GA During NPT Review Conference. Credit: Jonathan Granoff

By Jonathan Granoff
NEW YORK, Jun 10 2026 (IPS)

Martin Luther King Jr. , when he received the Nobel Peace Prize, reminded us of “The fact that most of the time human beings put the truth about the nature and risks of the nuclear war out of their minds because it is too painful and therefore not ‘acceptable’, does not alter the nature and risks of such war. The device of ‘rejection’ may temporarily cover up anxiety, but it does not bestow peace of mind and emotional security.” I have devoted many decades of my life to not ignoring the risk of nuclear annihilation and since 1995 have attended every Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to learn and hopefully contributed to a saner safer world.

The 191 nations which are parties to the third most important legal instrument of the 20th Century, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), recently finished a Review Conference at the United Nations in which the future of humanity was soberly discussed. It took place from April 27-May 22, 2026. Social media, major news outlets, and other media virtually ignored the gravity and importance of the deliberations. Only the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are arguably of greater significance than the NPT.

Without it there would likely be dozens of states with nuclear arsenals. Because of it there are only nine. Five – US, UK, France, China, and Russia — are members of the Treaty and India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea are the only nations in the world not parties to the Treaty.

The NPT arose because intelligence estimates during the 1960s reported that, by the end of the 1970s, there would be twenty-five to thirty states with nuclear weapons integrated into their national arsenals and ready for use. The Treaty entered into force in 1970. It is based on a bargain. In exchange for a commitment from the non-nuclear weapon states (today, some 186 nations) not to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons and to submit to international safeguards intended to verify compliance with the commitment, the five NPT nuclear weapon states promised unfettered access to peaceful nuclear technologies (e.g. nuclear power reactors and nuclear medicine), and pledged to engage in good faith disarmament negotiations to achieve the elimination of their nuclear arsenals.

This promise of disarmament is the only expression by the five that they are legally bound to negotiate nuclear disarmament. It is reinforced by the historic 1996 Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which unanimously ruled that an obligation exists to pursue in good faith and conclude negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict, effective international control. This finding interpreted Article VI of the NPT as a binding requirement not to just negotiate in good faith but asserted an affirmative obligation to pursue and conclude negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament.

The Treaty had a provision that after 25 years it would be reviewed to be determined whether it would terminate, be extended for another specific period of time, or be extended indefinitely. It was agreed in 1995 that it would be extended indefinitely. However, there is an ongoing legal obligation that every five years there is a review conference to analyze compliance and establish commitments to action to fulfill the core bargain. This process should not be ignored.

A context of previous commitments that have been made and remain outstanding are worth noting. Yes, diplomatic and especially legal language is boring but remember these words are the best tools we have for preventing suffering at scales and horror beyond our capacity to imagine.

The choice is either the tools of law and diplomacy or facing the consequence of explosions giving off heat three times the face of the sun, fireballs tens of miles wide throwing tons of soot into the stratosphere rending the agricultural base of civilization destroyed, radiation spreading across the globe, and the callous use of devices which dwarf the destruction of Hiroshima or Nagasaki by magnitudes the mind cannot easily grasp.

The atomic bombs of World War II were each less than the equivalent of 20 tons of TNT. There are now bombs in the million tons ranges. If used they will not discriminate between children, elderly, or even other species. As the first generation that must decide not to be the last, we will have failed our duty to future generations and our duty to live as human beings during our brief journey together.

So, please look at the progress that has taken place and could take place again if we can generate the knowledge in the public and political will of leaders to simply save humanity from a fire of our own creation.

A bargain to gain the indefinite extension of the NPT was obtained in 1995. It was based on a Statement of Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament which “politically, if not legally, condition[ed] the indefinite extension of the treaty.” The Statement pledged to accomplish the following:

1. Complete a “Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by the end of 1996”
2. Reaffirm the commitment “to pursue . . . nuclear disarmament”
3. Commence “negotiations for a treaty to stop” production “of nuclear bomb material[s]”
4. “[S]harply reduce global nuclear arsenals”
5. Encourage “the creation of nuclear-weapon-free zones”
6. Vigorously work to make the treaty universal by bringing in Israel, Pakistan and India, who have nuclear weapons and remain outside the treaty
7. Enhance IAEA [ Atomic Energy Agency] safeguards and verification capacity 8. Reinforce negative security assurances already given to NNWS (Non-Nuclear Weapons States) “against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against them . . . .” (This means to not threaten to use nuclear weapons against states which have renounced nuclear weapons for themselves .)

