VCDNP Senior Fellow Angela Kane has continued her work with the Group of Eminent Persons for Substantive Advancement of Nuclear Disarmament (EPG) leading up to the third meeting of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Ms. Kane was appointed as a member of the EPG in August 2017, which since presented recommendations to the 2018 meeting of the PrepCom.
Angela Kane joins Senior Advisory Group of the Foreign Minister of Japan
The EPG's "Kyoto Appeal", presented by Ms. Kane during the 2019 PrepCom, makes note of the coming 50th Anniversary of the NPT's entry into force and also of the coming 25th anniversary of its indefinite extension. In this spirit, Ms. Kane expressed the EPG's concern over the steadily deteriorating situation for nuclear disarmament and made a number of recommendations. Among the recommendations made to the NPT review process prior to the 2020 Review Conference is a reaffirmation of one primary obligation of the Treaty, among others:
"The fundamental commitment remains of the unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament, to which all States parties are committed under NPT Article VI, and which constitutes one of the pillars of the NPT regime, as elaborated by consensus in 1995, 2000, and 2010 in the respective NPT conference final documents."
Ms. Kane was also recently interviewed about the NPT process by Kyodo News. Following the interview, the Nishi-Nippon-Shimbun, the largest daily newspaper in west region of Japan, printed the interview (in Japanese). The article discusses the frustration of some non-nuclear-weapon States in the context of the Nuclear Ban Treaty, as well as tensions surrounding the WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East.
