Treaty On The Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons - History

History

The impetus behind the NPT was concern for the safety of a world with many nuclear weapon states. It was recognized that the cold war deterrent relationship between just the United States and Soviet Union was fragile. Having more nuclear nuclear-weapon states would reduce security for all, multiplying the risks of miscalculation, accidents, unauthorized use of weapons, or from escalation in tensions, nuclear conflict.

The NPT process was launched by Frank Aiken, Irish Minister for External Affairs, in 1958. It was opened for signature in 1968, with Finland the first State to sign. Accession became nearly universal after the end of the Cold War and of South African apartheid. In 1992 China and France acceded to the NPT, the last of the five nuclear powers recognized by the treaty to do so. In 1995 the treaty was extended indefinitely. After Brazil acceded to the NPT in 1998 the only remaining non-nuclear-weapons state which had not signed was Cuba, which joined NPT (and the Treaty of Tlatelolco NWFZ) in 2002.

Several NPT signatories have given up nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons programs. South Africa undertook a nuclear weapons program, allegedly with the assistance of Israel in the 1970s, and may have conducted a nuclear test in the Indian Ocean in 1979, but has since renounced its nuclear program and signed the treaty in 1991 after destroying its small nuclear arsenal; after this, the remaining African countries signed the treaty. Several former Soviet Republics, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, destroyed or transferred to Russia the nuclear weapons they inherited from the Soviet Union. The former Soviet republics joined NPT by 1994.

Successor states from the breakups of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia also joined the treaty soon after their independence. Montenegro and East Timor were the last countries to sign the treaty on their independence in 2006 and 2003; the only other country to sign in the 21st century was Cuba in 2002. The three Micronesian countries in Compact of Free Association with the USA joined NPT in 1995, along with Vanuatu.

Major South American countries Argentina, Chile, and Brazil joined in 1995 and 1998. Arabian Peninsula countries included Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in 1988, Qatar and Kuwait in 1989, UAE in 1995, and Oman in 1997. The tiny European states of Monaco and Andorra joined in 1995-6. Also signing in the 1990s were Myanmar in 1992 and Guyana in 1993.