At the first Review Conference of the Treaty in 2000 the here are some of the terms upon which unanimous agreement was obtained:

1. Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

The importance and urgency of signature and ratification, without delay and without conditions and in accordance with constitutional processes, to achieve the early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

2. Nuclear Test Moratorium

A moratorium on nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosions pending entry into force of that Treaty.

3. Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty

The necessity of negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament on a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

6. Elimination of Nuclear Arsenals

An unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States parties are committed under Article VI.

7. The START II, START III, and ABM Treaties

The early entry into force and full implementation of START II and the conclusion of START III as soon as possible while preserving and strengthening the ABM Treaty as a cornerstone of strategic stability and as a basis for further reductions of strategic offensive weapons, in accordance with its provisions. (These treaties have been ended.)

9. Other Nuclear-Weapon States’ Actions

Steps by all the nuclear-weapon States leading to nuclear disarmament in a way that promotes international stability, and based on the principle of undiminished security for all:

– Further efforts by the nuclear-weapon States to reduce their nuclear arsenals unilaterally

– Increased transparency by the nuclear-weapon States with regard to the nuclear weapons capabilities and the implementation of agreements pursuant to Article VI and as a voluntary confidence-building measure to support further progress on nuclear disarmament

– The further reduction of non-strategic nuclear weapons, based on unilateral initiatives and as an integral part of the nuclear arms reduction and disarmament process

– Concrete agreed measures to further reduce the operational status of nuclear weapons systems

– A diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies to minimize the risk that these weapons ever be used and to facilitate the process of their total elimination

– The engagement as soon as appropriate of all the nuclear-weapon States in the process leading to the total elimination of their nuclear weapons

10. Excess Fissile Material

Arrangements by all nuclear-weapon States to place, as soon as practicable, fissile material designated by each of them as no longer required for military purposes under IAEA or other relevant international verification and arrangements for the disposition of such material for peaceful purposes, to ensure that such material remains permanently outside of military programmes.

13. Verification

The further development of the verification capabilities that will be required to provide assurance of compliance with nuclear disarmament agreements for the achievement and maintenance of a nuclear-weapon-free world.

In 2010 over 60 further commitments to making the world safer were made.

I recount the accomplishment of these commitments to highlight the diplomatic failure of the 2026 Conference where no final statement of agreement could be reached. We must be sober and recognize that the five states with nuclear weapons are either modernizing and thus making more usable their nuclear arsenals and/or expanding them, and the web of agreements that have constrained and contained proliferation and reduced risk have been eliminated by the actions of Russia and the US which possess over 85% of the world’s over 12,000 nuclear weapons. Threats of use are daily reported in the papers.

Treaty words and promises must mean something or else bullets become the verbs of communication. In the nuclear age this is too dangerous.

If the people of the world knew what diplomats could achieve if they were given the authority to use the skills of law and diplomacy, if they knew the daily risk of use of these devices by accident, design, or madness and the dozens of near uses by mistake, if they knew there is a better way, we could follow the path President Reagan and President Gorbachev opened which led to the reduction of the world’s nuclear arsenals by over 80%.

Today fear is an abused currency. In recent times we have seen how much can be created when hope and trust are invoked. The current downward spiral arising from the abusive arrogance of power exemplified by nuclear threats cannot lead to a better place. Our common humanity alone can bring us common security. It has been done before and it can be done again.

The 2026 NPT Review Conference demonstrated a failure by the five nuclear weapons states to work together to make the world a safer place.

Let us take the advice of Martin Luther King Jr. whose words when he won the Noble Peace Prize remain resonant today. “I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.‬”

That is why in the face of apathy, ignorance, fear, war, dishonesty, and violence, those of us who know the life lived without caring, compassion, sincerity and the pursuit of truth is hollow cannot turn away from the imperative that is both moral and practical. The work to fulfill the legal duty to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and obtain their legal, verifiable elimination must continue. Working for peace is not an inconvenient truth but a blessing available to all of us.

