Banning the Bomb in Asia and the Pacific

In the three and a half years since the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force, it has been signed by 93 countries and ratified by 70. In Asia, and across Oceania, nations large and small – Mongolia, the Philippines, New Zealand, Fiji, and Malaysia, to name a few – have acceded to the first legally binding international treaty that prohibits all aspects of nuclear weapons development, stockpiling, use, and threat of use.

Beginning with the first atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 and continuing over five decades of testing, nuclear weapons have exacted a heavy toll in Asia and the Pacific, profoundly impacting public health and the environment, causing forced dislocation, and disrupting development, education, cultures, and economies. Today, even as all nine nuclear-armed nations maintain and modernize their arsenals, people of the Asia-Pacific region continue to shoulder the burden of multi-generational nuclear trauma.

With all but two (France and the United Kingdom) nuclear-armed states located in Asia or the Pacific region, nuclear weapons represent a tangible threat to this part of the world where the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan Strait, Kashmir, and South China Sea are all considered potential flashpoints.

Speaking in March at a Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the risk of nuclear war was at “its highest point in decades.”

Guterres warned that nuclear weapons are “growing in power, range, and stealth,” saying that “an accidental launch is one mistake, one miscalculation, one rash act away.” He criticized the nine nuclear armed states for being “absent from the table of dialogue.”

In recent years, frustration over the lack of progress on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), has fueled discontent and recognition of the need for a broader, more inclusive mechanism for ridding the world of nuclear weapons. In particular, there’s growing criticism of the failure to advance Article VI of the NPT which states:

“Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” (emphasis added)

As proponents of nuclear abolition watch nuclear arms control treaties falter, wither, and face withdrawal, enthusiasm for an alternative international pathway to disarmament has been directed at TPNW. As of May 2024, 10 countries in the Pacific and 13 in Asia have ratified the treaty, with more working through the process.

Under the Nuclear Umbrella

When the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, an estimated 210,000 civilians were instantly killed. Official municipal government figures from Hiroshima and Nagasaki documenting immediate and subsequent deaths were closer to 535,000. Almost 80 years later, over 113,000 hibakusha (nuclear survivors) and their descendants still live with the impacts of nuclear weapons.

Understandably, anti-nuclear sentiment is widely held in Japan. A 2019 Japanese public opinion survey conducted by researchers at Yale and other universities found 75 percent support for the TPNW, but Japan’s government does not support joining the treaty.

A 2023 national survey conducted by the Okinawan newspaper Ryukyu Shimpo reported that 61 percent of respondents favored Japan joining the treaty. Among the reasons given for not supporting the treaty was the belief that protection from U.S. extended deterrence (the so-called nuclear umbrella) was necessary for national security.

In 2017, after 122 nations voted in favor of adopting the TPNW, hibakusha and others declared that nuclear weapons have always been illegitimate and immoral, but were now also illegal. Speaking at the United Nations, Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow said, “We hibakusha have worked tirelessly for decades for the total elimination of those devices of mass murder.”

Hibakusha – who survived relatively small atomic bombs (15-21 kilotons) in comparison to modern weapons – recall the incineration and agonizing deaths of their own loved ones. They have expressed a sense of betrayal and abandonment by the Japanese government for its failure to ratify the treaty.

Professor Michiru Nishida, a 25-year veteran of arms control, disarmament, and diplomacy, today teaches global humanities and social sciences at Nagasaki University. He said Japan is torn between the desire for disarmament and what he calls a “more realistic view on security issues.” In general, the Japanese public is strongly anti-nuclear with widespread opposition to Japan developing its own nuclear weapon, Nishida said.

He believes Japanese are generally sympathetic toward the nuclear ban treaty and would like to join, but they also recognize the regional nuclear risks Japan faces, particularly since the early 2000s. There’s widespread desire to remain under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, which, he says, is preferable to more countries seeking their own weapons.

“People often criticize the U,S, nuclear umbrella but actually it is a form of nonproliferation policy,” Nishida argued. “Without it, those countries who have been under the nuclear umbrella may just go nuclear [themselves]… We’re entering into a very dangerous world.”

In an April address delivered to a joint meeting of Congress, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio said, “As a Hiroshima native, I have devoted my political career to bringing about a world without nuclear weapons… But there exists an imminent danger of nuclear weapons proliferation in East Asia.”

Previously, Kishida has suggested he views the TPNW as the final step toward nuclear abolition, not the first.

Without resolution of nuclear threats from China, North Korea, and Russia, Nishida doesn’t see Japan joining the treaty. “Over the last couple of years, especially after the Ukraine war started… I think there’s more understanding in the Japanese public about the Japanese government’s position than in the past, so I think it’s becoming more and more difficult for Japan to be part of the TPNW, realistically speaking,” Nishida said.

Despite this, Nishida thinks it’s good that the number of TPNW state parties is increasing, because it creates an additional impediment to proliferation beyond the NPT. Growing support for the TPNW is a reality, he said, so it’s in everyone’s best interest to engage with the treaty to make it stronger. He described the NPT regime as being “in shambles” and “not sustainable in the longer term.”

