A KOREAN NWFZ TREATY AND NUCLEAR EXTENDED DETERRENCE: OPTIONS FOR DENUCLEARIZING THE KOREAN PENINSULA

A KOREAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS-FREE ZONE TREATY AND NUCLEAR EXTENDED DETERRENCE: OPTIONS FOR DENUCLEARIZING THE KOREAN PENINSULA
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TREATY AND NUCLEAR EXTENDED DETERRENCE: OPTIONS FOR DENUCLEARIZING THE
KOREAN PENINSULA

The report is written in English.

NAPSNet Special Report

Recommended Citation
Morton Halperin, Peter Hayes, Leon Sigal, "A KOREAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS-FREE ZONE TREATY
AND NUCLEAR EXTENDED DETERRENCE: OPTIONS FOR DENUCLEARIZING THE KOREAN
PENINSULA", NAPSNet Special Reports, April 12, 2018, https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnetspecial-
reports/a-korean-nuclear-weapons-free-zone-treaty-and-nuclear-extended-deterrnce-
options-for-denuclearizing-the-korean-peninsula/

MORTON HALPERIN, PETER HAYES, LEON SIGAL
APRIL 12 2018

nautilus-Bxwl02aA.pdf

I.  INTRODUCTION

 

In this essay, the authors tackle three tasks. First, they offer a way to address potential DPRK doubts about unilateral US negative security assurances by means of a legally binding and enduring multilateral treaty to establish either a regional Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone (NWFZ) on the Korean Peninsula only or in Northeast Asia as a whole. Second, they demonstrate that there is no incompatibility between the US commitment of extended nuclear deterrence to the ROK and membership by the US and ROK in a NWFZ. Whatever moral objections nuclear extended deterrence may raise, there is no existing legal impediment to such a commitment. Third, they provide a way around possible political objections in both South and North Korea to signing a Korean Peninsula-only or a regional treaty because it would call into question their competing claims to sovereignty over the whole peninsula. It proposes the option of a UN NWFZ treaty to which they alone or they in concert with others in the region might sign, much as they have signed other treaties within a UN framework in the past.

 Morton Halperin is senior advisor, Open Society Foundations;   Peter Hayes is Director of the Nautilus Institute and Honorary Professor at the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney.  Leon Sigal is Director, Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project, Social Science Research Council.

Acknowledgements:  The authors are grateful for review comments from Ambassadors Thomas Pickering and Thomas Graham.  The authors remain solely responsible for the content.  This paper was funded in part by MacArthur Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and Ploughshares Fund.

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Nautilus Institute. Readers should note that Nautilus seeks a diversity of views and opinions on significant topics in order to identify common ground.

nautilus-Bxwl02aA.pdf

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