This volume appears at a time when the prospects for banishing the threat of nuclear annihilation are brighter than at any time since the first atomic device exploded over the desert at Alamogordo. The last few years have seen an ex traordinary change in the climate of East-West relations. The programme of political and economic reform which President Gorbachev initiated in the Soviet Union and which is now spreading throughout most of Eastern Europe has been parallelled by serious efforts to reach agreement on measures for conventional and nuclear disarmament. This has led to new hope that international peace and security can at last be built upon the firm foundation of justice, respect for in ternational law and a determination to approach problems in a spirit of genuine co-operation rather than one of distrust and confrontation. This new climate encourages us in the belief that the obvious common sense of preventing the further spread of nuclear weapons will come to be shared by all nations. At the same time, we have to recognize two very disturbing facts, which imply that there can be no slackening of our efforts to strengthen the non-proliferation regime.

InhaltsangabeI Nuclear Proliferation: Technical and Economic Aspects.- The Non-Proliferation Treaty: Status of Implementation and the Threatening Developments.- The Adequacy of IAEA Safeguards for the 1990s.- The Nuclear Trade Regime: A Case for Strengthening the Rules.- The Non-Proliferation Regime - Stronger than the NPT.- II Nuclear Proliferation: Political Priorities.- Drawing the Threshold States into a Regime of Restraint, by Joining the NPT or Otherwise.- Towards a Universal Framework of Nuclear Restraint.- Argentina and Non-Proliferation.- The Non-Proliferation Treaty in the Middle East and Africa.- Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones.- Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones, Security and Non-Proliferation.- A Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Northern Europe.- III Nuclear Proliferation and Soviet-American Relations.- The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Relations Between the Superpowers.- The US-USSR Relationship and Its Likely Impact on Nuclear Proliferation.- The US-USSR Relationship and Its Likely Impact on Nuclear Proliferation.- IV Priorities for Pursuing the Objectives of Article VI of the NPT.- Seismic Monitoring of a Multilateral Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.- The Linkage Between a Nuclear Test Ban and Nuclear Non-Proliferation.- A Comprehensive Test Ban and the Prevention of Horizontal Nuclear Proliferation.- International Actions to Stop and Reverse Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.- Beyond Non-Proliferation.- The Indian Proposal at UNSSOD-III: Problems and Prospects.- Appendix: Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).