T

he recent United States–North Korea summit has certainly been an epochal event, as it offers a glimmer of hope of triggering peace dividends on the Korean Peninsula.

While the Singapore summit on June 12 between leaders Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un is instrumental to security in the East Asia Pacific, Southeast Asia faces its own security challenge and agenda. That is the full and effective implementation of the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ).

This refers to the nuclear-weapon-free-zone designated to the 10 Southeast Asian countries when they signed the Treaty on the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone in Bangkok on Dec. 15, 1995.

Other, similarly designated zones are the Tlatelolco (Latin and the Caribbean), Rarotonga (South Pacific), Pelindaba (Africa) and the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone.

Hence, almost every major region is designated a nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ).

The creation of such zones was made possible through the internationally legally binding agreement among countries in their respective regions with nuclear-armed states.

Initially hailing from Latin America, the zones were considered among the main bargains between “the haves and the have nots”, between nuclear-armed states and non-nuclear-armed states.

The creation of such zones from the Cold War era was based on two main general understandings, geopolitical and geo-economic. The bargain was founded on the understanding that nuclear-armed states provide assurances that they would not use nor threaten to use their nuclear weapons to attack non-nuclear-armed states, in exchange for the latter’s outlawing their own chances to become nuclear-armed states. Such security assurance is known as negative security assurances (NSA).

The NWFZ are also geo-economic bargains, in which states vowing to be non-nuclear-armed states would be assisted in attaining nuclear energy capabilities for peaceful purposes through international cooperation and assistance under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  

Therefore, the establishment of NWFZs and attributing negative security assurances to such zones are critical to global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

Such strategic measures commonly take place in the nuclear-armed states that are the US, China, France, the United Kingdom and Russia, all permanent members (P5) of the United Nations Security Council.

They agreed to their negative security assurances through an international legally binding “protocol”, which was further institutionalized in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which entered into force in 1970.  

But to date, the nuclear-armed states have yet to formalize their negative security assurance by ratifying the Protocol of Southeast Asia’s nuclear weapons free zones. Aside from the continued failure to create a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East, the P5 have subscribed to the protocols of the other zones.

Therefore, the absence of an NSA in Southeast Asia is unfortunate for a region where countries are striving toward peace and security in their own neighborhood and beyond.

The heyday of Cold War rifts may have long gone, as security trends are also increasingly shifting from traditional to non-traditional security issues.

But current issues, such as the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, reveal that nuclear politics is still among the critical ingredients of today’s inter-state relations and diplomacy.

And in the wake of the recent Singapore summit, it was only necessary that the importance of the NSA to Southeast Asia should be revived and advanced.

It should also become a priority security agenda in the region. Without the signature from the P5 in the SEANWFZ Protocol, Southeast Asia’s nuclear-weapon-free zones would never become effective.

The lack of the P5’s willingness to sign the protocol might be attributable to the intergovernmental processes within ASEAN.

It remains the responsibility and obligation of the state parties to adhere and continue to promote Southeast Asia’s nuclear-weapon-free zone to the P5.

According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative NGO, one reason for the P5’s reluctance to sign the SEANWFZ protocol lies in their differing views of the treaty’s territorial applicability.

Similarly, according to a 2012 report by the East-West Center’s Asia Pacific Bulletin, the overlapping claims in the South China Sea prevent the P5 from signing the treaty; they resist signing any document regarding potentially disputed areas among the listed continental shelves and exclusive economic zones.

Another issue that has reportedly protracted dissent among ASEAN member states and the P5 is the question of reservations made to the SEANWFZ protocol.

In most NWFZ protocols, nuclear-armed states retain the right to use nuclear weapons for self-defense and/or have the right to retaliate on states that were seen to have used or threatened to use nuclear weapons against them.

As evident from dignitaries’ statements on the issue, the reservation issue must be resolved if Southeast Asia were to have an effective and a fully realized SEANWFZ. It is most important to engage the P5 in an “ASEAN way” that is constructive and forward-looking through practical cooperation under ASEAN, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and East Asia Summit, to embrace inclusivity of all parties involved.

While enthusiasm fostered by the summit is still in the air, Southeast Asians can be hopeful that the nuclear-armed states will assert the required negative security assurances in their own backyard, to ensure their own security and peace in the region.

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The authors work for the Foreign Ministry. The views expressed are their own.