The History Of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime

When discussing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime, perhaps the first document to come to mind is the 1968 U.N. Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). However, as with any regime, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime is composed of many working treaties, agreements, and norms, of which the NPT is only a single part, however influential it has been. For the purposes of this paper, understanding of the regime as a whole has been drawn both from Imrana Gull’s paper on the history of nuclear non-proliferation (2000) and the necessary U.N. document, themselves.
After the bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the concept of non-proliferation began to draw some attention as nation states recognized the power inherent in the bomb. (Gull 2000) In the post-World War II bipolar order, the strain of competing nations pushed the doomsday clock of the world uncomfortably close to midnight.
Nonproliferation efforts can be traced as early as the Charter of the U.N (1945), particularly in Articles 11(1), 26, and 47(1). Respectively, article 11(1) made special note of international peace and security, “including principles governing disarmament and regulation of arms.” Articles 26 and 47(1) also made special mention of disarmament, noting the Security Council’s responsibility to plan the establishment of “a system for the regulation of armaments,” and the establishment of a Military Council [Article 47(1)] to assist in such matters. Although none of these were themselves directly designed to deal with nuclear weapons, they laid the groundwork for future efforts aimed at regulation and the hope for eventual universal denuclearization.
In 1963, the United Nations began to take active measures against nuclear proliferati...

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...set in place have been wholeheartedly supported by South Korea, although many of the regimes greatest coups (such as the NPT) have proven nearly unenforceable. Sanctions—while raised as an answer to problems—are only effective to the degree that they do not significantly harm those nations interested in their implementation; the double-edged sword does not an attractive weapon make. The regime’s greatest flaw is, perhaps, human nature. For as many South Korea’s earnestly support cooperation and global denuclearization, there will be other nation-states unwilling to give up their ‘right to deterrence.’ Rightly or wrongly, South Korea’s own policy-structure demonstrates a dependency on a liberal school of thought, guiding them to other means of prestige, but their neighbors in the global sphere are not so willing to place faith outside of sheer military superiority.