 Ah, that's the clock. Yeah, 15 minutes. Oh, it's long. No, but it'd be curious. It is? Yeah. So we will. All right, then. Maybe we should get started if you're being ready to take your seats for this last panel of this wonderful conference. So I'm very grateful for all of you to still be here and to still be focused on today's topics. I have been asked to remind you that immediately after this session, we'll have a reception. We'll have drinks. And we're all very much aware that it's never a good moment to stand between the audience and their final drinks. But we'll try and make it entertaining for you so that you'll bear with us. We'll have, as in other sessions, we'll have a panel discussion and some questions and answers. And then after a while, we open up for the audience to ask questions by the microphones. I think everybody by now knows to drill quite well. Please queue up. And then we'll take a few questions probably group-wise for the panel to answer. But there will be in a short while, just as a brief introduction to this panel. It's about the negotiations on the nuclear ban treaty, obviously. And this is a relatively new topic on our horizon. We've been debating it for a couple of years now since the discussions on the humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons came to be. And it has been a debate that has caused quite some emotional reactions, both by the staunch supporters of the debate, but as well with the fervent opponents of a nuclear ban. And in this panel, it is my ambition not to repeat those emotions, but to rather look forward in a constructive way and to see how a possible ban and how the ban negotiations can relate to the step-by-step approach, how it can relate to the NPT, and how it might contribute to a nuclear weapon-free world. The big question mark, of course, is for us if and how it can be assured that the existing processes that we have mutually strengthen each other. And my aim is to explore these options together with you in the hour and 15 minutes that we have. So I'd like to introduce the panel. First on my left, Ambassador Dal Higgy. She is the Serving as Ambassador for Disarmament for New Zealand and also Serving as Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament for New Zealand, but not based in Geneva in Wellington. Ambassador Susan Berg, next to her, served as Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation from 2009 through 2012. And you led the US Preparations for and Participation in the 2010 Review Conference. Next to her is Beatrice Fing, Executive Director of ICANN that works to achieve a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons. And at the very end, Dr. George Perkovich, I'm sure you all know, Vice President for Studies at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. So welcome, all of you. I'd like to ask the first question to Dal. What do you think will be the impact of a treaty banning nuclear weapons on the existing disarmament and nonproliferation regime's impact? Any of you who know New Zealand's policy, the government that I work for, won't be surprised when I give you a very straight up answer. And it will be to say that I believe the impact of the ban will be very positive. Positive for disarmament and for nonproliferation. The two sides of the coin, as I've so often heard it said. But I'm well aware that there are about 40 countries at the UN that if you ask them if they thought it was going to be positive, and maybe some of you might be here, the answer would be different. So I'd like to tell our moderator and you all why I think that it will be positive. We have to remember as a starting point that the regime is not at present. The NPT regime is not in great health. Certainly not in a long term and durable way. And there are two principal reasons for this. There's the very widespread dissatisfaction about the amount of progress under the disarmament pillar, implementation of Article 6. And there's pretty widespread dissatisfaction on the part of non-nuclear weapon states about implementation. And basically, there's widespread questioning now about the credibility, the reality, of the grand bargain, as we've always called it. The absence of significant movement on disarmament in the period since 2010 is undermining the credibility of the regime. Second stress point, there's a lot of tension around now about the lack of progress on the Middle East zone. We've heard about that a fair bit during the last day. But all of you know that it was such a pivotal reason for the extension of the NPT beyond its original expiry in 1995. So that's the second stress point. And in addition to those two stress points, let's not forget that the NPT is not universal and that there are some pretty significant outliers outside of it. India and Pakistan and Israel have made it clear that they're never going to join. And then there, of course, is North Korea, which has withdrawn from it and is certainly not looking like it wants to rejoin or to relinquish the weapons, the nuclear weapons that it has since developed. What then do we need to do? Well, there's a range of things that should desirably be done. Most of them, quite obviously not in the gift of non-nuclear weapon states. But one thing that states like mine can do is bolster the norm of the NPT. The NPT norm, I believe, is fundamentally one based on the importance of eliminating nuclear weapons, both via disarmament and non-proliferation, horizontal and vertical non-proliferation. I believe that the Ban Treaty will give strong normative