Disarmament

General and Complete Disarmament

When used in relation to nuclear weapons, disarmament and nonproliferation are frequently described as two sides of the same coin, implying that one is not sustainable without the other. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which entered into force in 1970 with the purpose of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and technologies, contained in its Article VI an obligation to pursue nuclear disarmament. Article VI also referred to “general and complete disarmament,” a phrase drawn from United Nations (UN) resolutions going back to 1946. No timetable was set for achieving these objectives, and there are many competing interpretations of what would actually need to be done to implement Article VI.

In the aftermath of World War II, “general and complete disarmament” reflected the aspiration of resolving all conflict through diplomacy, without recourse to force and arms, but its meaning has never been clarified. Was it intended to mean a world without all weapons or a world without nationally controlled war-fighting weapons? It appears that the founders of the UN wanted this aspiration to guide international relations toward more peaceful directions. Certainly, the world would have to change fundamentally if total disarmament, peace, and security were ever to be possible. The inclusion of “general and complete disarmament” in Article VI of the NPT has more often been used by some of the nuclear weapon states (defined in the NPT to include China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom [UK], and the United States) to justify not eliminating their nuclear weapons until there is general and complete disarmament. So that the laudable but remote goal of total disarmament would not be used as an excuse to hold on to nuclear weapons, the Sixth Review Conference of the NPT, held in 2000, made clear in its consensus final document that nuclear disarmament is the most urgent priority under the treaty and that achieving nuclear disarmament is not contingent on general and complete disarmament, which is the “ultimate goal.”

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