Jonathan Granoff is President of the Global Security Institute.

IPS UN Bureau

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Credit: US government

By Bishop Bill Swing and Jonathan Granoff
NEW YORK, Jan 11 2021 (IPS)

Between now and January 20,2021, the President of the United States has almost run out of arenas in which to impose his will. His reelection has soured in infamy. His concern for the COVID-19 pandemic faded long ago. There is only one last pursuit available to him to demonstrate that he is the most powerful man on earth, i.e. using the nuclear weapons at his disposal.

What if? This man who once suggested dropping a nuclear bomb on the eye of a hurricane, what if he decided to drop a nuclear warhead on Iran? What if Iran retaliated and sent rockets into Israel? What if Israel nuked Iran? What if the Middle East exploded and other nuclear nations chose sides and piled on expanded targets with their nukes?

Right now, the citizens of the United States and the people of the world need to be protected from the “what if” of an unhinged President armed with nuclear weapons.

Two questions quickly arise: 1) is this President, with nuclear weapons at his fingertips, sound of mind with a healthy moral compass? 2) Why should any President be given “sole authority” to order the launch of a nuclear arsenal? To launch in five minutes without the counsel of anyone else?

The entire enterprise of having weapons capable of destroying most all life on this planet – in five minutes – is morally absurd. Like dropping a nuke capriciously on a hurricane or giving a dangerously flawed President 5,800 nuclear weapons to play with in his last delusional days in office?

The President has “sole authority” to destroy without having “soul authority” to understand the moral gravity of this decisions. He has to be denuded of his nukes for all of our sakes.

And the nine countries with nuclear weapons merely mirror, over time, Donald Trump in his last days of reign. Trump is our nuclear problem immediately. But in the longer run, every one of these nations is deranged in thinking that nuclear weapons make us secure and solve problems.

With the weapons hanging over us, we are anything but secure. As for solving problems, nuclear weapons did nothing to stop the damage of COVID-19 or lessen the effects of climate change. What most ails the world is not addressed by a nuclear arsenal.

The United States of America has to sweat out these last days of President Trump, but the world has to sweat out the years ahead until we blow ourselves up or whittle our stockpiles of nuclear weapons down, eventually, to zero. We are all unhinged with nuclear weapons at our fingertips.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/The-danger-of-nukes-with-an-unhinged-Trump-15856851.php

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Excerpt:

By Jonathan Granoff
NEW YORK, Sep 27 2017 (IPS)

Presently, the entire world is hostage to a nuclear crisis expressed in the language of war and destruction by the leaders of North Korea and the United States We can look over the abyss and the reality of the consequence of the uses of nuclear weapons strikes fear and terror in the hearts of any sane person.

Master of Ceremonies Jonathan Granoff

In a speech, titled “Global Nuclear Disarmament A Practical Necessity, a Moral Imperative then United Nations,” High Representative Sergio Duarte reminded us that even before Hiroshima, on 11 June 1945, fifteen days before the UN Charter was signed, Manhattan Project scientists issued the “Franck Report, which stated with prescience: “Unless an effective international control of nuclear explosives is instituted, a race of nuclear armaments is certain to ensue following the first revelation of our possession of nuclear weapons to the world.”

Appropriately, the first UN General Assembly resolution, focused on the elimination of nuclear weapons. Last week, a step was taken at the United Nations to fulfill that vision of a nuclear weapons free world.

Since September 20, 2017, 53 nations have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, popularly known as the Ban Treaty. It will enter into force after it is ratified by 50 states. UN Secretary General Guterres opened the signing of what he referred to as a “milestone” worthy of celebration.

The Treaty prohibits developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, possessing, stockpiling and deploying nuclear weapons, transferring or receiving them from others, using or threatening to use them, or allowing any stationing or deployment of nuclear weapons on national territories of signatories, and assisting, encouraging, or inducing any of these prohibited acts.

The Treaty requires each signatory state to develop “legal, administrative and other measures, including the imposition of penal sanctions, to prevent and suppress” these prohibited activities.

Criticism has been made that the Treaty is not supported by the nine states with nuclear weapons. Critics from nuclear weapons states argue that the Treaty does not address the threat of North Korea, undermines the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and will not advance nuclear disarmament.

