Noel Stott, Senior Research Fellow: Arms Management Programme, ISS Pretoria Office

On 6 September 2008, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) agreed to exempt India from its guidelines that require comprehensive international safeguards as a pre-condition for the trade in nuclear material. This follows extensive negotiations and pressure from the US to allow it to provide energy-starved India with nuclear fuel and technology. This includes the passing of the 2006 Henry J. Hyde Act, by which the US president is able to waive legal restrictions on nuclear trade with countries that have tested nuclear weapons, have not joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and do not allow comprehensive international nuclear safeguards.

Seen as a panacea for overcoming India’s energy shortage that would also boost the nation’s developmental potential, the deal however, undermines the global nuclear non-proliferation regimes – which are already under threat with North Korea’s withdrawal from the NPT and nuclear weapon states such as the United States of America, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China refusing to abide by their Article VI commitments to disarm their weapons.

The NSG was established in 1975 and is composed of 45 countries considered suppliers of nuclear items, including South Africa, China, Russia, and the United States. The NSG’s objectives are to ensure that nuclear transfers of items for peaceful purposes are not diverted to unsafe and unguarded nuclear activities or nuclear weapons. Members thus co-ordinate their export controls which governs transfers of civilian nuclear material and nuclear-related equipment and technology to non-nuclear-weapon states. NSG members are expected to abstain from trading in nuclear materials with governments that do not subject themselves to international measures and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections.

 According to Daryl Kimball, of the Arms Control Association (http://www.armscontrol.org), this decision “is a nonproliferation disaster of historic proportions that will produce harm for decades to come”.

 India is one of four countries that have not signed onto both the NPT or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and continues to produce fissile material as it expands its nuclear arsenal.

 The NPT, which entered into force in 1970 and was extended indefinitely in 1995, is regarded as the cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime and is designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology as well as to further the goal of nuclear disarmament.

Under the Treaty, each nuclear-weapon-State party undertakes not to transfer nuclear weapons to any recipient or assist or encourage any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons. Similarly, each non-nuclear-weapon-State party undertakes not to receive the transfer of nuclear weapons or manufacture or otherwise acquire them.

To further the goal of non-proliferation, the Treaty establishes a safeguards system under the auspices of IAEA. Safeguards are used to verify compliance with the NPT through inspections conducted by the IAEA. The Treaty promotes cooperation in the field of peaceful nuclear technology and equal access to this technology for all States parties, while safeguards prevent the diversion of fissile material for the development of weapons.

As a State not party to the NPT (along with Pakistan, North Korea and Israel) India has not made a legally binding commitment to pursue nuclear disarmament. 
 “The India-specific exemption from NSG guidelines severely erodes the credibility of global efforts to ensure that access to peaceful nuclear trade and technology is available only to those states that meet global nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament standards” argues Kimball.

The deal thus has the potential to undermine efforts by a number of states and civil society groups wishing to see the entire Southern hemisphere becoming nuclear weapon free before 2010 and who are aiming for the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Pelindaba) entering into force before the end of 2008.

Zimbabwe’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Boniface Guwe Chidyausiki, who has been elected to chair the next Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the NPT, will need to persuade members that the India-US deal will not undermine the creation of an eventual Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone nor, indeed, the goal of a nuclear weapon free world. In addition, he needs to assure African states that their efforts (in the words of Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala, former UN undersecretary general for disarmament affairs) “to bring India further into conformity with the non-proliferation behaviour expected of the member states of the NPT” are not being diminished. Finally, he must manage the fear that the US, in its quest to promote nuclear energy, will not contribute to the proliferation of sensitive nuclear technologies that India so clearly needs to enhance its weapons programme.

Link: For a copy of the Statement see Attached document: (NSG statement)