Hiroshima as permanent host of NPT review conference?

The year 2020 was the 50th anniversary of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty entering into force and therefore a critical moment in time for the review conference, conducted every five years, to have been held. The last successful review conference was way back in 2010.

The world order has changed fundamentally since then, mostly for the worse. However, not all developments were negative. In 2017 the international community adopted the The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) to give the five NPT nuclear weapon states (NWS) an incentive to hurry on their obligation to negotiate nuclear disarmament.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 caused postponements of the 2020 NPT review conference to 2021 and then to this month. Meanwhile, the TPNW entered into legal force in January 2021. The annual Hiroshima Round Table, too, was abandoned in 2020 and convened just before Christmas last year in order to assess the state of the nuclear world ahead of the NPT review conference and the first meeting of the states parties of the TPNW in March. Participants from Japan, Asia, Australia, Europe and the U.S. met virtually and a chair’s statement was issued after the meeting.

In the years since the last unsuccessful NPT review conference in 2015, the nine nuclear-armed states have followed “business as usual” policies and practices with regard to nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence. There is general agreement that with the crumbling of the nuclear arms control architecture, rising geopolitical tensions in many potential conflict zones and continued nuclear modernization efforts by most nuclear powers, nuclear risks and threats have grown and intensified. Thus “business as usual” nuclear policies have placed the world at real risk of sleepwalking into a nuclear catastrophe — recalling that those engaged in sleepwalking are not aware of doing so.

Reflecting growing exasperation and impatience with the failure of the NWS to achieve nuclear disarmament under NPT Article 6, the TPNW became a new institutional reality despite the strong opposition of the nuclear powers and their boycott of the U.N.-authorized conference that negotiated it.

For many years the Hiroshima Round Table has warned of the nuclear dangers and outlined alternative pathways to a world with reduced nuclear risks and eventual abolition of nuclear weapons. Building on that legacy, participants in last year’s meeting concluded that the need for alternatives to nuclear deterrence is greater than ever. To that end, those in attendance joined a growing chorus of calls for the nuclear-armed states to reaffirm the 1985 Gorbachev-Reagan statement that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.

Additional risk reduction measures include declarations that a nuclear-armed state will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, the “sole purpose” of nuclear weapons policy is to deter and retaliate against a nuclear attack, that nuclear weapons will not be reintroduced into East Asia and a commitment to abide by the requirements of international humanitarian law on distinction, proportionality, necessity and minimization of harm to civilians. Of course, none of this is a substitute for reducing the numbers of nuclear warheads, the role of nuclear weapons and reliance on nuclear deterrence for national and international security.

The chair’s statement was formally presented to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Dec. 27 by Hiroshima Prefecture Gov. Hidehiko Yuzaki and Round Table chair Kiichi Fujiwara, professor at Tokyo University. As a representative from Hiroshima in the country’s parliament, Kishida has shown a keen interest in nuclear matters including while he was foreign minister.

On Jan. 4, one aspect of the appeal was partly answered in a rare joint statement from the five NWS. Affirming that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” they also pledged to prevent any further spread of atomic weapons and “the unauthorized or unintended use of nuclear weapons.” In addition, they reaffirmed the NPT obligation to nuclear disarmament but with no practical plan nor a date by which to get there. While the joint statement by the five is good, the normative weight of formal, even if nonbinding resolutions by the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly would be greater, especially if there were to be no negative votes in either chamber.

Non-NWS that shelter under the U.S. nuclear umbrella have a particular responsibility to bridge the divide between the TPNW adherents and opponents. For they have a foot each in both camps. In rhetoric, they loudly proclaim their nuclear disarmament credentials, trumpeting various statements, initiatives and support of U.N. resolutions over the decades. However, by relying on U.S. nuclear weapons, in practice they affirm their continuing faith in nuclear deterrence as a solution whereas the international community holds it to be the core problem impeding progress toward nuclear disarmament.

The responsibility dilemma is especially acute for Japan. It’s the emotional touchstone as the only country to have been atomic-bombed and the survivors — the hibakusha — keep the issue alive in domestic politics with an intensity that is well beyond their dwindling numbers. Along with the special responsibility that falls on Japan, the chair’s statement also mentions “opportunity.” As it happens, an excellent opportunity has opened up since then. Owing to the superfast transmissibility of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, the NPT review conference has been postponed once again to an unspecified date later in the year. There has been some discussion in the nuclear arms control community, including among diplomats, about the wisdom of shifting the venue from U.N. headquarters in New York.

Japan’s credentials to host important international conferences are as good as that of any other country with excellent infrastructure and facilities and all possible conveniences to facilitate the logistics. Its convening power to host an international meeting on nuclear arms control is superior to that of any other country. This is especially true of Hiroshima.

There is much to be said for convening the repeatedly rescheduled NPT review conference in Hiroshima with visits arranged to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, the A-bomb exhibition and the option of a side trip also to Nagasaki. I would strongly encourage Kishida, with his Hiroshima links, to appoint a special personal envoy to lobby world leaders to make the city the permanent host of all future NPT review conferences so that discussions and negotiations are held in the shadow of the reality of the horrors of any use of nuclear weapons. I am confident that the idea would have the full support of Gov. Yuzaki and my fellow Round Table participants.

Ramesh Thakur is an emeritus professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University.