The obligation to submit declarations
As of July 2024, all but one of the 69 states parties to the TPNW at the end of 2023 had at the time of writing this report submitted the declaration required by Article 2 of the Treaty to the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General. The only outstanding declaration was that of Grenada, whose deadline to submit was in October 2022.
The UN Secretary-General received four new Article 2 declarations during the course of 2023: from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Dominican Republic, Malawi, and Timor-Leste. Their declarations confirmed that they have never owned, possessed, or controlled nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, and that foreign nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices are not located in their territory or in any other place under their jurisdiction or control.
The UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) receives the declarations on behalf of the UN Secretary General and transmits them to the other states parties. It also posts the declarations on its website, at: https://bit.ly/3RRFuCx.
The state profiles of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor record the dates that the declarations are received by the UN, or indicate if a state party has not yet submitted its declaration. The TPNW does not prescribe a standard form or format for the declarations, but the UNODA website for the Treaty contains model declarations in English, French, and Spanish prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
- Article 2 of the TPNW imposes a duty on each state to submit a declaration to the UN Secretary-General within 30 days of becoming party to the Treaty. The declaration must clarify whether the state party has ever owned, possessed, or controlled nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. If it has, it must further declare whether it has already eliminated its nuclear-weapon programme, including by destroying or irreversibly converting all nuclear-weapons-related facilities, or whether it still owns, possesses, or controls any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
- Finally, the declaration must state whether foreign nuclear weapons or devices are located (stockpiled, stationed, deployed, or installed) either in the state party’s territory or in any other place under its jurisdiction or control.
- The overwhelming majority of potential states parties are not nuclear-armed. Once the requisite Article 2 declaration has been submitted by a non-nuclear-armed state party, the only other reporting duties under the TPNW will be those to which it commits under an action plan adopted by a meeting of states parties.
- For potential states parties that formerly possessed or which currently possess nuclear weapons and for states that have foreign nuclear weapons on their territory or in any other place under their jurisdiction or control, Article 4 of the TPNW imposes a duty to submit a report to each meeting of states parties and each review conference on progress towards the implementation of its obligations under that article. This obligation persists until the obligations under Article 4 are fulfilled.