April 17, 2017
Tariq Rauf
CNS is pleased to disseminate the following study by Tariq Rauf in advance of the forthcoming 2017 NPT Preparatory Committee Meeting. Mr. Rauf was a participant in a year-long project funded by the Swiss Foreign Ministry and CNS to assess the effectiveness of the NPT review process and to make recommendations for its further strengthening.
Preparing for the 2017 NPT Preparatory Committee Session: The Enhanced Strengthened Review Process
by Tariq Rauf
Originally circulated as a SIPRI brief on 25 February 2017
Introduction
M building of the Vienna International Center, location of the NPT PrepCom.
The first session of the Preparatory Committee, scheduled for 2 through 12 May 2017 at the Vienna International Centre (VIC), will launch the opening of preparations for the 2020 Review Conference of the NPT which will mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaty. This session will provide another opportunity for the States parties to properly implement an improved strengthened review process for the Treaty and, therefore, has the potential to effectuate the promise of a qualitatively improved process to review the implementation of the Treaty and to make preliminary recommendations on strengthening the implementation and authority of the NPT. The 2017 Preparatory Committee will be chaired by Ambassador Henk Cor van der Kwast, the Netherlands’ Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. On hand, fortunately, also will be the chair-designate of the second session of the PrepCom, to be held in Geneva in 2018, Ambassador Adam Bugajski, Poland’s Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, as well as Ambassador Rafael Grossi, Permanent Representative of Argentina to the IAEA, who is proposed for the President of the 2020 Review Conference; thus facilitating continuity between the first two sessions of the PrepCom and laying the groundwork for 2020.
This paper reviews, in brief, the origins and functioning of the strengthened review process for the NPT, and then provides guidance and recommendations on the conduct of the 2017 PrepCom and its outcome document.
