Policy Briefs on Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament

This Policy Brief will assess how successful the new US administration was in convincing the G7, NATO and the EU to join hands in countering China. In several summit meetings in June, the US administration tried to convince European allies and other G7 members to rally for a containment strategy against China. While the three summits of the G7, NATO and US-EU demonstrated harmony, there remain reservations in Europe about subscribing to the confrontational course against China.  European leaders are balancing the different economic, technological, political and security interests. while the US government is pushing hard for a joint effort.

This Policy Brief discusses Japan's policy in relation to a new movement gathering momentum in the international community to seek international security without nuclear weapons. The TPNW has been adopted in this context. Japan has made the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty the axis of its security policy, relying for much of its security on the extended deterrence of the United States. On the other hand, as the only nation to have suffered atomic bomb attacks in war, Japan has for many years taken the lead in proposing resolutions calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Given the considerable gap between reality and the ideal, Japan would be well advised to recognise this trend as an important aspect of international reality, and examine its policy on that basis.

This Policy Brief examines the controversy surrounding the election of the Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). For the better part of a year, diplomats from more than 180 countries have been feuding over this appointment. Together with the IAEA, the CTBTO contributes to preventing further proliferation of nuclear weapons and furthering nuclear disarmament. It is too important an organisation to be left to the whims of feuding States or quarrelling diplomats.

This policy brief outlines the rationale of the Humanitarian Initiative which underpins the TPNW and responds to the counternarratives and critiques against the TPNW presented by nuclear-weapon states and nuclear-umbrella states. At the 2010 NPT Review Conference State parties agreed by consensus to express their “deep concern at the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons". In the following years, non-nuclear-weapon states and civil society representatives focused increasingly on the humanitarian impact and the risks associated with nuclear weapons in what became known as the Humanitarian Initiative. The latest iteration of the initiative’s joint statement in 2015 has been subscribed to by 159 States. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) builds on the Humanitarian Initiative. 

This is a summary report of an online meeting of experts and policymakers, convened by the Toda Peace Institute and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), to discuss the way ahead for the TPNW. The discussion examined the role of nuclear allies, the scope for building a regime of verification measures around the TPNW, and whether the differences between TPNW supporters and nuclear weapons and umbrella states are best met by bridge building or by contentious engagement.The Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into force on 22 January 2021. So far, the nuclear weapons states and the nuclear umbrella states have dismissed its significance, but there are signs of dissent in the chorus of rejection.