Insecurity Shadows the Iran Deal
Tuesday 17 October 2017. The US president has spoken. In a hostile statement reminiscent of George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech president Trump has refused to certify the Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA. The deal will now go to Congress who have until December 14th to decide whether or not to re-impose sanctions, lifted after the JCPOA’s implementation. This may not happen immediately as the president proposed certain US-defined triggers, most of which are outside the provisions of the deal. Consequently, the US will not exit the deal, at least not now, but will increase its pressure on Iran, [...]
CREATING NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY FOR NORTH KOREA: Lessons Learned from the Iran Nuclear Negotiations
A paper to the “International conference on nuclear disarmament issues: global and regional aspects”, 31 August to 1 September, 2017 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. CREATING NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY FOR NORTH KOREA: Lessons Learned from the Iran Nuclear Negotiations. Dr. Tarja Cronberg Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI States with nuclear weapon programs are different. Iran and North Korea differ not only in geography, history and state governance, the two state´s nuclear programs have different backgrounds and different goals. As an example, in 2003, when the US with allies intervened in Iraq, Iran and North Korea reacted in completely opposite ways. Iran made [...]
NEW NUCLEAR DIVIDES
NEW NUCLEAR DIVIDES By Tarja Cronberg On July 7th, 2017 122 nations agreed to prohibit nuclear weapons. It took 72 years after their first- and only- use. In her deeply moving closing statement, Setsuko Thurlow, an atomic bomb survivor, said: ‘This is the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons’ To agree on the treaty had taken three international conferences on the catastrophic consequenses of nuclear weapons, a humanitarian pledge signed by over 100 states and a UN Open-ended Working Group to agree to start negotiations on a prohibition treaty. The treaty is above all a humanitarian achievement recognizing the [...]
After 72 years, nuclear weapons have been prohibited
After 72 years, nuclear weapons have been prohibited 21 July 2017 Dr Tarja Cronberg 7 July 2017 was a momentous day for disarmament and arms control. On that day, 122 states approved the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, often called ‘the ban treaty’, at the United Nations in New York. Once 50 states have ratified the treaty, nuclear weapons will be illegal. The agreement will prohibit the possession of nuclear weapons for all states in the same way as the chemical and biological weapon conventions have prohibited those weapons for all. In the final report of the 2010 [...]
The challenges to a ban treaty
The nuclear weapon states (NWS) manage the current nuclear order. The five nuclear powers: China, France, Russia, the UK and the US, are the permanent members of the Security Council (P5) with veto power over any decision on threats to world peace. Furthermore, the P5 have absolute power over the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (the NPT). The treaty not only legitimizes the possession of nuclear weapons by the P5, although under the obligation to disarm, any amendments to the treaty also have to be accepted by all five nuclear states. The P5 even control non-proliferation, as proven when they, in addition [...]