Road map for nuclear disarmament
30.06.2011
UCC academic, Dr Andrew Cottey has laid out a road map for nuclear disarmament in a new report published by the British American Security Information Council (BASIC). The report comes as the world's officially recognised nuclear powers - the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain, or the P5 as they are known because they are also the permanent members of the UN Security Council – meet in Paris June 29th-30th to discuss nuclear arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.

The Paris P5 meeting follows an earlier one in London in September 2009 – the first of its kind – and represents the emergence of a new dimension in global nuclear politics. Cottey’s report, titled Multilateralizing Nuclear Arms Control: An Agenda for the P5, argues that the P5 should aim to move towards a world of much smaller numbers of nuclear weapons, with arsenals in the hundreds of nuclear warheads rather than the 20,000 in the world today. The report suggests that the P5 should establish a permanent dialogue on nuclear arms control and engage in a gradual process of transparency, confidence-building and force reductions. "It's time the P5 began laying the foundations to climb down the nuclear ladder, in line with their commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), " said Andrew Cottey

Dr Andrew Cottey is Senior Lecturer and Jean Monnet Chair in European Political Integration, Department of Government, University College Cork and a member of BASIC’s governing board.

BASIC (British American Security Information Council) is an independent think-tank focusing on issues of nuclear arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, with offices in London and Washington, DC.

The summary of the report and the full report are available on BASIC’s website:

http://www.basicint.org/publications/dr-andrew-cottey/2011/multilateralizing-nuclear-arms-control-agenda-p5-meeting-paris

Picture: Dr Andrew Cottey

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