Latest developments
Italy voted against the UN General Assembly resolutions on the TPNW in 2018, 2019, and 2020. The former Italian prime minister Enrico Letta and former foreign minister Franco Frattini were among the signatories to an open letter in September 2020 calling on current leaders in umbrella states to 'show courage and boldness' and join the TPNW. In September 2017, the Italian parliament adopted a resolution committing the government to 'pursue a nuclear weapon free world' and 'in a way compatible with its NATO obligations and with the positioning of allied states, to explore the possibility of becoming a party to the legally binding treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons'. According to the government, the NPT 'provides the only realistic legal framework to attain a world without nuclear weapons, in a way that promotes international stability and is based on the principle of undiminished security for all.' See: bit.ly/2TwCaOp, bit.ly/2lY88FY, bit.ly/2kKjldb.
Recommendations
- Italy should ensure that nuclear weapons do not have a role in its national defence plans and security policies. It should ensure the removal of the foreign nuclear weapons on its territory, renounce the retention and potential use of nuclear weapons on its behalf, for instance through a declaratory statement, and refrain from endorsing future alliance statements in support of weapons of mass destruction.
- Italy should urgently sign and ratify the TPNW, and encourage other states to adhere to the Treaty. Until it is in a position to do so, it should welcome the TPNW as a valuable contribution to the global disarmament and non-proliferation architecture, attend its meetings of states parties as an observer, and work with its states parties on practical steps towards disarmament.