support and reinforcement to that. It will bolster the legal basis and the legitimacy of non-proliferation and it will reinforce fundamental norms of international humanitarian law. It does meet the expectations of a significant number of the international community about the need to move forward with the legal framing for a nuclear free world. Clearly, it's not anything like a king hit in terms of actual elimination of nuclear weapons, but it's a good step forward, I believe, on the journey. It's a step that tracks the standard route followed for elimination of other weapons of mass destruction, whereby prohibition came first and then elimination. It's a good step forward, not a giant leap, like our title might suggest. It's a good step, but one that is more conducive to progress on Article 6 than the small steps that we've been all calling for for so long now and which don't actually get taken. A Ban Treaty will not, I believe, undermine the NPT, but will complement it and that's the impact I see it having. All right, thank you very much, Del, for that kickoff. Susan, the second question for you is how do you see the implementation of Article 6 of the NPT and how does it relate to the ban? Okay, great question. I feel kind of like the reservist was called up to drill with the platoon that's already been out in the field and I found that my BTUs are a little tight and it may be because of all the food we're eating, but anyway, I've been off active duty for a while, but it's a pleasure to be here. In looking at this question, I wanted to first start at looking at what NPT Article 6 calls for and the treaty, the language in the treaty commits the parties to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures to halt the arms race, pursue nuclear disarmament and that's really what we're talking about and the debate has been over what are these effective measures. Now in the past, the measures that have been brought to the table as implementing Article 6 have been negotiation of bilateral US Russian, US Soviet and US Russian nuclear arms control and reduction agreements, multilateral nuclear agreements, things like the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, nuclear weapons, free zones treaties and also unilateral measures that the states have taken either to remove nuclear weapons from certain platforms or from certain countries and all designed to draw down stockpiles. Now I take issue with the characterization of these measures as small steps and I think that's really unfair and it diminishes the significance of the agreements that have been reached sometimes with rigorous verification that reduce and physically eliminate existing nuclear weapons from stockpiles. These measures include intrusive verification which is important and when weapons are physically removed from certain locations that's important too and I just don't think that these are small steps. Now the P5s still have a lot of nuclear weapons but there are far, far fewer today than there were in the early days of the NPT. A factor that I think people appreciate but don't really appreciate. Nevertheless, the methodical I would say yet slow pace towards disarmament and the frequent pauses, the pause that refreshes we're in one now as well as the humanitarian consequences movement have stoked what Del called the long simmering frustration on the part of the NPT non-nuclear weapon states about implementation of Article 6. This is the perennial issue at review conferences. In addition to 2010, I was at 1985 and 1995. I've sort of seen this movie a few times. All three of those review conferences had positive outcomes I might say. And this has exacerbated the polarization between the weapon states and the non-weapon states which a long time observers of the NPT are saying is the worst they have ever seen. Now the measures I've just mentioned all contribute to fulfillment of Article 6. And I believe they do contribute to the goal of disarmament and the elimination of nuclear weapons. But we still haven't gotten to the world without nuclear weapons after nearly 50 years and I guess we have to watch this space to see whether the US at least is gonna be committed to that goal in the future. The ban, for those of us who have spent careers working to reduce nuclear weapons and prevent nuclear proliferation, I understand where this motivation comes from. But it's seen as a way I think to cut to the chase. Let's prohibit possession use of nuclear weapons and delegitimize nuclear deterrence policies. And from what I'm reading many of the proponents of the ban assert that this is designed to complement the NPT not detract from it. I'm not here to criticize the ban. Chris Ford did a pretty good job of that today and I look back over my notes and it pains me to say but I do agree with him on a number of points. But whether you believe a progressive or a building block approach is the best way to pursue nuclear disarmament, I personally do. In my personal capacity I continue to believe that even though I no longer have to advocate for this as a government official. Thank God. And that this approach is the best way to reduce the risk of nuclear use or you support a negotiate of a ban treaty as the means to those ends. My first key message is all the parties to the NPT and all the parties who believe the NPT is critical need to be united in their commitment to do no harm. The Hippocratic Oath for the non-proliferation regime and I think that's really important as both sides go forward. The NPT is the only treaty that