Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

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The central instrument of the nuclear order, opened for signature on 1 July 1968 simultaneously in London, Moscow and Washington and entering into force on 5 March 1970. It rests on a bargain in three parts that its parties have argued about ever since. States without nuclear weapons undertake not to acquire them and to accept international safeguards on their civil nuclear material; states with them undertake not to transfer them; and all parties acknowledge a right to peaceful nuclear technology, with the nuclear-weapon states committing in Article VI to negotiate in good faith toward nuclear disarmament. The definition of a "nuclear-weapon state" is a piece of pure legal engineering: one that manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device before 1 January 1967, which admits exactly five — the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France and China — and closes the category permanently. India, Israel and Pakistan have never joined and developed weapons outside it; North Korea announced withdrawal in 2003 and the legal effect of that announcement is disputed among parties. In 1995 the parties extended the treaty indefinitely.

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