Neither the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations nor the permanent representative of Japan to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva responded to multiple requests for comment for this article.

Questions of Compatibility

After the United States destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it embarked on 12 years of nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific Proving Grounds, primarily at two atolls in the northwest Marshall Islands: Bikini and Enewetak. Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. carried out 67 nuclear tests including its largest ever detonation, the 15 megaton Castle Bravo test on March 1, 1954, a blast 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The impact nuclear testing had – not just on the closest atolls but on all of the Marshall Islands – has been profound and long lasting. The health damage, permanent dislocation, disruption of cultural practices and traditional land stewardship, and environmental damage cannot be overstated.

Decades after the tests, the U.S. and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) entered into a compact of free association (COFA) which provides Marshallese citizens visa-free rights to seek healthcare, education, employment, and residence in the United States.

Under the agreement, the U.S. gains exclusive military access to the Marshall Islands and vast parts of the Pacific. This “right of strategic denial” allows the U.S. to operate a large missile and rocket test site at Kwajalein Atoll, which supports ongoing Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile test flights from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. These so-called “glory trips” are conducted to demonstrate the reliability and effectiveness of U.S. nuclear deterrence.

Based on an assessment by the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor, the Marshall Islands meets most of the TPNW criteria of compatibility, with the outstanding exception being its hosting of ICBM test flights.

According to Article 1 of the TPNW, states parties undertake “never under any circumstances to: Assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this treaty.”

Marshallese officials have also expressed concern about the responsibilities they could incur with regards to environmental remediation as described in the treaty. In a February interview with Japanese news agency Kyodo, RMI President Hilde Heine said her country could not ratify the TPNW unless there were changes to Article 6, which addresses victim assistance and environmental remediation.

“Obviously, the treaty did not take our issues into consideration because… the language is such that we have to clean our own mess,” she said, referring to massive cleanup efforts at Bikini, Enewetak, and other atolls contaminated with radiological pollution from the U.S. tests.

Heine also questioned the effectiveness of the TPNW absent all nine nuclear-armed states.

Tim Wright, treaty coordinator with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said, “I believe that the concerns expressed by RMI are based on a misunderstanding of what Article 6 entails.” He added, “[ICAN] believes that RMI has much to gain from joining the TPNW, as it would open up new opportunities for international assistance in these areas.”

A 2018 paper by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School considered the compatibility of the Marshall Islands fulfilling its COFA obligations while also adhering to the TPNW if it were to ratify the treaty. The authors wrote, “the Compact should not be treated as a legal obstacle to the RMI’s becoming a state party to the TPNW.”

In a second paper by the same clinic, the authors examined misconceptions related to victim assistance and environmental remediation, detailing how countries that have been directly impacted by nuclear weapons could benefit from the treaty.

The RMI, which took part in negotiations and voted to adopt the TPNW in 2017, has not yet signed or ratified the treaty. Representatives for the Marshall Islands government and U.N. missions did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.

Not Quite There

In the 1950s, while the United States was testing nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, the U.K. carried out 12 nuclear tests (1952-57) in Australia. The health and environmental consequences of those tests spawned a strong anti-nuclear sentiment and widespread support for nuclear disarmament. Like Japan, Australia is an “umbrella state,” to which the U.S. offers extended nuclear deterrence.

In a March 2022 Ipsos poll, 76 percent of respondents strongly or somewhat agreed that the Australian government should ratify the TPNW. Nearly 300 Australian federal, state, and territory politicians have signed ICAN’s Parliamentary Pledge in support of the treaty. In a 2018 speech delivered before the Australian Labor Party, Anthony Albanese – now Australia’s prime minister – introduced a motion calling for the party to ratify the treaty but added, “we need to take into account and work through a range of complex issues on enforcement, on effectiveness, and on verification.”

In March 2024, Albanese met with Melissa Parke, executive director of ICAN, to discuss Australia’s treaty position. Following the meeting, Parke – herself a former Labor Party MP – told The Diplomat that Labor reaffirmed its previous commitment to the TPNW and was considering the treaty “systematically and methodically as part of an ambitious agenda to advance nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.”

In 2022 and 2023, Australia sent observer delegations to TPNW meetings of states parties, which Parke called a step in the right direction. But, she said, “it’s time for Australia to put pen to paper and sign the treaty.”

Parke is optimistic that Albanese will fulfill his promise and said that if Australia ratifies the treaty it will happen because of him. “He’s the strongest supporter,” Parke said, pointing to Albanese’s history of supporting disarmament and the influence of his political mentor, the late Labor MP Tom Uren. Uren witnessed the bombing of Nagasaki as a Japanese prisoner of war and later became a steadfast proponent of disarmament.

To those who argue that joining the treaty would disrupt Australia’s alliance with the United States, Parke points to New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines as TPNW states parties that maintain diplomatic and military cooperation with the United States. Quoting Albanese, Parke said, “It’s fine for friends to disagree from time to time,” noting Australia’s opposition to anti-personnel landmines, cluster munitions, and strong support for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the U.S. has not yet ratified.

