FACTBOX - Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd January, 2021) The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW, also known as the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, or simply the Ban Treaty) is due to enter into force on Friday.

�The TPNW was adopted by a United Nations conference in a 122-1 vote with 1 abstention in July 2017 and was opened for signatures by the UN Secretary General in September of that year. The Netherlands voted against the adoption and Singapore abstained.

On October 24, 2020, Honduras became the 50th country to ratify the TPNW, passing the threshold for the treaty to take effect in 90 days, which is on January 22, 2021.

As of January 21, the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty was signed by 86 countries and ratified by 51 of them.

When the TPNS enters into force, it will become illegal for the signatories under international law to develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, use or threaten to use nuclear weapons.

Signing under the treaty, countries acknowledge that any use of nuclear weapons would result in "catastrophic humanitarian consequences." TPNS signatories state the need for complete elimination of nuclear weapons, deeming it "the only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons are never used again under any circumstances."

The treaty's preamble describes a nuclear-weapon-free world as a "global public good of the highest order, serving both national and collective security interests."

Under Article 1, signatories agree not only not to pursue possession of nuclear weapons in any form but also not to transfer such weapons or other nuclear explosive devices to any recipient or otherwise assist their obtainment of nuclear weapons.

The treaty prohibits signatories from deploying nuclear weapons on their territory, even if its only for storage capacity for another actor. Moreover, signatories have the responsibility to prevent and suppress any activities prohibited under the TPNW undertaken by persons or on territory under its jurisdiction or control.

Article 2 obligates signatories to declare within 30 days after the treaty's entry into force for them if they own, possess or control � or ever did in the past � any nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices. This provision applies also to nuclear arsenals stored in a given country's territory by another state or non-state actor.

� Countries can choose between eliminating their nuclear weapons before or after joining the treaty. If they do so after, they have to terminate the arsenal's operational status immediately and provide a roadmap of its elimination within 60 days from joining the treaty. All elimination activities will be supervised by competent authorities, which requires that each signatory have, at a minimum, a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Negotiations on such agreements should begin no later than 180 days after the treaty's entry into force and end no later than 18 months thereafter.

Signatories also commit to take care of the assistance to victims and reparation of environmental damage arising from the use or test of nuclear weapons.

The progress of the treaty's implementation will be discussed at biennial conferences, with the exception of the first one, which will take place in one year from the treaty's entry into force, that is, on January 22, 2022.

Countries reserve the right to withdraw from the treaty if they consider its provisions having " jeopardized [their] supreme interests." In such cases, the withdrawal takes effect in 12 months from the withdrawal notification.

The 2017 UN conference was a result of an inclusive international debate on non-proliferation that had lasted since 2010 toward developing a "legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination." It was unfolding amid the disagreements between nuclear and non-nuclear states on the matter.

Nuclear powers, including permanent members of the UN Security Council � China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States � did not partake in the drafting of the agreement and are not party to it.

The nuclear quintet officially expressed its opposition to the treaty in a joint statement in October 2018. They said that the global nuclear disarmament must proceed gradually and take into account the evolving security contexts internationally and regionally. In their opinion, such a drastic arrangement as the TPNW "does nothing to increase trust and transparency between States" and only harm the existing non-proliferation arrangements, particularly the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty.

None of other states which are believed to have or pursue nuclear weapons, including Iran, North Korea and Pakistan, joined the TPNW. Iran, however, voted for the treaty's adoption in 2017 and participated in its negotiation.

NATO, too, stands in opposition to the ban treaty. Allies explained their stance by saying that "the conditions for achieving disarmament are not favourable today" in a 2017 statement. In the latest statement on the matter last December, NATO said that the TPNW "does not reflect the increasingly challenging international security environment and is at odds with the existing non-proliferation and disarmament architecture."

The majority of signatories are Latin American and African states. The European Union is represented only by Austria, Ireland and Malta. The treaty enjoys support in countries which used to possess nuclear weapons but voluntarily gave it up, such as Kazakhstan and South Africa.