obligates the P-5 nuclear weapon states and they are obligated to pursue nuclear disarmament. And it's an irreplaceable element of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime and those who have heard me say this before know that I believe that it cannot, you can't come up with a better deal today that would include the 190 parties that we have in the NPT. Moreover, all of the P-5 have made very clear that they don't support the ban treaty. So doing no harm to the NPT means that all of the parties on both sides of the issue must agree to disagree on the merits of a ban treaty. I just don't see a way forward on this in the foreseeable future or the not foreseeable future. And so I think it's incumbent upon all the states who believe that it's important to reduce nuclear dangers, reduce nuclear weapons, strengthen the non-proliferation regime, not let the disagreement over the ban undermine their support for this essential critical treaty. I also would just point out that the steps that have been taken whether it's step by step or building blocks, I kind of like the building blocks concept progressive approach, maybe that's not politically correct these days, but the progress has been made when the conditions were right. And those were geopolitical conditions, security conditions and technical conditions. I don't think there's anybody in the room today that would argue that the conditions right now look very conducive to near or medium term progress on further disarmament. I wish that were not the case, but as I read the newspaper and read my emails, I don't feel that way. So I think that the P5 need to reaffirm their unequivocal commitment to the treaty's disarmament objective at the first PREPCOM. I think they need to assure the other parties that they're still with the program and they're still committed to the ultimate goal. I don't know whether that's gonna happen, but I think that's what they should do. And I think they should also be using the current pause to refresh their discussion on ways to reduce the risk of nuclear use on the way to future nuclear negotiations. If the P5 process is meeting, that's good. The P5 should continue to meet. They have a very big stake in trying to find a way to move this forward and assure the non-parties that they are serious about the NPT and committed to their obligations. I think, finally, NPT parties on both sides of the band debate have a very great stake in finding a way to bridge the divide, identify common ground and ensure that the NPT process focuses on real-world security problems. And again, do no harm and agree to disagree. Thanks. Thank you very much, Susan, for that. Very at risk, the negotiations will be taking place next week, the first round. What are your expectations for the upcoming negotiations? Yeah, thank you very much, Tukania, for inviting me here. It's really great to be here. And I was quite surprised this before lunch when we had this prediction session, and I saw that over 30% of the people here think that there's between zero and 10% chance that the treaty will be adopted within two years. And obviously, the panel, I think, disagreed on that, but it was just quite interesting. I don't know if people misunderstood the question, perhaps. Or maybe, you know, we've learned from recent examples that polling often is off. But I think that there's quite a high likelihood. I mean, nothing is guaranteed. Nothing will be final until it's adopted. But I think there's quite a high likelihood that the treaty will be adopted sometime soon. We hope that the treaty will be negotiated quite quickly. The negotiations are scheduled now in March, and the last session will end on 7th of July. We would like to see the treaty adopted by then. It's possible that it will need more time, and if that is needed, I think that's fine too. And we get a lot of questions on how the treaty will look like. And I think it's, people say there always could be anything. We have no idea what the treaty's gonna look like, but I think we need to look at the other prohibitions of weapons that have been concluded to be indiscriminate and harmful to civilians. There's quite a strong pattern of how treaties look like. The Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Treaty to Prehibit Landmines and Customizations. And obviously, there's differences in them, but the core prohibitions and what is prohibited under the treaty look very similar in all of these. So we obviously think that this is going to be very similar to those kind of treaties in terms of what the treaty will prohibit, the use and possession of nuclear weapons, assistance, manufacturing, and those kind of things. I don't foresee that any nuclear arms states will participate, and therefore I don't think that it will be up to non-nuclear weapons states to negotiate the details of elimination. I think it's, in terms of that question, will be enough to have a requirement to eliminate your nuclear weapons if you sign on to this treaty. I think we all agree that the actual negotiations of eliminations of stockpiles will be done by the nuclear arms states in that kind of context. And I don't see that as worth spending time and energy on at this point. All right, thank you for that initial comment. George, from your point of view, will a ban on nuclear weapons contribute to global zero and under what conditions, if any, would it? First of all, thank you and thank my colleagues on the panel for doing this. In the weapons states, I'm seen as a disarmament guy. And so I also have a great deal of