Verifying the nuclear ban: Lessons from South Africa

In July, 122 UN member states agreed on a legally binding treaty banning nuclear weapons. It is likely to enter into force this year. But as ban advocates are well aware, the road toward nuclear disarmament will continue to be a rocky one. Structural, institutional, and technical challenges—all of them deeply intertwined with international politics—stand in the way of the treaty’s implementation.
Among the key implementation challenges will be to devise realistic, credible pathways toward nuclear disarmament—and to establish an effective verification regime that can specifically address nuclear reversal. Treaty signatories addressed these questions in broad terms during negotiations, but they left many details to be resolved after the treaty’s entry into force. And today, no multilateral regime exists for verifying dismantlement of nuclear weapons, either within the ban treaty apparatus or outside it. This article explores what lessons can be can drawn from the example of South African disarmament for the design and implementation of a verification regime for nuclear disarmament.