Treaty reached to ban nuclear arms; now comes the hard part

For the first time in the seven-decade effort to avert a nuclear war, a global treaty has been negotiated that proponents say would, if successful, lead to the destruction of all nuclear weapons and forever prohibit their use.

Negotiators representing two-thirds of the 192-member United Nations finalized the 10-page treaty this week after months of talks.

The document, called the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, was formally adopted Friday at U.N. headquarters in New York during the final session of the negotiation conference.

It will be open for signature by any member state starting Sept. 20 during the annual General Assembly and will enter into legal force 90 days after it has been ratified by 50 countries.

Cheers and applause erupted among the delegates after the vote was tallied, with 122 in favor and one against — the Netherlands, the only NATO member that participated in the conference. Singapore abstained.

The participants did not include any of the world’s nine nuclear-armed countries, which conspicuously boycotted the negotiations.

Some critics of the treaty, including the United States and its close Western allies, publicly rejected the entire effort, calling it misguided and reckless, particularly when North Korea is threatening a nuclear-tipped missile strike on U.S. soil.

“We have to be realistic,” Nikki R. Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said when the talks began in March. “Is there anyone who thinks that North Korea would ban nuclear weapons?”

In a joint statement released after the treaty was adopted, the United States, Britain and France said, “We do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to it.”

The statement said “a purported ban on nuclear weapons that does not address the security concerns that continue to make nuclear deterrence necessary cannot result in the elimination of a single nuclear weapon and will not enhance any country’s security, nor international peace and security.”

Disarmament groups and other proponents of the treaty said they had never expected any nuclear-armed country would sign it — at least not at first.

Rather, supporters hope, the treaty’s widespread acceptance elsewhere will eventually increase the public pressure and stigma of harboring and threatening to use such weapons of unspeakable destruction, and make holdouts reconsider their positions.