Non-compliance: Who decides, what to do?

The nuclear arms control agenda has three inter-linked components: non-proliferation, arms control (for example, de-alerting and de-mating), and disarmament (the partial, limited or total abolition of nuclear weapons). Some states focus solely on disarmament as the most urgent task in order to camouflage their own proliferation agendas. Some others focus on non-proliferation as the immediate and most urgent priority, in order to evade their responsibility for disarmament within a foreseeable time frame. Both groups invoke arms control as a refuge from calls for non-proliferation and disarmament, and to obfuscate rather than clarify, let alone advance the agenda. Both seek also to invoke the mantle of the 'international community' to their respective and competing points of view. In fact, the closest and most substantial articulation of the point of view of the international community was the 'Principles and Objectives for Non-Proliferation and Disarmament' adopted by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference in May 1995. The NPT has become the embodiment of the non-proliferation norm and has the widest membership of any arms control agreement in history. My intention is to explore the question of who decides if non-compliance has occurred with respect to the non-proliferation norm and, if it has, what can be done about it. I do so in four steps. After a brief statement of what I understand by non-proliferation, I identify the different categories of proliferation-sensitive actors in the following section. I then offer a short comment on international law and norms. In the fourth section, I canvass the range of actors who can form the answer to the first part of my question for the day. Finally, I explore the answer to the second part of the question.