At first appearance, NPT Article VI presents no special problem of interpretation. Article VI is a negotiations provision. Many treaties contain provisions of that kind. However, as we saw in Chapter 1, contestation has arisen over Article VI. On the better reading, Article VI is a self-contained provision, not a bargaining chip for non-nuclear-weapon states to challenge the non-proliferation regime that forms the heart of the treaty. Confusion arises, when parties and commentators describe the NPT as an ongoing bargaining process in which parties compete over how the so-called ‘three pillars’ apply. Much of the confusion owes to the thesis that, because negotiating parties in the 1960s arrived at these provisions through a quid pro quo, the non-proliferation provisions apply only if the nuclear-weapon states implement Article VI, the negotiation provision, in a manner that non-nuclear-weapon states approve. Most treaties reflect bargains reached when they were drafted. But a drafting history that suggests that a given treaty term was the result of a bargain does not make that term an invitation to further bargaining today. To discern the meaning of a treaty, one looks first to the terms that the parties adopted, not to the process that led to adoption. Articles II and III, as written and adopted, do not express themselves as conditioned upon Article VI or on any other provision of the treaty.

Even if we put aside the conditional reading of Articles II and III, questions still remain as to the meaning of Article VI itself.

For one, a question was raised at the end of the Cold War about the continued scope of application of Article VI: considering that the superpower ‘arms race’ that existed when the NPT was drafted ceased in the early 1990s, does the ‘arms race’ limb of Article VI still apply? Statements by US officials in diplomatic settings have been read to suggest that it might not. The ‘arms race’ limb has renewed salience, however, in light of the arms buildup on which China has embarked.

A further question has puzzled policy makers practically since the NPT was concluded: what, precisely, does the ‘pursue negotiations’ clause of Article VI oblige a state party to do?