Nuclear Diplomacy Crossroads - What Future for the Stockholm Initiative in the Eleventh NPT Review Cycle?

This helped to draw the sting from the ongoing dispute around the emergence of the TPNW, which the NWS had reacted badly to, not only asserting that it had no application to states that did not sign, but implying naivety amongst those that promoted it.4 The intensity of these criticisms waned by the time of the 2022 Review Conference, in part thanks to the patient diplomacy of Stockholm Initiative. [...] There were also explicit calls within the draft Final Document on the NWS to diminish the role and significance of nuclear weapons in concepts, doctrines and policies.9 This was an agenda item in the Stockholm Initiative’s annex of Stepping Stones that attracted the biggest push-back from the NWS in consultations prior to the Review Conference, and to ensure 8 2020 Review Conference of the Parties. [...] As the events of history unfold, participants pondered that perhaps future historians might conclude that the assurances made in 1994 played an important role in galvanising much of the international community, facilitating the conclusive support for Ukraine in 2022-23, and strengthening the resolve to reverse the invasion. [...] The commitments to dialogue in these areas within the draft Final Document would be a useful reference for the Stockholm Initiative, to reinforce the norm against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as reverse the credibility deficit of the NPT on Article IV, on disarmament. [...] As the last action plan agreed by the NPT, the 64-Point Action Plan remains valid and is an agenda of the Stockholm Initiative listed in the Annex agreed by Foreign Ministers of the Stockholm Initiative at their meeting in Berlin in February 2020.