The Treaty exemplifies an effort to establish a universal formal legal prohibition to end the incoherence of the states with nuclear weapons asking others to do as we say, not as we do.

Nothing stimulates nuclear proliferation so much as strong states and coalitions such as NATO claiming they need these weapons for their security while claiming they create dangers for the world when others have them. There are no good hands for such horrible arms.

We agree with the Nobel Peace Laureates who joined former South Korean President and Nobel Laureate Kim Dae Jung and stated in the Gwanju Declaration of Nobel Peace Laureates: If we are to have stability, we must have justice. This means the same rules apply to all. Where this principle is violated disaster is risked.

In this regard we point to the failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their bargain contained in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to negotiate the universal elimination of nuclear weapons. To pursue a nuclear-weapons-free Korean Peninsula or Middle East or South Asia, without credible commitment to universal nuclear disarmament is akin to a parent trying to persuade his teenagers not to smoke while puffing on a cigar.

There are steps available to make progress in this area and they include: (a) Completing a treaty with full verification mechanisms cutting off further production of highly enriched uranium or plutonium for weapons purposes. (b) Universal ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, now ratified by 176 nations. (d) Taking the arsenals of Russia and the US off of hair trigger, launch on warning high alert. d. Legally confirmed pledges by all states with nuclear weapons never to use them first. (e) Making cuts in the US and Russia’s arsenal irreversible and verifiable.

The NPT requires the US, China, Russia, UK, and France to negotiate the elimination of nuclear weapons. Each of these states are either modernizing their nuclear arsenals and/or expanding them rather than fulfilling their legal obligations to negotiate their elimination.

It is time they began to fulfill their disarmament duties by either joining the Ban Treaty and addressing its limitations of verification and other technical issues or move forward in the arduous process of negotiating a comprehensive nuclear weapons convention to their liking. Sitting on the sidelines and offering no better way forward is inadequate.

The Treaty, in its preamble, highlights, “the ethical imperative” to achieve a nuclear weapons free world. The Treaty is designed, in its intent and substance, to stimulate, support, and advance humanity’s quest for the security of a nuclear free world. Obviously, more work is needed. Rather than only criticize that the Treaty does not do everything at once, critics should get to work on moving forward.

The Treaty states “that any use of nuclear weapons would be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, in particular international humanitarian law.” The Treaty deftly highlights prohibitions on the use of nuclear weapons that apply to all states now, including those with the weapons.

Existing international humanitarian law (law of war) limits the use of force in armed conflict, compels distinctions between civilians and combatants, sets forth requirements that force be proportionate to specific military objectives, prohibits weapons of a nature to that causes superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering and provides rules for the protection of the natural environment. The Treaty further emphasizes “that any use of nuclear weapons would also be abhorrent to the principles of humanity and the dictates of public conscience.”

The Treaty makes clear that even today should North Korea bomb Tokyo with a nuclear weapon, should a conflict take place, that it would be illegal and indeed criminal. This scope of the existing illegality of such uses of the weapon applies to all states, including those that have not signed on to the Treaty.

The Ban Treaty presents a challenge to the nuclear weapons states to help make humanity great by joining in efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. GSI was honored to participate in the Treaty negotiations along with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and hundreds of other passionate civil society advocates who for decades have laid the groundwork for this step forward.

Excerpt:

Every nation in the world has been invited to participate at the highest political level in the High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament scheduled for Sep. 26. This has never happened before. We have never been at such a moment of crisis and opportunity.

The crisis arises because the rational route forward which has been identified by the vast majority of the world’s countries in support of advancing a convention banning nuclear weapons or, as the secretary general has also suggested, a framework of legal agreements achieving elimination, has not been supported by the U.S. or Russia, two states with more than 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.

Thus, progress toward disarmament lacks the galvanising focus preliminary negotiations on a treaty would provide. It is also a moment of opportunity since except for India and Pakistan, no states with nuclear weapons are actually hostile to one another.

Rhetorical puffery has become expected in season after season while regularly a new crisis du jour sweeps attention away from nuclear disarmament obligations. Anyone can see cynicism as a dangerous and contagious problem looming on the horizon if nothing meaningful is done soon.

