Rebecca Johnson is Executive Director and Cofounder of the Acronym Institute and editor of Disarmament Diplomacy. She is also special adviser to the Middle Powers Initiative, the Nobel Women’s Initiative, Peace Depot (Japan), Center for Policy Studies (PIR, Moscow) and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Her book, Unfinished Business, was published by the United Nations in 2009.

When the representatives of 190 states gave their consensus to the outcome document of the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on May 28, they celebrated a rare success for the NPT since it entered into force in 1970. What does this outcome signify? The assessment is mixed, especially for those who believe that the two-tier NPT system that gives privileges to five nuclear-weapon possessors (Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States) is actually impeding global efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament.

During the conference there had been serious and heated debates on initiatives relating to devaluing nuclear weapons, nuclear doctrines and use, NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements and eliminating tactical nuclear weapons. Although the final document issued by the conference saw a watering-down of language regarding these issues, the conference outcome should be welcomed because, for the first time, consensus was given to the view that there is a need to consider comprehensive negotiations as well as incremental steps. The NPT final document cited the UN Secretary-General’s 2008 Five-Point Disarmament Plan and made clear that preventing nuclear threats and stemming proliferation requires not only incremental steps but also the establishment of "the necessary framework to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons." Although shorn of any target dates, timelines or commitments to negotiate, there was consensus on including a nuclear weapons convention, which would comprehensively ban nuclear weapons, as a framing objective for the future.

For the media, the most important NPT story was agreement on ways to take forward the goal of making the Middle East a zone free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, particularly the commitment to hold a regional conference in 2012. If this regional process is implemented, it will mark an important milestone, but on many other long-standing challenges the non-proliferation regime is still stuck in the Cold War. The key debates at the NPT Review Conference concerned the need to change security doctrines so that nuclear weapons’ perceived political and military value is diminished. A new, humanitarian approach is needed to draw in countries outside the NPT (India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea) and formally stigmatize all nuclear weapons as inhumane instruments of mass murder and environmental destruction, thereby paving the way for their use and deployment to be outlawed. By taking on the challenges of abolishing nuclear weapons, it will become easier to establish stronger verification and safeguard mechanisms to prohibit and prevent nuclear proliferation, use and terrorism. Because of the limitations of the current NPT regime, it was not possible to make progress on these problems in 2010, but it is increasingly recognized that multilateral negotiations to abolish nuclear weapons will help the international community strengthen all aspects of nuclear safety and security.

Among the issues debated in the 2010 Review Conference were proposals for deterring states from withdrawing from this treaty, plans by the nuclear-weapon states to replace, update and modernize their current arsenals and failure to adequately implement past agreements.

The breakthrough on the Middle East facilitated the success of the NPT Conference, but the real impetus was a collective desire among most governments and much of civil society to support President Obama’s initiatives and demonstrate that the non-proliferation regime is still relevant. The basis for the consensus was a set of modest steps, but they failed to mask the fact that the 2010 NPT Conference proved incapable of dealing with the tough decisions on compliance and implementation. Despite strong advocacy from across the political and geographic spectrum, the NPT Conference proved unable to adopt concrete commitments to devalue nuclear weapons or make the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Additional Protocol a verification standard, let alone to undertake multilateral negotiations on nuclear abolition.

While a large number of delegations tried to push the disarmament agenda forward with proposals for nuclear weapons to be progressively marginalized in preparation for negotiations that would totally prohibit and eliminate them, the nuclear-weapon states gave little ground.

The final document recognized that, in view of the "catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons" all states at all times should "comply with applicable international law, including international humanitarian law." Adopted by consensus, this recognition could boost efforts by countries such as Bangladesh, Switzerland, Mexico and others to get the use of nuclear weapons outlawed altogether. As the Obama Administration’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review demonstrated, the leaders might share the world’s vision and political will, but their nuclear establishments do not. If it is left to the nuclear-weapon states to determine the rights and wrongs of nuclear use and when and how they can deploy their arsenals, they will continue to cling to nuclear doctrines that rely on threatening to use nuclear weapons in a range of destabilizing and inappropriate scenarios.

Therefore, civil society and some key governments are considering initiatives to gain recognition through the International Criminal Court, the Geneva Protocols or the United Nations that the indiscriminate and long-term effects of nuclear weapons mean that all uses should be outlawed and classified as a crime against humanity and a war crime. Prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons would enhance global security and be consistent with existing international humanitarian law, and it would also greatly diminish any perceived military benefits that a nuclear terrorist or aggressor might hope to gain. Now it is up to civil society and key governments to develop effective strategies and promote public campaigns to make it impossible for anyone to use nuclear weapons ever again.

We have to use the 2010 NPT outcome as a base on which to build coalitions between traditional disarmament campaigns and organizations working on international humanitarian law, human rights and environmental protection, and lay the groundwork for negotiations on a universal, comprehensive nuclear weapons convention. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) played an important role in mainstreaming the concept of a nuclear weapons convention and getting it accepted into the NPT outcome. We are now developing a strategy to take the campaign to the next stage, networking with all sectors of civil society to bring their governments to the negotiating table.

It won’t be quick or easy, but it will be possible and practical. For those that want to rid the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons, it is time to put maximum energy and resources into banning the use and deployment of these inhumane weapons and getting negotiations for a comprehensive nuclear weapons convention under way by 2015.