Unlike its predecessor in 2005, the eighth Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in 2010 did not, thank goodness, end in a fiasco. The document approved by consensus at the end of the conference⁽¹⁾ confirmed the validity of the treaty, after years of wavering, on which all efforts to apply international discipline to nuclear matters are based.⁽²⁾ This concluding declaration can also be regarded as important because it links projects in a single action plan concerning the three areas covered by the NPT: disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.⁽³⁾

However, beneath this show of agreement, what has become clear is the increasingly obvious distinction between the positions of the emerging countries, bringing with them the non-aligned states, and the nuclear states, which are accused of not doing enough in the field of disarmament. The compromise agreed between the 189 NPT signatory states was therefore only achieved at the price of major concessions. The introduction of new verification methods for civil nuclear activities, opposed by most southern countries, was not finally agreed. No deadline was set for the dismantling of existing nuclear arsenals. The five major nuclear powers, which were hostile to this idea, nevertheless vaguely committed themselves to speeding up the reduction of their weapons stockpiles.

These differences have demonstrated to the five states officially equipped with nuclear weapons that their status and prerogatives are now being openly challenged for the first time. The agreement between Tehran, Brasilia and Ankara on the Iranian nuclear question confirmed this. Like one of the farcical subplots which punctuate Shakespeare’s plays and hint at the outcome of the drama, Iran, Brazil and Turkey have raised the possibility of playing by a different set of rules to challenge the old nuclear powers.