sympathy for the argument that the nuclear weapons states haven't done enough that the disarmament process has stalled. I could do a commercial that had a picture of Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Donald Trump with their finger on the button and put an X through it and say, take the button in these guys. I also think that when weapons states say, but we've reduced by 10% or 15 or 90%, they missed the point that for much of the world, the issue is a distinction of the difference between zero and one. And above one, you don't get a whole lot of credit. And so I think there's a lot there that's motivating many states that feel themselves hostage to leaders of just a few states with these incredibly destructive weapons to try to do something about it. So I think that's understandable and that it's a consequence in a sense of inadequate address of this issue by a number of governments. And I would say there as I start to pivot to the concerns I have, the US, for example, was led by a president the prior eight years who actually wanted to move in this direction. And so I think a lot of the attention that's directed now to the US and the UK where it's easy to travel and you get access to people is misguided. And much of this discussion should be directed at the leadership in Russia, in North Korea, in Pakistan, in China. And because it's in many cases, those leaderships that are A, building up now or resisting negotiating steps like the fissile material cutoff and that are challenging the security of states that live under nuclear deterrence umbrellas in ways that we can enumerate here. And so I think this is the greatest challenge of nuclear disarmament is to really achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons beyond kind of having a short document, a piece of paper that said you should do this to make it happen. You're gonna have to address the security interests that motivate states and their populations to feel like they need these weapons. And so that means addressing the security issues surrounding North Korea and then the South China Sea on the periphery of Russia, on the border between India and Pakistan and then Afghanistan and Pakistan now and we can go into the Middle East. If you don't address those issues, seems to me it's very difficult for political leaders to then go to their populations and say oh yes, we've agreed to prohibit nuclear weapons and then in any town hall in a democracy, people are gonna say okay, but how are we gonna make sure the other people aren't cheating? You see, well there's no verification. Okay, well what happens if Sony does cheat? Well there's no enforcement. Well what happens if one of our adversaries attacks us not with nuclear weapons but with conventional weapons and is defeating us? What are we supposed to do then if we can't defend ourselves? Well you have to surrender. It seems to me that's a hard conversation for leadership in a lot of countries to have and yet rightly or wrongly, that's the perception that a lot of countries have. It's fine for me to go to Pakistan and there's great Pakistani diplomats here who are my friends and say you know what, India does not want any more of your territory. You don't have to worry about India coming into your territory and they will rightly tell me yeah, but they're already messing around in Baluchistan and it's easy for you to say and look, they just appointed this crazy Hindu fundamentalist chief minister in Uttar Pradesh who's anti-Muslim to the core and so what are you talking about? Or for me to go to Israel and say the same thing. Or for me to go to Russia and I've done this and tried this and say you know NATO's not a threat. And like Alexei said, you know I say well the funny thing is NATO moved to Russia's border not vice versa. So from a Russian point of view these things all have to be addressed and so I find the lack of address of those issues in the prohibition treaty to be fundamentally important and therefore I worry and we'll talk about it later that it could actually undermine long-term progress towards disarmament. Thank you George. I'd like to pick up on that point of addressing security issues in the ban treaty. So I have a question for both Del and Beatrice what your view is on this and also picking up on Beatrice's comments about the P5 not being really necessary in order to negotiate such a treaty. Could you please Del could you react to that see if that's your view as well and also to the security issues and then Beatrice. Well first could I pick up on something that Susan said about building blocks and just to make it clear that New Zealand and a whole lot of other non-nuclear weapon states have been calling for building blocks for years and years and years but we're not actually getting anywhere because those building blocks prime amongst them are CTBT never gonna happen, FMCT doesn't seem gonna happen, de-alerting not happening. So I'd just like to say that I don't want you all to think that I'm a dangerous radical or a needless idealist. It's just the other possibilities just aren't happening. Now Susan says do no harm but we've already said, well I've already said that the NPT is already endangered, already in peril. If we want to retain it and certainly I do then we need to shore it up. So that's what I'm talking about when I say that we have to do something more than simply mark time and retain the status quo. In terms of the security issue, well I can see George you put it very tellingly, persuasively but it must be possible to move on a