The Foreign Ministry reports that
today is the 39th anniversary of the date that the
Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and
the Caribbean—otherwise known as the Tlatelolco Treaty—was opened
for signature. The treaty and the organization created by the
treaty, the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin
America and the Caribbean (OPANAL in Spanish), have made a great
contribution to our region regarding disarmament and nuclear
non-proliferation, as well as to international peace and security
and to international law.
The Tlatelolco Treaty, adopted on
February 14, 1967 in the Foreign Ministry’s headquarters in
Tlatelolco, was a visionary treaty. It avoided the possibility of
an arms race in the region by making all 33 independent states of
Latin America and the Caribbean parties to the treaty. Having
consolidated a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Latin America and the
Caribbean, hope now focuses on making sure that the region will
not run the risk of a nuclear threat.
The fact that the main nuclear powers
such as China, the United States, Russia, France and the United
Kingdom have committed in Additional Protocol II to the Tlatelolco
Treaty “not to use or threaten to use nuclear arms against the
parties to the treaty” is a very important guarantee of nuclear
security for the Latin American region.
Although the guarantee of the nuclear
powers is of the utmost importance, OPANAL believes that more
progress could be made if some of these powers reviewed some of
the paragraphs of the unilateral declarations that they issued
when they signed or ratified the two additional protocols to the
Treaty of Tlatelolco in the late 1960s or during the 1970s. Given
the evolution of international law, some of these declarations are
difficult to sustain in the 21st century.
The OPANAL is convinced that using
nuclear arms as a defense in response to an attack with
conventional weapons, which are the only ones available in Latin
America and the Caribbean, is not supported by international law
because it is not a proportional response to the defensive actions
recognized by the United Nations Charter.
The issue of nuclear non-proliferation
is a priority of the current international agenda, with the
understanding that it should be accompanied by systematic efforts
towards general and complete nuclear disarmament, adopting
measures such as the abolition and destruction of all existing
nuclear arms and a swift entrance into force of the Comprehensive
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
The Tlatelolco Treaty has been a point
of reference for the establishment of other nuclear-weapon-free
zones in the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and Africa, as well as
the treaty under negotiation in Central Asia. From April 26-28,
2005, the first conference for states party to and signatories of
treaties establishing nuclear-weapon-free zones was held in Mexico
City. This was a milestone in the fight to make progress towards
nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.
During the conference, the parties and
signatories to the Treaty of Tlatelolco, as well as Rarotonga,
Bangkok, Pelindaba and Mongolia that unilaterally declared
themselves to be nuclear-weapon-free countries, emitted a
declaration that represents 109 states and that agrees to
establish a mechanism for coordination and cooperation between
them.
