Historical review of the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference

The 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference was an extraordinary event. In addition to the standard tasks to review the operations of the treaty, and providing an informal look at national policies through plenary debate, it also was meant to decide whether the treaty would be extended indefinitely. Such outcome was not at all a foregone conclusion; numerous diplomats and scholars alike predicted at best a brief extension. Contrarily to these voices, the conference ended up with a resounding success of indefinite extension of the Treaty. The moment is widely hailed as the high point in international cooperation on nuclear nonproliferation, featuring unexpected collaboration across the established lines of confrontation was one of the key sources of the success for the NPT’s indefinite extension in 1995.

The panel discussion will look at the unlikely success of the 1995 NPT Review Conference, discuss the perceptions of the extension and its aftermath in the Global South, analyze the commitments from the conference, and scrutinize which of the previously successful tools of nonproliferation diplomacy can be used to overcome ongoing antagonisms in nonproliferation regime.

Speakers will include Marjolijn van Deelen (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands), Michal Onderco (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Togzhan Kassenova (Center for Policy Research, SUNY-Albany), Rebecca Johnson (Acronym Institute), Joseph Pilat (Woodrow Wilson Center).

The meeting is organized with the support of the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United Nations.

Light lunch will be served at the Express Bar from 12:30 till 13:15.