Implementing a Korea–Japan Nuclear‐Weapon‐Free Zone: Precedents, Legal Forms, Governance, Scope, Domain, Verification, Compliance and Regional Benefits
To assess the possibility of a future denuclearized Korean peninsula it is important to consider not only US and allied security interests, but also North Korean underlying security concerns. However, beyond the North–South conflict on the Korean peninsula, there is also a longer-term problem of Korean–Japanese relations. Both Japan and South Korea have the capacity to rapidly develop and acquire nuclear weapons. North Korean nuclear acquisition could well provide the rationale for either or both to acquire nuclear weapons. In the Northeast Asian region there is already a lengthy history of denuclearization proposals and even agreements. While the focus of previous proposals had concentrated on the Korean peninsula itself, an alternative way forward would be the initial establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) between Japan and South Korea, with North Korea encouraged to join at a later date. The negotiation of a Korea–Japan NWFZ would serve to confirm and guarantee the current non-nuclear-weapon status of South Korea and Japan, while acting as an important confidence-building step to address North Korea's underlying security concerns and enable it to subsequently join the NWFZ. Internationally, the commitment of the US Obama administration to a reduced reliance on nuclear weapons, the recent unanimous final document of the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference calling for expansion of NWFZs, and the greater openness of the USA and other nuclear powers to NWFZ establishment in areas of regional conflict, suggest that we now have a new window of opportunity for denuclearization of Northeast Asia.
Beyond the Nuclear Umbrella: Re-thinking the Theory and Practice of Nuclear Extended Deterrence in East Asia and the Pacific
This paper provides an overview of the Nautilus Institute's exploration of two inter-linked but highly contested aspects of the strategic nuclear situation on the Korean peninsula: the complexity and uncertainty associated with US assurances of nuclear extended deterrence to South Korea (and Japan), and the potential contribution of a nuclear-weapon-free zone to shifting the current impasse concerning North Korean nuclear weapons. The theoretical inquiry into the current state of nuclear extended deterrence is followed by an examination of the necessity, viability and desirability of reformed versions of nuclear extended deterrence (such as collective deterrence), and of three conceivable generic alternatives to reliance upon nuclear extended deterrence: namely nuclear rejection, nuclear recession, and conventional deterrence (possibly combined with existential nuclear deterrence). A bilateral nuclear-weapon-free zone, with the door held open to North Korea to join at a later stage, would act as a circuit-breaker in the stalemated nuclear confrontation; prefigure a US negative security guarantee to North Korea in a future rapprochement; and reduce ongoing regional anxieties by locking both South Korea and Japan into a legally binding non-nuclear security posture
Analysis: The Agenda 2007 Proposals: Evolution or Revolution?
On 10 February 2004 the Commission published its proposal for the financial perspective 2007-2013. A week later it adopted the third report on economic and social cohesion. These two documents form the basis of the so-called ‘Agenda 2007 reforms’. They will be the greatest challenge for the enlarged EU after the intergovernmental conference, since they will determine the financial basis for EU policy-making until the middle of the next decade. The Agenda 2007 proposals certainly hint at courageous reforms, because they place a previously unheard-of emphasis on performance and quality. Under the proposals, structural operations should generate value for money, and the funds should focus on projects which generate added value at a European level. Overall the Commission’s proposals point in the right direction, because they balance, on the one hand, solidarity for the new Member States and weak regions in the old Member States with, on the other hand, investments in future tasks. Moreover, they constitute a paradigm shift. For the first time, the Common Agricultural Policy will not be the dominant expenditure category. Now it is up to the Member States to examine the proposals politically and find a compromise between sometimes very divergent interests. It is to be hoped that, during the debate over expenditure limits and division of funds, national interests do not outweigh European interests.