Treaty on the non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

From its very beginning, the United Nations, whose foundation coincided with the emergence of atomic weapons, was concerned with the problem of ensuring that the power of the atom would be directed exclusively to peaceful uses for the welfare of mankind. The earliest efforts in this area had as one aim the prevention of the spread of nuclear weapons. Later, in the mid-1950s, the development of international co-operation in the field of peaceful uses of atomic energy— marked by the Geneva Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in 1955, and the establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1957—lent urgency to the problem of preventing the horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons, and preposals specifically addressed to that problem were put forward in the General Assembly of the United Nations. In 1958, Ireland introduced, but did not press to a vote, a draft resolution aimed at curbing the spread of nuclear weapons. The following year, again at the initiative of Ireland, the General Assembly adopted resolution 1380 (XIV), in which it suggested, inter alia, that the Ten-Nation Disarmament Committee (the predecessor of ENDC and the CCD) should consider means whereby the danger of an increase in the number of States possessing nuclear weapons could be averted, including the feasibility of an international agreement subject to inspection and control. In 1961, the General Assembly, acting once again on an Irish proposal, adopted resolution 1665 (XVI), by which it called upon all States, particularly the nuclear-weapon States, to use their best endeavours to secure the conclusion of an international agreement under which, on one hand, nuclearweapon States would undertake not to relinquish control of nuclear weapons to States that did not have them and not to transmit to such States the information needed for their manufacture and, on the other hand, the latter would commit themselves not to manufacture or otherwise acquire control of nuclear weapons.

Related Subject(s): Disarmament