The History of the NWFZs

The history of Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones over inhabited areas also goes back to the Cold War. The idea was first introduced by the Soviet Union in 1956 to establish a Central European zone. The Polish government embraced the proposal and suggested a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone covering Poland, Czechoslovakia, and both German states under the so called Rapacki Plan. During the 1950s and 1960s, a number of new initiatives were introduced in Europe with the goal of maintaining independence from the two superpowers and staying out of the nuclear arms race. From the second half of the 1960s, Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones were developed on two parallel tracks. On the global level, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty became the backbone of these zones, which was supplemented by several regional arrangements.

Until today, we have five Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones and a few additional cases of nuclear weapon-free states or even sub-state territories. The first successful initiative was realized in Latin America. Banning nuclear weapons on the continent was first proposed by Costa Rica in 1958. However, the Cuban missile crisis was also needed to generate the necessary support among regional states. After several years of negotiations, the so called Treaty of Tlatelolco or the “Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean” was opened for signature in 1967. It entered into force in 1969, and it became universal when Cuba also joined the zone in 2002.

Africa was the next continent where negotiations were launched to establish such a zone. In this case, the French nuclear tests in Algeria and South Africa’s nuclear weapons programme were the catalysts of the initiative. The Organization of African Unity was the first to call for the establishment of a zone in 1964. However, the proposal could not move forward until South Africa agreed to dismantle its nuclear weapons in 1991. The “African Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty” or the Treaty of Pelindaba was opened for signature in 1996 and it entered into force in 2009.

In the case of Southeast Asia, the 1971 Kuala Lumpur Declaration of ASEAN was the first to call for a zone of peace, freedom and neutrality, which included the goal of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. But due to the presence of American nuclear weapons in the region, negotiations did not begin until the 1990s. After the US withdrew it forces from the Philippines, the drafting process of the treaty was started. The so called Bangkok Treaty, or the Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone was opened for signature in 1995 and entered into force in 1997.

Negotiations to establish a zone in the South Pacific were also launched during the 1970s.
New Zealand introduced the idea in 1975 in response to the devastating effects of the ongoing nuclear tests in the region. Australia also embraced the idea in 1983 and the treaty was opened for signature two years later, in 1985. The Treaty of Rarotonga, or the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty entered into force in 1986.

The last zonal arrangement was realized in Central Asia. The first proposals were introduced by Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in the first half of the 1990s. However, negotiations were jammed due to disagreements over the delineation of the zone and the relations towards Russia. The Treaty of Semipalatinsk, or the Treaty on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia was opened for signature in 2006 and it entered into force in 2009.

In addition to these zonal arrangements, some countries or smaller regions have also declared their desire to outlaw nuclear weapons by their own law. Austria made such a declaration in 1999, and the so-called 2+4 Treaty of German Unity also banned nuclear weapons in the territory of the former Democratic Republic of Germany in 1990. The Philippines and New Zealand also made such declarations but they are covered by zonal arrangements today. Mongolia was a special case, which established a single-state zone in 1992. Although it took almost two decades, the United Nations and the nuclear-weapon-states have also given their consent to this declaration in 2010.