A nuclear nonproliferation panel today came to an agreement on a worldwide nuclear disarmament benchmark that is higher than the 1,000-warhead recommendation of an earlier draft report, Kyodo News reported (see GSN, Oct. 19).
The International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament is holding back from releasing the specific nuclear arms target until leaders in Japan and Australia have been notified. The two nations established the panel and assigned former foreign ministers to lead its work.
Today was the last day in a final three-day conference conducted by the panel in Hiroshima, Japan.
"I think it is one of the most comprehensive reports of its kind," said panel co-Chairwoman Yoriko Kawaguchi.
The commission seemingly watered down its goal of having the world's nuclear-armed states holding no more than 1,000 such weapons by 2025 as a response to dissension from some of those nations. Kawaguchi described the approved number as "realistic yet ambitious."
The report is scheduled to be released in January with the intention that its recommendations have time to make an impact with world leaders ahead of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in May. It outlines a three-phase process for goals to be reached by 2012, 2025 and after 2025.
The panel has set 2025 as the target date for all nuclear nations to affirm a no-first-use policy. Under such a policy, nuclear nations would promise to use their strategic arms only if they or their allies were attacked first with nuclear weapons.
The commission has also included in the final report the recommendation that all nuclear nations avow by 2012 that the only reason they choose not to disarm is because they wish to preserve their deterrence capability (Kyodo News I/Breitbart.com, Oct. 20).
The earlier draft of the report had set the no-first-use goal date for 2010. The draft set 2012 as the recommended deadline for entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. That year was also the commission's draft date for the completion of talks on a fissile materials cutoff treaty and for an arrangement that would fairly distribute the costs of nuclear proliferation and of disarmament, Kyodo News reported (Kyodo News II/Breitbart.com, Oct. 21).