DURING the cold war, global security depended on a nuclear stand-off between two broad alliances, NATO and the Warsaw Pact. It was based on the rather morbid doctrine of mutually assured destruction. As alliance leaders, the Soviet Union and the US protected and managed their respective spheres of influence and were able to minimise the number of nations acquiring nuclear weapons.
In the past 15 years, the international security landscape has changed. The cold war rivalry disappeared. But rather than the much vaunted 鈥渘ew world order鈥�, this has resulted in a sort of 鈥渘ew world instability鈥�. Ethnic and religious tensions have erupted, while many regional conflicts such as that in the Middle East have continued to fester.
Rather than trying to understand these changes and adapting to the new threats, the international community has inclined towards inaction or unilateral 鈥渟elf-help鈥� solutions. Against this backdrop of insecurity, we should not be surprised that some countries have continued to show an interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Four undeclared nuclear programmes, in Iraq, Iran, Libya and North Korea, have come to light since the early 1990s.
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We at the IAEA have learned valuable lessons from our recent experience in verifying these undeclared nuclear programmes. Perhaps the most important is that verification and diplomacy, used together, can work. The Iraq experience demonstrated that inspections can be effective even when the country being inspected is less than cooperative. All the evidence indicates that Iraq鈥檚 nuclear weapons programme had been effectively dismantled in the 1990s through IAEA inspection, as we were nearly ready to conclude before the war. Inspections in Iran over the past year have also been key to uncovering a nuclear programme that had remained hidden since the 1980s.
Perhaps the most disturbing lesson to emerge from our work in Iran and Libya is the existence of an extensive illicit market for nuclear items. The ease with which Pakistan nuclear engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan and his associates were able to operate a multinational network clearly demonstrates the inadequacy of the present export control system.
It should be clear that we are well beyond the point where a few quick fixes will adequately address the new threats. But I find it encouraging that both governments and civil society are beginning to come forward with suggestions for dealing with them. My proposals fall into three areas.
The first concerns strengthened non-proliferation controls. We must tighten controls over the export of sensitive nuclear material and technology. The nuclear export control system should be binding rather than voluntary, and should include all countries with the capability for manufacturing sensitive nuclear related items. We should consider limitations on the production of nuclear material through reprocessing and enrichment, possibly by bringing these operations exclusively under multinational control, while guaranteeing the supply of fuel to legitimate users. A multinational approach could also be applied to the management and disposal of spent nuclear fuel. We should work to prevent the use of weapon-usable material in civilian nuclear programmes, and eliminate stocks of weapon-usable nuclear material now in existence.
My second set of proposals involves strengthening the commitment of all states to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament measures, including, for example, the establishment of a concrete roadmap for verified, irreversible nuclear disarmament. It is 30 years since the enactment of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and yet 30,000 nuclear weapons are still available for use.
In July 1996, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared unanimously that nuclear states were obliged to conclude negotiations for 鈥渘uclear disarmament in all its aspects鈥�. To my mind, it is hard to reconcile the opinion of the ICJ with the decision by the US to explore new types of nuclear weapons. More importantly, if this type of research proceeds, it is hard to see how we can ask the nuclear 鈥渉ave-nots鈥� to accept additional non-proliferation obligations and to renounce any sensitive nuclear capability as being adverse to their security.
My third set of proposals involves establishing a functional system for collective international security. The UN Security Council must be able and ready to engage effectively in both preventive diplomacy and enforcement measures. We must also work to address the root causes of insecurity and instability, including the widening divide between rich and poor and the chronic lack of good governance.
We have two possible courses of action. We can wait for the unthinkable to happen, or we can take notice of the writing on the wall and act today. I repeat that it is time to abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue nuclear weapons, but morally acceptable for others to rely on them.
This article is derived from a speech delivered at the Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference in Washington DC last month