Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones

To support the goal of nuclear disarmament, groups of States or entire continents can declare themselves Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZ) and negotiate legally binding instruments to this end. Article VII of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) explicitly foresees this option. Moreover, the action plan adopted at the 2010 NPT Review Conference encourages States Parties to establish further NWFZ.

Today, there are seven NWFZ (Africa, Antarctica, Latin America and the Caribbean, South Pacific, South East Asia, Central Asia, as well as the “single State” NWFZ Mongolia). Their States Parties refrain from the possession, the development, the exploration as well as the deployment of nuclear weapons. The five Nuclear Weapon States recognized by the NPT engage through additional protocols to neither threaten nor attack any State Party with nuclear weapons. However, by far not all of these additional protocols are currently in force.

The efforts to initiate a Zone free of Weapons of Mass Destruction (biological, chemical and nuclear weapons) in the Middle East, as contained in the 2010 action plan, prove to be very difficult to realize. Austria fully supports NWFZ as important contributions for the achievement of a world without nuclear weapons. Due to a Federal Constitutional Law on a nuclear-free Austria, adopted in 1999 (StF: BGBl. I Nr. 149/1999), Austria de facto meets the key legal requirements of a NWFZ.

In Europe, despite several attempts during the Cold War period, no recent concrete steps took place to discuss the establishment of a NWFZ. Following the NPT action plan adopted in 2010, Austria and Switzerland decided to examine the question of establishing a NWFZ in Europe in more detail and commissioned the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt with the preparation of a scientific study. The publication „A Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone in Europe: Concept - Problems - Chances" (and Executive Summary) provides a detailed analysis of the various aspects of a NWFZ in Europe. Against the backdrop of growing international tensions, the study aims to contribute constructively and innovatively to the discussion of collective security in Europe.