prohibition and still meet those security concerns if the reaffirmation in 2010 of an undertaking given in 2000 of the unequivocal undertaking unequivocal to eliminate nuclear weapons. If that meant something and I believe it did then it is obviously possible to eliminate nuclear weapons and I don't think it's unreasonable for us to push for better progress towards that given that undertaking that we've all believed in for so long. I hope I sort of answered that. It didn't. How is this a ban treaty going to provide security in the sense that George mentioned if countries were to sign up and ratify how do they explain to their constituencies if they are democracies? Well, how does this serve their security? I can only speak for New Zealand. How would we be explaining to our populations? Well, very clearly because we're not under a nuclear alliance. We're not under a nuclear umbrella. So I'm not sure I should be working out for nuclear alliance states, what they would tell their population. What I would be telling my population is that we are doing our best to provide international global security on a sustainable durable basis which works to evolve and improve the international rules-based order and prohibits all weapons of mass destruction. We don't want to rely on a weapon of mass destruction to achieve our security. Again, this probably sounds like dangerous idealism, but that's the New Zealand public's view. I'd be interested in a NATO member's view. Would be, huh? She might not get it. Beatrice, on security. Yeah, I mean, we get this question a lot and sometimes I feel like it's people put it on us to solve the entire, all the problems in the world before we can move on anything. And I think it's a similar, we can see that in other issues as well. The Iran deal, for example, we had a debate about that yesterday. You pile on all of these other issues and kind of very complex things that say you have to fix all of those things first. Solve world peace first. And I think that's also one of the difference between this treaty is that it's not, it's a humanitarian treaty. More, and I guess that people are very used to the reduction treaties and nonproliferation treaties. It's more of a humanitarian law treaty in a way. It's normative. And I think you also have to think about what, you have to base your response to nuclear weapons, not on theories. We can debate the Terence theory endlessly. Pros and cons, it works in these cases, it doesn't work in those cases. We want to base our response to nuclear weapons on facts. What the humanitarian consequences are. What happens when you use a nuclear weapons? I mean, a detonation of a nuclear weapon would indiscriminately slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians if you, in a populated area, for example. But it depends. Georgia. I mean, it's not, I don't, you keep going, I don't need to know, I'm sorry. I mean. Yeah. And of course, you know, not only would a huge amount of people die very quickly, survivors will also be poisoned for long-term and short-term impact. And emergency relief agencies like the ICRC or OSHA has concluded that there will be no response, meaningful humanitarian response possible. They could not help. They would leave people to die. And I think that is what we need to base our response on nuclear weapons to. Not theories in that way. So our response is that weapons that do this to people should not be legal under international law. Georgia, dying to response. No, no, I'm sorry. I have three brothers and a sister and so we always interrupted each other to try to put it off. This is the Fed's dining table. Of course, it's been inverted. Now I know what my sister felt like. So I think it depends. And I don't want to sound like I'm defending nuclear weapons, but as a matter of if not fact, at least it's not a not fact, there are some uses of nuclear weapons that might not result in casualties or large numbers of casualties. You can imagine a demonstration blasted sea or a nuclear detonation on a ship at sea that would kill the soldiers who are legitimate combatants but not have the kind of effect you're talking about. And now the counter argument is that can lead to escalation in the house. But now we're talking about could rather than would. And so to pin something as substantial as a legally binding instrument on what is an assertion and not necessarily a fact, it seems to me is problematic. Just as to say that nuclear weapons, we shouldn't move to eliminate nuclear weapons ever because they're such wonderful deterrents. I agree with you, realize on a theory that could be quite disproved in fact. But I think in both instances, it's a little hard to be absolute in what the premise is on this. And it depends. And by the way, on the issue of mass casualty weapons, one of the things that happens is people in our labs and other labs say, well, we can design some smaller ones if you would just let us that won't actually have that kind of effect. And so we ought to move in that direction. We'll need to resume testing and some other things. So I think we have to be careful on the assertions that any use will lead to a massive humanitarian catastrophe. I don't think you need to say it. I think there's other ways to say it, but that's part of what produces opposition. If you think I'm bad, I mean, I have French colleagues here. And Russian colleagues and so on. I hear it from them, like Pakistani friends. So that's part of the challenge to move forward. But I agree with you that we shouldn't exaggerate the consequences. I