Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Third World

Abstract

The effectiveness of the Non-Proliferation Treaty has remained limited to the major alliance systems of the two superpowers, and its future now depends on the reconciliation of sharply differing views concerning why and how the spread of nuclear weapons should be prevented. India has always been the most articulate critic of the Treaty, and the position adopted by New Delhi ever since the test of a peaceful nuclear explosive in May 1974 simultaneously highlights the weaknesses in the line traditionally taken on proliferation by the superpowers, and suggests how the Treaty could be revised to meet Third World demands. India might now take an initiative aiming at revision of the Non-Proliferation Treaty according to a scheme in which the so-called ‘near-nuclear-weapon states’ would acquire, in the act of ratifying the Treaty, the right to participate in an international agency that would be responsible for the development and use of peaceful nuclear explosives.