On July 1, 1968, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States of America, and dozens of other countries entered into the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The NPT categorizes countries as either “nuclear-weapon States” or “non-nuclear-weapon States.” The five “nuclear-weapon States” are the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China, all of which had successfully exploded a nuclear device before 1967. (The Russian Federation formally agreed in 1992 to exercise the rights and fulfill the obligations of the former U.S.S.R. under the NPT.)
Under the NPT, non-nuclear-weapon States agree never to acquire nuclear weapons, and the nuclear-weapon States in exchange agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and to pursue nuclear disarmament aimed at the ultimate elimination of their nuclear arsenals. To this day, the NPT remains the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of nuclear disarmament. As of today, 191 (out of 193) States have agreed to the NPT; more countries have ratified it than any other arms limitation and disarmament agreement in the world.
Not all countries agreed to be subject to the NPT’s limitations immediately, however. Ukraine, for example, did not join the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapon State until 1994, when the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation gave Ukraine ample security assurances, formalized in the “Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.” In exchange for Ukraine promising to eliminate all nuclear weapons from its territory and remain a non-nuclear-weapon State, the other countries–including Russia–explicitly promised (among other things):
- “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”;
- “to refrain from the threat of force or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”; and
- “that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defense…”
Russia is still a party to the 1994 Memorandum. Too bad it refuses to recognize the jurisdiction of any international court, or it might have been in trouble for blatantly violating it when it invaded the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
Or, y'know, right now.
Image credit: Corbis/Getty Images
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