The 11th NPT Review Conference, scheduled from 27 April to 22 May 2026, will take place in the shadow of the Iranian nuclear crisis, the suspension of cooperation between the US and Russia, the withering away of nuclear restraint, and a deep divide between the NNWS and NWS over balancing disarmament and peaceful energy commitments. In such a chaotic setting, will the State Parties to the Treaty be able to achieve cohesion and resolve a crucial dilemma regarding Article IV of the NPT?

More than half a century ago, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force, becoming one of the world’s (almost) universally adhered-to treaties. With 191 State parties as of today, the NPT has often relied on their support as a crucial pillar of the global non-proliferation regime. Their support for the NPT remains; however, consensus within the NPT has failed to address today’s nuclear challenges substantially.

The last two NPT Review Conferences (Rev Cons, 2015, 2022) have failed to produce any consensus-based outcome document. This implies 10 years of intense work on preparatory committees and subsequent Rev Con deliberations, resulting in a gap between the stated goals and actual progress.

The upcoming Rev Con scheduled from 27 April to 22 May 2026, in its Provisional Agenda (Reflections by the Chair of the Preparatory Committee – First Session 2025),  notes that “… consecutive failures by Review Conferences… to reach consensus have negatively affected the full implementation of the Treaty…”[i] and expressed hope for achievement of Treaty’s main goals of, “…non-proliferation of nuclear weapons including non-use and their eventual elimination, as well as the inalienable right to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy….”[ii] and to advance discussion on other issues such as disarmament accountability and transparency; negative security assurances; the legitimate right of developing States towards the full access of means and technological information for peaceful nuclear energy purposes.

Notwithstanding the flawed hierarchical categorisation of NPT’s ‘nuclear haves and have nots’, the NPT has stood for the grand bargain of the State parties’ ‘pursuit of peaceful nuclear energy’ vis-à-vis ‘forgoing the right to possess nuclear weapons’ as a quid pro quo (in equity). As per the grand bargain, the non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) are to gain two kinds of rewards under the NPT—(i) Cooperation in civilian nuclear energy under Article IV of the Treaty, and (ii) a perceived security from the eventual realisation of the goal of disarmament as obligated upon the nuclear-weapon state (NWS) under Article VI of the Treaty. How this balance has been sustained is an important measure of the NPT’s success.

In the past 55 years, while the NNWS has kept their end of commitment (mostly), the NWS that are supposed to pursue negotiations in good faith on, “…effective measures relating to cessation of arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament…”[iii], on the contrary, have given way to collapse of arms control, nuclear arsenal modernisations, re-thinking of nuclear doctrines- including nuclear sharing and overall weakening of the norms of nuclear restraint.[iv] Iran, as a NNWS, on the other end of the grand bargain, was one of the first countries to have ratified the NPT, to voluntarily forgo its right to nuclear weapons in exchange for the promise of nuclear energy. It signed the NPT on the very day it opened for signatures on 1 July 1968 and subsequently ratified it on 2 February 1970 with the signing of the comprehensive safeguard agreement, subjecting the programme to international inspection three years later (1973).[v]

Right to the ‘Inalienable Right’:  Article IV Dilemma and Debate

Iran’s pursuit of ‘right to enrichment’ (permitted under the NPT, as claimed by Iran) has been a source of irritation for the NPT since the 2000s. Of course, the case of Iran’s enrichment is not straightforward. As an NPT NNWS State Party, it has challenged the existing norm of ‘denial of enrichment and reprocessing’ and, with the conclusion of the JCPOA, normalised it while remaining under the IAEA safeguards. Is this unusual? Yes, but is it entirely wrong? Maybe not.  Article IV of the NPT states,

Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty….[vi]

Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty….[vi]

Further para 2 of the same, provides for all the Parties to undertake and facilitate ‘fullest possible exchange’ of equipment, materials, scientific and technological information to promote........

© IDSA