Nuclear Non-proliferation and Developing Countries

Nuclear weapons have always been a tool of the powerful few. When the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) came into force in 1970, it locked in a strange division of the world: a handful of states were allowed to keep their bombs, while everyone else promised never to build them. For developing countries, this raised a difficult question. How do you stay secure in a dangerous neighbourhood without joining a nuclear arms race? Many answered by trying to keep entire regions free of nuclear weapons, while a few decided that building their own arsenals was the only safe path. This tension between regional restraint and national ambition sits at the heart of the non-proliferation story in the developing world.

Why developing countries turned to nuclear-weapon-free zones
The Treaty of Tlatelolco: a model from Latin America
The Treaty of Rarotonga: lessons from the Pacific
What the treaty actually bans
The Korean Peninsula: a declaration that fell apart
When national security trumps non-proliferation
The 1998 tests and their shockwaves
The recognition problem
The deeper grievance: a discriminatory bargain
Toward more inclusive approaches

Why developing countries turned to nuclear-weapon-free zones

A nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) is a regional agreement in which a group of states formally bans nuclear weapons across their combined territory. The logic is straightforward. If no country in a region has nuclear weapons, and all of them legally commit to never acquiring them, then the incentive for any single state to start building a bomb disappears. This prevents a regional arms race before it can begin.

For developing regions, these zones offered something the global NPT could not: a way to address local security fears directly. Instead of relying only on promises from distant superpowers, neighbouring countries could verify each other’s behaviour and reassure one another. The zones also carried a moral message, signalling that a region rejected becoming a battleground for the nuclear rivalries of larger powers.

The Treaty of Tlatelolco: a model from Latin America

The first and most influential of these agreements came from Latin America. The Treaty of Tlatelolco was signed in 1967 in a district of Mexico City and prohibits its members from acquiring, possessing, testing, or deploying nuclear weapons on their territory. It established the world’s first nuclear-weapon-free zone in a populated region.

The trigger for this treaty was fear. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis had brought the world to the brink of nuclear war right in Latin America’s neighbourhood. Latin American governments became deeply worried about a potential arms race between the Cold War superpowers in their region, and a consensus emerged around building a regional mechanism to reduce the risk of nuclear conflict.

Getting there was not easy. Brazil initially argued that the treaty should only take effect once every relevant nation, including the nuclear powers, had signed on, while Mexico pushed for it to come into force country by country. The eventual compromise allowed the treaty to function gradually as states ratified it. All 33 states of Latin America and the Caribbean have now signed and ratified it, with Cuba being the last to do so in 2002. The treaty even has its own dedicated agency, OPANAL, to monitor compliance, and it has served as the template for every NWFZ created since.

The Treaty of Rarotonga: lessons from the Pacific

The South Pacific followed two decades later. The Treaty of Rarotonga, also called the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, opened for signature in 1985 and entered into force in 1986. It was the second nuclear-weapon-free zone to take effect in a populated region after Tlatelolco.

This zone grew out of direct, painful experience. The Pacific had been used as a nuclear testing ground for years. The United States conducted dozens of atmospheric and underwater tests in the Marshall Islands, and the United Kingdom carried out tests on Australian territory. France was still conducting tests in the region when the treaty was being negotiated. Having lived with the health and environmental consequences of these explosions, Pacific states wanted a binding guarantee against further testing.

What the treaty actually bans

The Rarotonga Treaty goes beyond simply banning the possession of weapons. It prohibits the manufacture, acquisition, possession, and testing of any nuclear explosive device in member territories, and it also bans the dumping of radioactive waste at sea within the zone. This addition reflected the region’s specific concerns about its oceans and environment, showing how each zone could be tailored to local priorities. Importantly, the treaty also reinforced at a regional level the commitments its members had already made under the global NPT.

The Korean Peninsula: a declaration that fell apart

Not every effort succeeded. The Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was signed by North and South Korea in January 1992 and entered into force the following month. Under it, both sides agreed not to test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy, or use nuclear weapons, and importantly, not to possess uranium enrichment or reprocessing facilities.

The declaration was made possible by a specific change. The United States had stationed nuclear weapons in South Korea for decades, and their removal enabled Seoul to sign the agreement. On paper, this was a balanced, equal commitment between two rival neighbours.

In practice, it collapsed. A joint commission was created to verify compliance and held meetings through 1992 and 1993, but it never managed to agree on a working inspection system. North Korea went on to build the very enrichment and reprocessing facilities the declaration banned, and eventually developed and tested nuclear weapons. The Korean case is a sobering reminder that a signed agreement means little without genuine political will and a credible way to verify what each side is actually doing.