think that sometimes a habit for NGOs to do, we kind of built in this, it will be the end of the planet. And I don't think that's helpful. I think if you have a big populated area, it will be a huge number. You can have small, but the fact is that they are indiscriminate. I'd like to go back to the panel and ask Susan a question. We've heard, you stated it's important to do no harm. We've heard there might be some sort of treaty by July, which would be not very short, not very long, but would have some paragraphs, if I understand it correctly. What in your view would be the effects on the MPT review process that we're currently in? That's a great question. And I actually, I know that there have been draft texts around of treaties. I don't know what's, there've been various things over the last several years of treaties. I think, and I'm glad George is making these comments, because I thought I was three against one, and now I realize I'm right in the middle. After this one. But I think, again, we have to agree to disagree. And if the band supporters are gonna negotiate a short treaty that says, thou shalt not, and see that as an effective measure, then so be it. I don't think, if the goal is to delegitimize nuclear weapons and establish a norm, an international norm, I am doubtful you can do that against, you know, a norm against the possession of nuclear weapons or reduce their perceived value if you don't have the states who possess them involved in it. So I understand the theory, but I don't think it works. And so I think something, you know, what I was concerned about in the run up to the 2015 review conference, and I was not involved with it, I'm just an observer. You know, I have to confess, I streamed the final night of the 2015 on my computer, telling my husband when, saying, what are you doing in the kitchen? Oh, nothing, nothing, you know, I'm sitting there, streaming the final thing. It's the sickness, the entity is the sickness. But I do think that, you know, something short and sweet, if that's what it does, but let's not have any expectations that it's going to all of a sudden produce the elimination of nuclear weapons. Chris said this morning, I hate to repeat this, but it won't eliminate any weapons. And if it doesn't have the buy in of the states who have them, I just don't know where we go with there. It makes a statement that I think has already been very eloquently made by the international community through the humanitarian consequences process. Now, Michael Crapon just left, but an article that he wrote a while ago, which I have constantly referred to, oh, there, oh, here. He's already in like, oh, should I, should I? He wanted to beat Bill Potter to it, so there he is. Okay, well, maybe I shouldn't make this point because you may be wanting to ask the question, but you wrote an article called Bombs, Bands and Norms, which I thought made a lot of sense. Is that what you're gonna ask? No? The whole issue of norms. I mean, if you look at the NPT, it's creating an international norm of non-proliferation. And I'm not a lawyer, but with 190 parties probably reflects customary international law. And Michael, in his article, concluded that the norms that will lead to disarmament are those that are created by an extended period of non-use of nuclear weapons and non-testing of such weapons. And we're in that period, that's not a pause, but nuclear weapons haven't been used since the first time. And no weapons have been tested by other than North Korea. And he argues, and I support this, that sustaining both of these norms is really critical because if those norms erode, I think everything else becomes very difficult to proceed. So to your question, a long treaty that has a lot of protocols that talk about safeguards and peaceful uses and export controls that begins to look like an alternative to the NPT and provides, as Andrew Mount, Richard Nephi reaching, you talked, referred to the idea of forum shopping. I think that begins to seriously undermine the treaty if states believe that they have another option other than the Central Treaty, again, under which all the P5 nuclear weapons states are obligated to comply. Forum shopping. Del, how do you think that could be avoided? What could we do? Imagine there is a bound treaty out there. What can we do to make sure that there is no options for forum shopping? I think the forum shopping concern is a little bit illusory, frankly. You've got to have some confidence that the people negotiating the treaty in New York will make sure that the treaty has some consequences to it, some dispute settlement regime. If you're thinking about the North Korea option, let's face it, I wish I thought that North Korea was looking to join a prohibition, was looking to even nominally renounce its weapons, but it's not, it seems to love them. So I don't think it's looking for a forum. So insofar as the forum shopping argument has focused on the fact that North Korea might join the prohibition treaty, as I say, I think that's fanciful. If there were to be a country that joined the prohibition treaty that wasn't a party to the NPT, if it's a party to the NPT, the NPT provisions still continue, under standard international law, Vienna Conventional Law Treaties, NPT still prevails. But if you've got a country that did join the prohibition treaty that wasn't a party to the NPT, then the dispute settlement provisions, the consultations, if that treaty were to move, to abandon the treaty, I don't for a minute think that there wouldn't be a follow-up, both