The model NWC has several features designed to strengthen the international nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament regime. First, it prohibits the acquisition, development, testing, and stockpiling of nuclear material and delivery vehicles, as well as the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. Second, it provides for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons under a phased program that requires states to destroy their nuclear arsenals. Finally, it establishes a comprehensive verification system to ensure compliance. These provisions can function to strengthen the international norm against nuclear weapons. Although an international norm has developed against nuclear weapon use, continued dependence on nuclear weapons as a valuable aspect of national security doctrines sustains a fundamental reliance on nuclear weapons. An NWC would assist in devaluing and delegitimizing nuclear weapons, and as the Acronym Institute’s Rebecca Johnson argues, “…would greatly diminish any perceived political and military gains attached to acquiring, developing, or threatening to use nuclear weapons.”²

An NWC would also address the structural flaws of the NPT that decrease the viability the treaty. During the Cold War, the NPT served a crucial purpose in preventing widespread nuclear proliferation. However, the NPT lacks the power to address current threats to international peace and security, such as nuclear terrorism and renewed proliferation threats. One of the most pressing issues of the NPT is the stagnant disarmament progress by nuclear weapons states (NWS). The nonproliferation bargain of the NPT created a system of haves and have-nots. Non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS) have complied with their nonproliferation obligations, but are becoming increasingly frustrated with the limited disarmament, coupled with NWS efforts to improve existing stockpiles. As Alyn Ware states, “…the NPT Article VI obligation is not self-implementing.”³ The phased disarmament schedule in the model NWC would support timely progress in the elimination of nuclear arsenals.

A convention would help to overcome the NPT’s inability to address contemporary nuclear threats. The NPT’s stringent amendment provisions⁴ make it nearly impossible to amend the treaty, and the five-year reviews, the purpose of which is to ensure the NPT’s ability to maintain a strong non-proliferation/disarmament regime, tend to produce least common denominator final documents that fail to suppress emerging nuclear threats. A significant concern of the NPT is the withdrawal clause, which essentially allows states parties to utilize the peaceful use clause to acquire nuclear technology to the point of breakout capacity, then subsequently withdraw from the NPT. An NWC would reduce this threat by casting “cheaters” as international pariahs, which would reduce their influence within the global community.

Perhaps most importantly, an NWC would provide the universality that the NPT lacks. The NPT framework has been unsuccessful in bringing India, Pakistan, and Israel into the non-proliferation and disarmament regime. The governments of these states are unwilling to join the NPT as NNWS while other states maintain nuclear arsenals. However, both India and Pakistan have expressed support for an NWC. A universal mechanism that provides for the global elimination of nuclear weapons would also help to eliminate regional arms races. Nuclear arms races have already occurred between India and Pakistan, which has led some experts to argue that South Asia poses one of the gravest threats to international peace and security, while Iran’s nuclear program lends the distinct possibility of a future Middle East arms race. It would also reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, because the elimination of nuclear stockpiles and materials would deny access to terrorist groups.

The NPT has served a useful purpose by preventing widespread proliferation of nuclear weapons for the past forty years, but it is not equipped to deal with nascent nuclear threats or advance the global elimination of nuclear weapons. The political will exists among NNWS and middle power governments, but until the NWS (with the exception of China, which already supports an NWC) get on board, the ideal of a nuclear-weapon-free-world is unlikely to be realized. It is crucial to global security to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons as a deterrent and it is up to international civil society to continue to put pressure on world leaders to disarm.