When national security trumps non-proliferation

The most direct challenge to the non-proliferation regime in the developing world came from South Asia. India and Pakistan demonstrated that when states feel their survival is at stake, regional and global restraints can give way to the decision to build the bomb.

The 1998 tests and their shockwaves

In May 1998, India conducted a series of underground nuclear tests at Pokhran, code-named Operation Shakti, and declared itself a nuclear-weapon state. Within weeks, Pakistan responded with its own tests at the Chagai Hills. The United Nations Security Council condemned both rounds of tests through Resolution 1172 and called on the two countries to halt testing and join the non-proliferation regime.

The chain of events shows how regional security fears drive nuclear decisions. Pakistan’s weapons programme had begun in the 1970s as a direct response to India’s first nuclear test in 1974. India, in turn, justified its 1998 tests partly by pointing to the threats it perceived from sharing borders with nuclear-armed neighbours. Each country saw its arsenal as essential to deterrence and survival, not as an act of aggression.

The recognition problem

A crucial detail explains why India and Pakistan remain outside the formal system. Under the NPT, only states that tested a nuclear device before January 1, 1967, are recognised as legitimate nuclear-weapon states. India’s declaration of itself as a nuclear-weapon state in 1998 was therefore rejected by the rest of the world, since the treaty simply has no category for new entrants. This left both countries as nuclear-armed states that the global regime could neither accept nor fully control.

The deeper grievance: a discriminatory bargain

To understand why some developing countries resisted the NPT entirely, you have to look at how the treaty is structured. It is, by its own design, a deal that treats states unequally. The NPT divides the world into nuclear “haves” and “have-nots,” and this division has remained a persistent source of tension within the regime.

The treaty is often described as a grand bargain. Non-nuclear states agreed to give up the weapons option in exchange for two things: the right to peaceful nuclear technology under Article IV, and a promise under Article VI that the nuclear powers would work in good faith toward eventually eliminating their own arsenals. The problem, from the perspective of countries like India, is that the second half of the bargain was never fully delivered.

India argued that it could not accept permanent non-nuclear status while the recognised nuclear powers kept their arsenals with no firm timeline for disarmament. India was never willing to accept a non-nuclear status while the major powers retained their weapons indefinitely. Pakistan has similarly described the NPT as discriminatory and declined to sign, citing its right to self-defence. There is also a practical inequality at work: non-nuclear states must open all their nuclear activities to permanent international inspection, while the recognised nuclear powers face no such requirement.

Toward more inclusive approaches

This history points to a clear lesson. A non-proliferation regime built on permanent inequality struggles to win full cooperation from those it excludes. Scholars analysing the regime note that its unequal structure between the haves and have-nots is a core source of its legitimacy problems, fuelling ongoing political tensions rather than resolving them.

The contrast between the successes and failures is instructive. Nuclear-weapon-free zones worked best where neighbouring states shared a common interest, could verify each other’s behaviour, and did not face an immediate, existential rival within the zone. They struggled or never formed where deep regional rivalries made one side’s restraint feel like a dangerous gamble. South Asia and the Korean Peninsula fall into this second category, where mutual distrust ran too deep for a zone to take hold.

This is why many voices from the developing world have called for a more balanced regime, one that takes the security concerns of all states seriously and shows real progress on disarmament by the nuclear powers themselves. The 2008 civilian nuclear cooperation agreement between India and the United States, which effectively treated India as a responsible nuclear state despite its position outside the NPT, hinted at this shift, though it also drew criticism for appearing to reward a state that stayed outside the treaty. The underlying message is consistent: durable non-proliferation depends not just on rules, but on whether those rules feel fair to everyone bound by them.

What do you think? Can a global non-proliferation regime ever be truly effective while it permanently divides the world into nuclear “haves” and “have-nots”? And given the security pressures that drove India and Pakistan to build their arsenals, what would a genuinely fair and balanced approach to disarmament actually look like?

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Table of Contents

Why developing countries turned to nuclear-weapon-free zones 🔗

The Treaty of Tlatelolco: a model from Latin America 🔗

The Treaty of Rarotonga: lessons from the Pacific 🔗

What the treaty actually bans 🔗

The Korean Peninsula: a declaration that fell apart 🔗

When national security trumps non-proliferation 🔗

The 1998 tests and their shockwaves 🔗

The recognition problem 🔗

The deeper grievance: a discriminatory bargain 🔗

Toward more inclusive approaches 🔗