In a 2023 ABC interview, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong acknowledged that the TPNW “reflects the aspirations that people around the world have, which is… a world that is free of nuclear weapons.” She has also stressed that the administration views the NPT as the cornerstone of non-proliferation and disarmament.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade declined a request for an interview. But in a written statement, a spokesperson said that “the government’s approach to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament is centered on practical, constructive efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, reduce the risk that they will be used, and to build pathways towards their elimination.”

The statement added that “the U.S. alliance remains fundamental to Australia’s national security and strategic policy.”

In 2022, U.S. embassy officials cautioned Canberra that if Australia joined the treaty, the U.S. would end its extended deterrence.

Opponents of Australia ratifying the TPNW argue that doing so would put Canberra “conspicuously out of step with the position of other U.S. treaty allies” and be “inconsistent with the Alliance’s collective defense commitments.”

If Australia joins the TPNW, it may initially deviate from the positions of Japan, South Korea, and NATO nuclear sharing nations, but a quick look at a map reveals that Australia, as a treaty state party, would be in alignment with its regional neighbors, including New Zealand, Fiji, Palau, Vanuatu, as well as most Southeast Asian nations. Indonesia is expected to deliver its own instruments of ratification later this year.

Forging New Alliances

Of the two dozen Asia and Pacific nations that have ratified the TPNW, among its strongest supporters are two countries that appear to have little in common. Kazakhstan, an enormous landlocked Central Asian country, and Kiribati, a Pacific island nation of more than 30 atolls, are united by their nuclear legacies. Both countries were used by outside powers for nuclear testing (456 tests by the Soviet Union in Kazakhstan and 33 by the U.S. and U.K. in Kiribati) and both have paid a high price.

Since the TPNW entered into force, Kazakhstan and Kiribati have co-chaired a working group on victim assistance, environmental remediation, and international cooperation and assistance (Articles 6 and 7 of the treaty). Among the implementation measures they are taking is a proposal to establish an international trust fund to support victims of nuclear testing and environmental remediation.

Zhangeldy Syrymbet, counselor with the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United Nations, and Christian Ciobanu, a TPNW advisor for Kiribati’s U.N. mission, work cooperatively to advance and strengthen both countries’ common goals. Speaking in a video call, Syrymbet noted that the treaty not only prohibits nuclear weapons but also provides positive obligations and solutions to remedy past mistakes and avoid future ones while contributing to international peace and security.

Syrymbet said that when Kazakhstan was ratifying the treaty, it was advised not to join by Russia and the United States – ironically the same countries that encouraged Kazakhstan to destroy its nuclear infrastructure and relinquish the nuclear weapons it hosted until the 1990s. Ratifying the TPNW, he said, is a reconfirmation of the commitments Kazakhstan has made to denuclearize.

Like its four Central Asian neighbors (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), Kazakhstan is party to the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty but it is, so far, the only one to have ratified the TPNW. Its staunch nuclear-free status is noteworthy as it is encircled by nuclear-armed Russia, China, Pakistan, and India.

Kazakhstan is committed to raising awareness of the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons while also providing dialogue, strengthening confidence building measures, and building trust among U.N. member states. Syrymbet pointed to other TPNW working groups that serve as vehicles for cooperation between Thailand, Ireland, Malaysia, South Africa, and other nations. “We encourage other countries to follow the same in order to find a solution. There is no better way than negotiations,” he said.

Kazakhstan and Kiribati’s TPNW-based partnership, Ciobanu said, has helped the island nation assert its voice in a way it previously had not. Kiribati’s current U.N. ambassador (and former president) Teburoro Tito recognizes the need for his country to call for justice through its strong support of the treaty and the establishment of an international trust fund.

Last October, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution for the first time mandating a report on victim assistance and environmental remediation, a move Ciobanu called a concrete win for nuclear justice at the regional and international level.

Ciobanu told The Diplomat that cooperation between Kiribati and Kazakhstan strengthens diplomatic and economic ties. Outsiders may find the relationship surprising, he said, but “we see things differently because we sit next to each other at the U.N.” By aligning itself with Kazakhstan, Kiribati can amplify its own message, and more influential states are taking notice. Ciobanu said Kiribati has been able to break through what he calls the “psychological barrier” of many small Pacific Island nations reluctant to criticize or challenge the United States.

Unconstrained by bilateral agreements with the United States., Kiribati can raise its voice for all nuclear affected communities. Ciobanu added that it’s important for nations to clearly articulate the government’s position on the treaty, especially for their own citizens who deserve to know why their government does or doesn’t support the treaty. “I think it’s very important for the public to know where these states lie, especially for their own citizens as well.”

In July, Kazakhstan will chair the Preparatory Committee for the 2026 NPT Review Conference in Geneva and in 2025 Kazakhstan will assume the presidency of the third meeting of states parties to the TPNW, providing fresh opportunities for the treaty to increase support among countries around the world.