What we’re watching as nuclear ban meeting heats up
Nine flashpoints that will define the second TPNW gathering in New York
NEW YORK, MONDAY 27 NOVEMBER: Diplomats, civil society, academics, scientists, and survivors of nuclear testing from across the world are gathering at the United Nations in New York today. The goal: eliminate nuclear weapons.
The five-day event is a meet-up of states that are part of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Spoiler Alert will bring readers inside the action, but we’re planning on doing things a little differently. The groaning, protocol-heavy nature of UN meetings, bursting at the sides with call-backs to ancient General Assembly Resolutions, can obscure what’s important.
Spoiler Alert’s mission is to bring out the personalities involved, the action, and yes, the gossip; to get to the heart of why international law matters. Subscribe to Spoiler Alert here and recommend it to your friends or colleagues, or visit us online, on Twitter or on WhatsApp. You can even get into the TPNW groove with Lex International’s exclusive Spotify playlist based on the music preferences of diplomats and attendees.
We hope our contribution to the meeting complements the excellent resources, including the inimitable coverage of Reaching Critical Will’s Nuclear Ban Daily. and ICAN’s MSP-TV.
Here are nine things to watch out for as the meeting begins.
1 — What will countries say and do about the growing threat of nuclear weapons use?
UN processes seem irrelevant when they ignore what’s going on in the real world. The TPNW contains an outright prohibition on the use and threat to use nuclear weapons yet, countries outside the treaty have scaled up their nuclear rhetoric to Cold War levels. Nuclear-armed states are all upgrading and adding new weapons to their arsenals. How will the treaty’s 69 parties call out the dangerous actions of these states? Can they leverage their collective power to reverse these trends?
2 — Will the treaty’s states parties condemn Russia’s transfer of nuclear weapons to Belarus?
The first meeting of the TPNW received criticism for not explicitly calling Russia out for its dangerous threats toward Ukraine and its allies. Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year deployed so-called tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. Putin’s move flies in the face of the TPNW’s, and Nuclear Non-Proflieration Treaty’s, ban on the transfer of nuclear weapons “to any recipient whatsoever”. Eighteen months after their first gathering, will the TPNW’s parties muster the courage to explicitly denounce Russia’s provocative move?
3 — How will the ongoing Israel-Hamas war impact the meeting?
The TPNW meeting takes place against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, which has led to massive civilian casualties. The war acquired an explicit nuclear dimension after Israel’s Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu threatened to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza. How will TPNW states respond to this threat against Palestine, one of the first states to ratify the treaty?
4 — Indonesia’s parliament signed the nuclear ban into law last week; how will hold-outs like Brazil and Switzerland explain their failure to ratify the treaty?
Some states that helped lead the charge to create the TPNW six years ago, are yet to ratify the treaty, nearly three years after its entry into force. Switzerland was the first to call for nuclear weapons to be outlawed on humanitarian grounds in 2010 but is still not a party to the treaty. Brazil was among the first to sign the treaty in 2017, but its ratification is still pending.
On 20 November, the parliament of Indonesia — the fourth most populous country in the world — enacted the TPNW into law. Could this serve as a catalyst for countries like Switzerland, Brazil, and other hold-outs? Spoiler Alert will investigate the causes behind the delays, and what needs to happen to nudge them along.
5 — How will Kazakhstan and other countries react to Russia’s decision to “de-ratify” the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty?
The TPNW “means a lot to our people, we have so many genetic deviations, so many mutations in the genetic code of the local people''
—Ambassador Akan Rakhmetullin
The TPNW recognizes the “vital importance of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty” (CTBT) and contains, among its core provisions, a ban on nuclear tests. In early November, Russia withdrew its ratification from the CTBT, in what appears as yet another attempt to nuclearize the war in Ukraine. Will countries affected by nuclear tests, like Kazakhstan, condemn Russia’s move?
States established the first-ever multilateral programme to address the harms from past nuclear use and testing at the first TPNW meeting in 2021. Last month, the First Committee of the UN General Assembly voted, with overwhelming support, to endorse this programme of work on nuclear weapons victim assistance and environmental remediation. The vote shows that the treaty’s work is gaining popularity far beyond the treaty’s official backers.
The TPNW “means a lot to our people, we have so many genetic deviations, so many mutations in the genetic code of the local people'', Ambassador Akan Rakhmetullin of Kazakhstan said in an interview with Spoiler Alert, reflecting on the humanitarian and environmental damage caused by Soviet nuclear tests in the Semipalatinsk Test Site. Subscribe to Spoiler Alert for more.
6 — Will nuclear-allied observer countries actively engage with the treaty, or will they continue to sit quietly at the back?
Spoiler Alert has confirmed that Australia, Belgium, Germany, and Norway — all close U.S. allies — are attending this week’s meeting as observers. The TPNW placed the European and Asian nuclear-allied states in a squeeze. These nations wish to be perceived as pro-nuclear disarmament, a position popular with their populations. Unwilling to upset their nuclear-armed allies, some nuclear-allied states want to have their cake and eat it by participating in the TPNW meeting as observers, while refraining from moving any closer to actually joining the treaty.
Spoiler Alert will pay particular attention to Norway's actions. The country’s newly reinstated foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, kick-started the process towards the TPNW by convening an international conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons in 2013. Will Eide stay true to his past commitments?
7 — What will the nine elephants not in the room be up to?
What will representatives of the nine nuclear-armed states do while TPNW members meet to eliminate nuclear weapons? Will they stage another press stakeout to trash the treaty, as the former U.S. Ambassador — now presidential candidate — Nikky Haley did in 2017? Will they continue to argue that the TPNW “has zero effect in the real world”, as Matthew Rycroft, the former Ambassador of the United Kingdom, said soon after the treaty’s adoption? As absurd as it is, will they simply pretend that the meeting isn’t happening and hope it will go away? Or will they secretly watch the meeting on UN Web TV from their well-staffed offices? Place your bets.
Spoiler Alert will keep a sharp eye out as the meeting progresses.
8 — How will the treaty’s Scientific Advisory Group impact the meeting outcome?
For the first time since the TPNW came into force in 2021, the treaty’s Scientific Advisory Group, which held its first meeting earlier this year, will present its report on nuclear weapons risks, the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, and nuclear disarmament, among other things. The meeting’s Mexican president, Juan Ramón de la Fuente Ramírez, is particularly excited about this.
“We have a world-class scientific advisory group”, the president said in an interview with Spoiler Alert on the eve of the meeting’s first day. “This is a very important development and can have a good effect on those who are more skeptical and distant to our arguments”. Spoiler Alert will be looking forward to the Group’s report on Thursday afternoon.
9 — Who will win Lex International’s Quintessential TPNW Quiz?
Follow our reporting carefully and you will find out which ambassador has a penchant for Soviet-era hard rock and who the President of 2MSP thinks is the best-dressed delegation. Knowledge like this may become critical as the TPNW meeting draws to a close, and Lex International hosts a pub quiz at Rosie’s Dunn on Thursday 30 November. Spoiler Alert’s first scoop: “There may be trophies.”
Additional reporting from the Spoiler Alert team in New York.
Subscribe to Spoiler Alert and check in on Friday to discover who the 2013 Quintessential TPNW Quiz master will be.
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