Assessing the 2015 NPT Review Conference and Prospects for the Future

The 2015 Review Conference (RevCon) of the Parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was expected to be difficult, and this expectation was realized. Article VI issues were once again central, with predictable attention to US nuclear policy in the Obama administration, including the implementation of the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), implementation of New START and the status of the proposed follow-on, ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), negotiations on a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT) and other key issues. NPT nonnuclear-weapon states (NNWS) are increasingly frustrated with the pace of nuclear disarmament and critical of the nuclear-weapon states (NWS). The growing interest in delegitimizing nuclear weapons through the use of international humanitarian law was raised in the Article VI context. The US case for Article VI compliance is strong. However, weapon funding and nuclear infrastructure modernization were criticized, as was the limited progress on the Prague agenda. Moreover, other issues, including the prospects for a conference on a Middle Eastern zone free of weapons of mass destruction, were also contentious. In fact, the zone issue was intractable and in the end led to the failure of the RevCon to reach consensus on a final document. There was a strong US effort to engage on these issues. How did the positions of the United States and other key states fare at the RevCon? What role did the Article VI debate have at the conference? What importance did other issues have? This paper will explore the outcome of the 2015 RevCon and assess its impact on the future of the treaty and on broader nonproliferation efforts.