Many countries know this and that is why the 67th session of the General Assembly Resolution A/RES/67/39 moved to convene this high-level meeting on nuclear disarmament for the 68th session of the General Assembly next week.

China and India have both expressed support for negotiating a universal ban on the weapons and Pakistan has stated it would follow. France, the U.S. and UK, and Russia openly oppose progress now on even taking preliminary steps to negotiate a legal ban.

Claims are made that progress through the START process and obtaining incremental steps such as entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban and a treaty banning the further production of weapons grade fissile materials must be achieved and focused upon to the exclusion of other efforts. Diplomats from nuclear weapons states even assert that advocacy for a universal, non-discriminatory ban would divert attention and diminish effectiveness in pursuing incremental steps.

The problems with only taking this incremental approach are many. The U.S. Senate is unlikely in the near term to ratify the test ban. The case for the test ban as part of the march toward disarmament has not been made domestically and thus its advocacy appears as incoherent.

It is hard to make the case that the U.S. military should ever be constrained without demonstrating the benefits of obtaining a universal ban on the weapons. Incoherence in advocacy leads to policies going in multiple directions. An example of such incoherence was obvious in the policy for ratification for the START treaty – support the treaty and pledge hundreds of billions of dollars to “modernise” the arsenal and infrastructure.

The negotiations for the fissile materials cut off treaty are being done in the Conference on Disarmament, a body of 61 nations in Geneva that operates by consensus. Thus, one country can always stop progress. This body has not even had a working agenda in over a decade. Spoilers abound. Progress will not take place there.

Third, reliance on progress on the bilateral leadership of Russia and the U.S. is foolish. Russia has made clear that the next round on START reductions will not happen without resolution of differences on the dangers of global precision strike aspirations of the U.S. military where nuclear warheads are replaced by conventional warheads and new weapons fulfill old missions, missile defense as a possible sword and shield should technical breakthroughs arise, and weaponisation of space, a course Russia wants prohibited by treaty.

These issues will not be resolved soon since behind them all is a cadre within the U.S. military which wants to always have a dominant position for security purposes. Progress is unlikely while Russia feels threatened.

Yet: Consensus with Russia and the U.S. that through a universal treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, progress in Syria can be made thus making us all safer bodes well for progress on banning nuclear weapons. Surely no one would claim nuclear weapons are any less abhorrent and more legitimate to use than chemical weapons.

Yet: Imagine if the 114 leaders of governments in the five nuclear weapons-free zones of Latin America, Africa, South Asia, Central Asia and the South Pacific each said, “My country benefits from being in a nuclear weapons-free zone and remains threatened by those countries with nuclear weapons. It is time we made the entire world a nuclear weapons-free zone.”

The necessary upgrading of the issue to the prominent position it deserves would happen.

Imagine if the statement from the gathering said, “We will dedicate a high level day each year until the threat of nuclear weapons is gone.” Imagine if commencement of preliminary negotiations were committed to happen by a critical mass of leaders “in the Conference on Disarmament, or any other appropriate and effective venue at the earliest possible time, and we commit to full participation in this process.”

Such a call for progress would be an irresistible stimulant. But what would really ring a bell for progress would be a statement along these lines:

“There are global common public goods which must be obtained to make us all safer. Cooperation in addressing terrorism, cyber security, stable financial markets, and peaceful democratisation in countries in transition are of high value and critical importance. The very survival of civilisation depends on how well we work together in obtaining other global common goods – protecting the climate, the oceans, the rainforests, all living systems upon which humanity depends.

“There is an existential imperative that we cooperate in new dynamic ways to meet these new challenges. Nothing could compel us more strongly to resolve our differences in a spirit of peace and common purpose. Even thinking of seriously stating what is common and good for us all makes clear that possessing and threatening to use nuclear weapons is irrational, dysfunctional and must end, now.

“We breathe the same air and it is either cleansed with a spirit of cooperation or befouled by fear and threat. We are resolved to succeed in spirit of cooperation for this and future generations. That spirit calls us to denounce and renounce nuclear weapons for all now.”

Jonathan Granoff is President of the Global Security Institute, and Adjunct Professor of International Law at Widener University School of Law.