in terms of the provisions of the treaty, but also in terms of security council consideration, as routinely happens, for instance, on North Korea. So I don't see forum shopping as a real concern, but if it is indeed a real concern, and I know some commentators have suggested that it is, I think we can rely on the drafters in New York to do their best to eliminate it. Could you be a little bit more concrete on that? Because what I was alluding to is forum shopping by those that are inside the NPT, and that might not like all of the provisions of the NPT, but would like the ban. I thought I'd covered both scenarios where a country that was party to the NPT was also party to the prohibition treaty. And if it withdrew from the NPT, the NPT provisions on withdrawal, with all the consequences we know would happen in terms of security council consideration and so on, that would still come into being just as the consequences for withdrawing from the prohibition treaty would. I thought I'd addressed the scenario of a country withdrawing from the prohibition treaty that was also a party to the NPT. And then the second scenario when you've got a country that withdraws. No need to repeat, but you mentioned that in the drafting that could be provisions that would prohibit or make it unattractive to leave the NPT because of preference for the ban treaty. Do you have any specific suggestions for that? Well, I mean, it's a standard provision in treaties that build on an earlier legal framework. So for instance, if you look at the biological weapons convention, you'll find a savings provision for the 1925 Geneva protocol. If you look at the chemical weapons convention, you'll find a savings provision for the biological weapons convention and the 1925 protocol. There are established rules under the Vienna Convention on the Law of the Treaties that deal with the area when you have treaties on successive treaties on the same subject matter. So in legal theory, it's not a problem, but I would expect that just like to be WC and the CWC did, that there would certainly be a specific savings provision of the NPT norms in the prohibition treaty. Petra, she also asked to respond to that. Yeah, I just, I mean, I hear this a lot, you know, and sort of do no harm to the NPT. And I think that anyone who's committed to non-proliferation should really celebrate this treaty. I mean, you have maybe 120 governments about to make a really strong commitment to never use or possess or develop nuclear weapons under any circumstance, not as a part of a bargain that we do this in exchange for that. The treaty, the NPT was temporary from the beginning and you have all of these sort of arguments that we will only do this if you do that. So this would be a very clear cut prohibition that will in some ways be stronger than the NPT. I think that we should celebrate that. I mean, we don't really want 120 countries to not want to prohibit nuclear weapons, right? I mean, I think we want that. And in terms of what is the threat to the NPT, I mean, you have countries engaging in huge modernization programs and over $1 trillion that will run over the next six review conferences, these investments. You have a president who tweets about engaging in a new nuclear arms race. You have comments and suggestions that there should be a European nuclear weapons program. You have complete lack of implementation of the agreement in 95, 2000, 2010. And maybe not complete, but on the disarmament parts at least. You have blocking of outcome documents of the NPT and you have blocking of negotiations on further treaties in the conference on disarmament. So really, what is the threat to the NPT here? Well, if I listen to you, the impression I get is the correct me if I'm wrong that you think the NPT has lost its value. No, no, no. That it can be replaced by something else. Absolutely not. I hope I didn't come across saying that. What I'm saying is that there are threats to the NPT. I think that there's a lack of implementation on the disarmament part. I think that we should celebrate the fact that a lot of countries are ready to commit even stronger to never use nuclear weapons, never possess nuclear weapons. I think Susan wanted to... No, I guess I'm a little troubled by the comment that they could make a serious commitment not to possess nuclear weapons because I kind of grew up thinking that the NPT states made a serious commitment not to possess nuclear weapons. And again, that's the one treaty where you've got the weapon states and the non-weapon states together in this NPT framework and a treaty that, if you're talking about use, that's a different issue. I mean, that's an issue of non-use. I'm not sure you need a ban treaty to address that issue. And I know that the United States in the past and probably in the future hasn't been keen on pursuing a legally binding negative security assurance. But that would be something, if the issue is use, then look at dealing with that in the CD or somewhere else and trying to get some sort of a binding agreement on non-use with certain caveats. Now, I don't know what's possible today on that. I know it's been hard to do in the past but I would focus on that. Instead of a treaty that is now, this is a serious commitment not to possess nuclear weapons as opposed to the NPT because I think even that just that comparison cast doubt on the value of the NPT as a serious international instrument to both prevent acquisition of nuclear weapons and to provide a framework under which the five, the P5 have committed to