NEW Transparency and Accountability: NPT Reporting 2002-2009
A summary of this report was included as an annex to the Canadian government report to the 2010 NPT Review Conference.

Background

“Permanence with accountability” was the central equation of the 1995 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference. The indefinite extension of the Treaty was accompanied by a commitment to strengthen the review process, which focused on the Preparatory Committees (PrepCom) and Review Conferences (RevCon). The 2000 RevCon then elaborated on the accountability commitment through the provision of a specific reporting requirement. The Final Document included a list of 13 Practical Steps toward the implementation of the Treaty, among which was the Step 12 agreement to submit:

Regular reports, within the framework of the strengthened review process for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, by all States parties on the implementation of article VI and paragraph 4(c) of the 1995 Decision on “Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament,” and recalling the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of 8 July 1996. (NPT Review Conference 2000)

Project Ploughshares Research and Reporting

The framers of the reporting obligation understood reporting―as they understood the review process itself―to be a potential prod to the more effective pursuit of nuclear disarmament. This prod, however, will only be effective if the States Parties do in fact submit informative reports and while no specific timeframe was attached to the provision of "regular reports", it was implied that states were expected to report to each PrepCom and RevCon following the 2000 RevCon. Since the NPT has no permanent secretariat, there is in effect no central entity to request and receive the reports and no process for compiling and analyzing them. Project Ploughshares has filled this void with regular analysis and reporting on the state of NPT reporting. The intitial Ploughshares report, Working Paper 03-2, reviewed State Parties reporting to the first and second Preparatory Committee Meetings for the 2005 NPT Review Conference. A second report was issued in May 2005 to include the third PrepCom for the 2005 NPT Review Conference and a Summer 2005 Ploughshares Monitor article provided information on the reports submitted to the 2005 NPT Review Conference itself. In 2008, a more extensive analysis was carried out with support from the International Security Research and Outreach Program (ISROP) of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. The resulting paper, "Transparency and Accountability: NPT Reporting 2002-2007", received wide distribution including to governments and NGOs at the 2008 NPT PrepCom. In preparation for the 2010 NPT Review Conference, this paper has been updated and now appears as "Transparency and Accountability: NPT Reporting 2002-2009".

States Parties NPT Reports

The States Parties NPT reporting documents are the primary source of information for Ploughshares analysis: they can be accessed by clicking here.