This “India exemption” permits suppliers to conduct civil nuclear trade with
India, one of the three states that never joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).1 The nuclear policy community widely believes this exemption undermines the credibility of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime.
The desirability of providing access to the safest and most efficient nuclear power technology to produce electricity while protecting the environment, even to non-NPT states, is perfectly understandable, even though such supply is contrary to both the spirit of the NPT bargain (as it is presently understood) and the letter of the NSG Guidelines. In agreeing to export nuclear items and technologies to India, the NSG should have required India to accept formally at least the obligations of the five nuclear-weapon states recognized under the NPT. The NSG also should have entitled India to less cooperation from the supplier states than that made available to NPT non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS).2 Instead, the NSG exemption failed to commit India to a responsible nonproliferation policy. Moreover, the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Trade Agreement frees India to develop further its nuclear weapons program,3 grants India a generic consent to reprocess transferred nuclear material,4 and guarantees India fuel supply assurances that have never been offered to the NNWS, all of which agreed to disavow nuclear weapons programs in order to access civil nuclear technologies.
Now, the United States and India desire to take a further step by making India a formal member of the NSG and not just an adherent to its Guidelines. In considering Indian membership, NSG members should agree on criteria that would require India to conform to the contemporary understanding of the NPT bargain. The damage of the India exception is done, but some repair is possible in considering criteria applicable not only to India, but to all non-NPT States, thereby avoiding further discrimination among them. More >>>
Location: Islamabad
