Why It's Hard to Strengthen the NPT

 

As Deepti Choubey explains in the Christian Science Monitor, the NPT's practice of working by consensus precludes concrete action.   “It’s a massive mistake,” says Choubey, deputy director of the nuclear policy program at the Ploughshares-funded Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. What has become the “consensus” rule means that urgent issues facing the international nuclear regime are often either put off for consideration five years later – or weakly addressed with what she calls a "lowest common denominator document.”  But she sees better prospects for measures updating and strengthening the NPT coming out of this year’s conference. 

 

Christian Science Monitor