rather than meanings, thenuclear portents for Northeast Asia can easily be overlooked. As George Santayana warned, all
too mindful of the darker moments in human history, “Those who cannot remember the past arecondemned to repeat it”. In Northeast Asia, the past to be remembered is the first use of nuclear
weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians at Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. The past also to be remembered is that, over the seven decades since Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, millions in this region have been subject to continued threats of nuclear
annihilation during wars and crises affecting the region, including most recently in the 2017exchange of nuclear threats between Trump and Kim Jong Un.
The region is at a fork in the road. The one, an all-too-trodden path towards war and a nuclear
precipice, driven by nationalist and militarist mirages of achieving military superiority andassumed deterrence. The other a path of patient regional and international diplomacy to securecooperative solutions to the threat of a Northeast Asian nuclear conflict.

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As dangerous new forms of nuclear escalation emerge in the region, efforts to establish aregional Northeast Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone have never been more urgent.80

80 Acknowledgments: The author would like to acknowledge the invaluable comments, suggestions and correctionsof Professor Hiromichi Umebayashi and Ambassador Thomas Graham in their reviews of an earlier draft of thispaper, and to Professor Peter Hayes for his guidance on the scope and issues to be examined in the paper.

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