AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

In Australian Outlook, APLN Senior Associate Fellow John Tilemann writes: Russia’s intervention in Ukraine highlights the urgency of steps to contain and eliminate nuclear threats. The responses to the Ukraine crisis of two key institutions of the global nuclear order, the NPT and the IAEA, help identify the ways forward. Read the original article here.

Like so many other areas of international and regional multilateral endeavour, the frameworks for managing global nuclear affairs have serious gaps. Russia’s intervention in Ukraine has again demonstrated the weaknesses but also some of the strengths of this global nuclear order.

Some challenges for managing nuclear affairs are long standing, others just emerging, and existing mechanisms suffer from a range of shortcomings in implementation. The protean global nuclear order has been gradually eroded over the last 20 years with increasing tensions between the United States and Russia and a gradual abandoning of nuclear restraints negotiated since the 1970s. Then, the Trump administration withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and revived nuclear bragging in exchanges between the US and North Korea.

Now, Russia’s intervention in Ukraine highlights the urgency of steps to contain and eliminate nuclear threats. The responses to the Ukraine crisis of two key institutions of the global nuclear order, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), help identify the ways forward.

The NPT – still the indispensable treaty

The NPT finally held its 10th Review Conference in August, delayed for two years by the COVID-19 pandemic. Marking the 50th anniversary of the treaty, there was strong support among its 190 plus member-states for a thorough and successful review.

“Success” in this context would have been the adoption by consensus of a lengthy document reflecting common understandings about the successes and shortcomings in the implementation of the treaty and recommendations for further action. Despite strong underlying international support for the NPT, the geopolitical circumstances had all but doomed the Review Conference to failure according to that measure of success. However, the president of the Conference, the long persevering and highly effective deputy foreign minister of Argentina, Ambassador Gustavo Zlauvinen, almost achieved a minor miracle. Zlauvinen negotiated a remarkably detailed document, but in the final hours, Russia objected to the document’s depiction of the situation at Ukrainian nuclear facilities. The conference therefore ended without a formal substantive outcome.

There have been two responses.  The first, to excoriate Russia, which many have done.  The other, to point to the huge measure of agreement that was achieved on almost all aspects of the NPT as evidence of the continuing strength of the non-proliferation norms. But while these signs of support are important, the NPT remains deeply damaged by the failure of the nuclear-armed states to meet their obligation to negotiate nuclear disarmament as required by Article VI of the treaty. Russia’s recent veiled nuclear threats over the war in Ukraine underline that failure.

The UN’s Nuclear Watchdog

The IAEA is commonly referred to as the United Nations nuclear watchdog. This reputation was earned during IAEA inspections in Iraq in the early 1990’s in a widely reported stand-off between IAEA inspectors and Iraqi guards seeking to deny the inspectors access to evidence of undeclared nuclear activities.

The IAEA has subsequently made headlines overseeing the dismantling of nuclear weapons in South Africa, confirming the removal of nuclear weapons from Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, seeking to stem the proliferation challenge of North Korea, and monitoring Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The IAEA is again the focus of international media attention as it seeks to ensure the safety and security of nuclear facilities in Ukraine. Since the start of the war and Russia’s occupation of the Chernobyl nuclear complex in February this year, and its subsequent seizure of Europe’s largest nuclear power station at Zaporizhzhia, the IAEA has been issuing regular updates on the safety, security, and safeguards in nuclear facilities in Ukraine.

After months of negotiation, and despite ongoing fighting in the region, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi and a team of safety and security experts arrived at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in late August. The IAEA has announced its intention to maintain a permanent presence at the site, monitoring issues faced by the Ukrainian plant operators and their interactions with the technical and security staff of the Russian occupiers. All six reactors at the plant are now shut down require ongoing essential maintenance. Radioactive materials at the plant are at risk of escape in the event of a major attack.

The IAEA presence at Zaporizhzhia is an important achievement.  Both Ukraine and Russia declare support for the IAEA’s proposal for a safety and security protection zone around the plant, but modalities are not yet agreed.

In September, at the annual IAEA General Conference of all 175 member-states, Russia was again under great pressure. Russia sought unsuccessfully to scuttle a resolution on nuclear security which, in its view, contained inaccurate depictions of the situation in Ukraine. Instead, the issue went to a vote which Russia lost overwhelmingly. The challenge for the IAEA in this case, as in many others, is to protect its technical expertise and independence from the inevitable pressures of a highly charged political environment.

Strengthening the Global Nuclear Order

Despite its shortcomings, the NPT remains fundamental to the global nuclear order. Critical to the continuing strength of the NPT is progress on reducing nuclear weapon stockpiles with a view to total elimination. The IAEA for its part has proven to be a resilient and adaptable international mechanism for managing issues within its mandate, non-proliferation, and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy – but currently this does not include disarmament.

The Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, a recent addition to the global nuclear order, is a powerful reaffirmation of the humanitarian imperative of nuclear disarmament and can help build the critical will required. Now, the urgent need is for concrete measures. The report of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament remains a compelling guide to such measures. These measures may well require new architecture to close gaps in the existing order and address emerging issues.

And there are lessons for the Asia-Pacific, with major civil nuclear energy infrastructure amid nuclear strategic jostling in the arc from Northeast Asia through the South China Sea to South Asia. Regional institutions need urgent strengthening to address nuclear threats. Also, regional champions are needed. Australia and Japan have roles to play, as does Indonesia, long a leader of the non-aligned movement’s disarmament advocacy.

Ultimately, the responsibility to avert disaster rests with the states possessing nuclear weapons, particularly the NPT parties which have already made a solemn legal commitment to their elimination. Collectively their performance over the last 20 years has been abysmal – defensive and with stale repetition of long articulated positions. The time is right for one to take up the challenge.

After the recent NPT Review Conference, China was confident in its leadership role, claiming that it had “the most stable, consistent and responsible nuclear strategy and policy among the five nuclear-weapon states.” Perhaps China has the motivation to step up. After all, it is now at the centre of the world’s most complex and threatening nuclear theatre.

Sixty years ago, the Cuban missile crisis threatened nuclear catastrophe and prompted the first exploration of ways to contain global nuclear threats.  Perhaps the war in Ukraine and Russia’s nuclear sabre rattling will be the jolt needed to bring the nuclear weapon states back to the negotiating table.