Nuclear deterrence is unstable; weapons should be eliminated, UN envoy tells UN

April 29, 2015

The Vatican’s representative has told a UN audience that “the theory of nuclear deterrence is too ambiguous to be a stable and global basis of world security and international order.”

Speaking at a UN session on the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Archbishop Bernadito Auza observed: “The hopes that have been placed by some in the system of deterrence as a strategy for preventing nuclear weapons use and for providing a stable security did not deliver the sort of peace and stability expected.”

The archbishop said that the Non-Proliferation Treaty “cannot be a permanent solution” to the problem of nuclear weaponry. The treaty was originally recognized as a temporary solution, to curb the spread of nuclear arms, he said. But the long-term goal should be to eliminate those weapons completely. “If it is unthinkable to imagine a world where nuclear weapons are available to all,” he reasoned, “it is reasonable to imagine, and to work collectively for, a world where nobody has them.”

 

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Further information:

• Statement by H.E. Archbishop Bernadito C. Auza (Holy See Mission)