The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the Korean Peninsula
I. Incomplete Incorporation into the Non-proliferation Regime
member states’ right to establish a nuclear weapon-free zone.
I. Incomplete Incorporation into the Non-proliferation Regime
The NPT was adopted on July 1, 1968, and took effect on March 5, 1970. The Korean Peninsula was only belatedly and incompletely incorporated into the NPT regime.
1. North Korea, a “Rogue State” that Abused the NPT North Korea signed the NPT on December 12, 1985 under Soviet pressure.
After delaying the ratification of the NPT for seven years, it completed the ratification process only in April 1992 and officially joined the NPT.
Less than a year later, on March 12, 1993, North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT on the grounds that the IAEA inspection team demanded special inspections of unreported facilities (the first announcement of NPT withdrawal). The NPT recognizes the right to
withdraw if a country deems “best interests of the country are at stake,”
and stipulates that all Contracting States and the UN Security Council should be notified three months before withdrawal. Withdrawal takes effect after three months have elapsed from the announcement of withdrawal.
Taking advantage of this stipulation, North Korea declared that it would withhold its withdrawal in June 1993, before three months had elapsed from the first withdrawal announcement, and stayed within the NPT.
However, North Korea continued to develop nuclear weapons, and on October 4, 2002, admitted the existence of a nuclear weapons program, and in January 2003 again announced its withdrawal from the NPT (the second announcement of NPT withdrawal) In its withdrawal announcement in 2003, North Korea officially stated that it would withdraw from the NPT automatically and immediately, and informed the UN Security Council that it would withdraw its decision to withhold its withdrawal from the NPT announced in 1993. Accordingly, it can be said that North Korea’s withdrawal from the NPT took effect in 2003. Afterwards, North Korea promised to return to the NPT through the September 19, 2005 joint statement, but did not return in the end, and rather conducted a series of nuclear tests. In sum, North Korea belatedly joined the NPT, announced withdrawal less than a year after joining, and reversed it, 10 years later, in 2003, it announced withdrawal, and conducted nuclear tests repeatedly, though it promised to return to the NPT in 2005. It showed an unprecedented behavior in the history of the NPT. In this process, the authority and reputation of the NPT was also greatly damaged.
In the end, the NPT failed to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. Rather, North Korea accelerated the development of nuclear weapons during the ten years while it was within the NPT system, from its accession in April 1992 to its withdrawal in January 2003. The
NPT may have unintentionally given North Korea more than a decade of time to develop nuclear weapons while allowing it to maintain the appearance of being a member of the NPT.
2. South Korea, a Mistrusted Model Non-proliferator
The Republic of Korea (henceforth South Korea) was also reluctant to join the NPT; it also continued its nuclear weapons development program after joining the NPT. South Korea signed the NPT on July 1, 1968, but the National Assembly ratified it belatedly on March 19, 1975. So, similar to North Korea or perhaps because of it, South Korea took 7 years from signing to ratification. The reason for the delay in ratification is that South Korea was also interested in developing nuclear weapons, probably because North Korea was also interested in developing nuclear weapons. While South Korea is known to have decided to develop nuclear weapons in 1972, the construction of Korea’s first nuclear power plant (Gori-1 Unit) began in March 1971, and President Park Chung-hee showed interest in nuclear power 10 years before that, shortly after he came to power. President Park Chung-hee’s will to develop nuclear weapons was old and strong.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the ratification of the NPT had been delayed.
The main reason that South Korea eventually ratified the NPT despite President Park’s will to develop nuclear weapons was not its respect for the NPT or pressure from the US. The main reason was that Canada insisted South Korea’s ratification of the NPT as a condition for selling its heavy water reactors to the South. Canada conditioned South Korea’s NPT ratification on the sale of its heavy water reactors because Canada tried to fulfill its obligations as an NPT member. One can say that the NPT
contributed to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula in that South Korea ratified the NPT after hesitation and eventually gave up the development of nuclear weapons due to Canada’s demands as an NPT member.
At that time, South Korea’s nuclear weapons program was pursued in a very different domestic political situation and international environment.
In the 1970s’ South Korea, the military led by President Park Chung-hee was in power, and internationally, it was the Cold War era when the communist and free blocs confronted. The United States, which protected South Korea from North Korea, was trying to pull out from Asia after losing the Vietnam War, and there was a possibility that the U.S. troops in South Korea would actually withdraw. At a time when, internally, the authoritarian government was in power and externally, security instability was intensifying, South Korea had interest in developing nuclear weapons but nevertheless joined the NPT after much hesitation.
Today’s situation, when South Korea was democratized and the Cold War ended, is very different from the 1970s, when Korea intended to develop nuclear weapons. South Korea held a Nuclear Security Summit (in 2012) and is proud of itself as an exemplary NPT member. However, the history of South Korea’s nuclear program in the 1970s is still remembered. South Korea does not currently possess nuclear weapons but it is considered a
“threshold nuclear state” with the technological capability to arm itself with nuclear weapons in a short period of time. Some in the international community continue to suspect that being a threshold nuclear state, South Korea will eventually develop nuclear weapons for self-defense purposes if North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons. In particular, when an enriched uranium separation experiment was conducted by some scientists in 2000, and a belated report of the experiment was made in
2004, the international community began to suspect that South Korea was secretly developing nuclear weapons. In addition, as public opinion polls conducted after North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests repeatedly show that the majority of the South Korean people support its own nuclear armament, the international society’s doubts about South Korea’s commitments to non-proliferation are not easily dispelled.