Key Topics – Bureau of Arms Control and Nonproliferation

CAATSA

Civil Nuclear Energy Initiatives

Diplomacy Lab

Diplomacy Lab is a public-private partnership between the Department of State and more than 60 U.S. academic institutions, including community colleges, public and private universities, and minority-serving institutions. Through the Diplomacy Lab partnership, which was launched in 2013, academic teams conduct research around various Department-identified topics in priority policy areas. ISN has several ongoing projects with a broad range of universities in the U.S.

Export Control Policy

Fighting Nuclear Terrorism

Key Verification Assets Fund (V Fund)

The International Atomic Energy Agency

Multilateral Coordination for Critical Technology Protection

ISN coordinates a multilateral network to better protect sensitive technologies, quantum industries, and critical infrastructure from exploitation by national adversaries. ISN facilitates information exchange and gatherings to increase risk awareness, exchange information and best practices, and coordinate efforts to protect sensitive technologies and critical infrastructure. These efforts strengthen and supplement our multilateral controls to keep pace with technological change; learning from each other on how to best protect emerging technologies such as biotechnology and quantum information and technology systems; and sharing information on new technology protection tools, from semiconductor export controls to potential outbound investment restrictions.

The United States participates in the 4 major multilateral export control regimes: the Australia Group, Missile Technology Control Regime, Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the Wassenaar Arrangement. These regimes develop export controls to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and destabilizing accumulations of conventional weapons and dual-use technologies.

New START Treaty

Nonproliferation Sanctions

Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

During 2010, the International Atomic Energy Agency established the Peaceful Uses Initiative to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear technology. The PUI supports implementation of Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires NPT States Parties that are in a position to do so to cooperate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Nuclear Weapon Free Zones

Nuclear-weapon-free zones are agreements intended to provide a legally binding framework to prohibit the use, possession, or deployment of nuclear weapons in a geographically defined zone. The international community has long considered the establishment of such zones an important disarmament measure and called for their establishment to be encouraged, with the ultimate objective of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. Article VII of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons states, “Nothing in this Treaty affects the right of any group of States to conclude regional treaties in order to assure the total absence of nuclear weapons in their respective territories.”

The United States has historically supported NWFZs on the grounds that, when properly crafted and fully implemented, they can contribute to international peace, security and stability. They can also reinforce the NPT and the world-wide nuclear nonproliferation regime. By signing and ratifying the relevant protocols to NWFZ treaties, the 5 nuclear weapon states recognized by the NPT (the “P5”) give legally binding assurances to the states parties to these NWFZ treaties that they will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against them. These are called negative security assurances. The United States makes decisions on whether to sign these protocols on a case-by-case basis, based on the following criteria:

• the initiative for the creation of the zone should come from the States in the region concerned;
• all States whose participation is deemed important should participate;
• the zone arrangement should provide for adequate verification of compliance with its provisions;
• the establishment of the zone should not disturb existing security arrangements to the detriment of regional and international security or otherwise abridge the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense guaranteed in the Charter of the United Nations;
• the zone arrangement should effectively prohibit its Parties from developing or otherwise possessing any nuclear device for whatever purpose;
• the establishment of the zone should not affect the existing rights of its Parties under international law to grant or deny other States transit privileges within their respective land territory, internal waters, and airspace to nuclear powered and nuclear capable ships and aircraft of non-party nations, including port calls and overflights; and
• the zone arrangement should not seek to impose restrictions on the exercise of rights recognized under international law, particularly the high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight, the right of innocent passage of territorial and archipelagic seas, the right of transit passage of international straits, and the right of archipelagic sea lanes passage of archipelagic waters.

The United States and other members of the UN Disarmament Commission in 1999 adopted by consensus guidelines for the establishment of NWFZs that the UN General Assembly later endorsed. There are currently 5 NWFZ treaties in force:

The United States has signed and ratified the relevant protocols to the Treaty of Tlatelolco, the first agreement prohibiting nuclear weapons in a populated area. The Treaty celebrated the 50th anniversary of its opening for signature on February 14, 2017:

At the 2010 NPT Review Conference, the United States announced it would submit the Protocols to the Treaties of Pelindaba and Rarotonga, which the United States had already signed, to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. This was done in 2011. The United States was also prepared to consult with the parties to the Treaties of Bangkok and Semipalatinsk in an effort to reach agreement that would allow it to sign those treaties’ protocols. In 2014, the United States along with other members of the P5 signed the protocol to the Treaty of Semipalatinsk, and in 2015 the United States submitted the protocol to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. Consultations on issues related to the Treaty of Bangkok are ongoing.

Proliferation Security Initiative

In April 2004, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1540, which affirms the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their means of delivery, by non-state actors, constitutes a threat to international peace and security. The resolution requires all UN member states to take and enforce effective measures against the proliferation of such weapons and their means of delivery to non-state actors, and to combat illicit use of related materials. These measures significantly strengthen and improve coordination of international efforts to prevent terrorists and proliferation networks from gaining access to WMD.