pursue disarmament. Maybe one more question for George and then we will open up the floor for questions. It's high time. George, how do you see concurred insistence of the NPT and the nuclear weapons ban? How do you think, could they exist at the same time? I think they're gonna have to. I mean, I think there's gonna be a prohibition and there's gonna be the NPT. So the issue is over time does the NPT part get eroded because there's not much to erode on the prohibition part. And there I think there's one step and Delk kind of alluded to it and Beatrice could say more being closely involved with the negotiations is I can imagine for example, and this is something that Adam Mount and Richard Nephew suggested, you could have a clause in the prohibition that a state found in non-compliance with safeguards obligations by the IAEA would lose its standing under a prohibition treaty. So you couldn't, so a state couldn't say, yes, I'm problematic in the NPT but I'm still committed to all of this through the prohibition treaty. It'd be a simple clause to add in the thing that would reassure a lot of people. It would take away the form shopping argument, for example, it'd be a straightforward thing to do. I think the other worry I would have is how it plays out going forward politically in states like yours and I don't wanna put you and our Dutch colleagues on the spot or German colleagues or Japanese colleagues or others that I talked to states that are in alliance relationships and that have potential adversaries that are conventionally more powerful than most of the individual states in those alliances and so they're relying on extended nuclear deterrence and they also have populations that are, that at the moment in some cases strongly favor nuclear disarmament and so the extent that the prohibition treaty makes that issue acute in domestic politics, I think there's a real possibility for damage and one kind of damage has been widely remarked upon which is the disarmament part of the population is kind of prevailing and the government which wants to maintain an alliance like NATO or the US Japan or the US South Korea alliance comes under severe pressure and you have that kind of challenge. I think there's a greater threat to nuclear disarmament over the long term which is if you have that kind of political contest over time I'm not sure but my instinct is that for example, Abe could mobilize a campaign in favor of retaining the nuclear element of the alliance relationship and he'd win and I think over time after an election in September a German government if Russia keeps behaving the same way could mount a campaign over a year so far these governments don't really resist they kind of duck but if you actually in this political environment with Kim Jong-un doing what he's doing and the concerns in Japan and South Korea and in some European states I can imagine you get a mobilization if it's really gonna be a fight where you affirm deterrence and at that moment it's gonna be much harder to then go back to step by step nuclear disarmament because some of our nuclear armed friends are gonna say wait a minute the pressure's off. There was this prohibition treaty fine that takes care of it doesn't bind us in any way we've now cemented the role of nuclear weapons in our alliance relationships what are we worried about and so as a disarmament advocate I worry about this is what happened with Obama I mean I'll shut up the Prague speech which I applauded actually produced a very powerful backlash from the US nuclear establishment some of the defense establishment in the Republican party Obama's supporters for the most part applauded the speech and said we got a president who wants to do this let's go on and do other things. That resistance is now running the country in a sense and it's similar thing happened in Russia and so I worry about backlash and what happens next. Could I have a post script? A extremely brief one because there's a bit of a queue extremely brief post script to the early part of George's statement regarding forum shopping and I think there was a suggestion that the treaty could make sure forum shopping wasn't possible by building in a provision that a party to the prohibition treaty had to be a party in good standing to the NPT. Now no drafters of a new treaty intended to be ultimately hopefully a global regime going to build into it the impossibility of it ever including those countries that won't join the NPT. Right which is why I didn't say that. Maybe we shouldn't, we should stop this one here and go to the queue. You're right, you're right. We'll take a few questions. The center, not on, how about this, does this work? Yeah. So I have a question for Dell and Beatrice and I have a question for Susan and George. Dell, Beatrice, is there a need for, is there a contemplation of an entry into force provision in this treaty? And so Susan and George, would you at least acknowledge that the two most important norms we've got, testing, battlefield use, would not be adversely affected by this treaty? We'll take another question because this counts as two questions. Howard Moreland, I would like to comment on the idea that there are useful uses for nuclear weapons. I've been challenging people for a couple of decades now to explain to me a scenario in which the detonation of a US nuclear weapon will improve the situation that caused the detonation to happen. I don't think there is one. I don't think our nuclear weapons, particularly the US nuclear weapons, have a mission. We've got preemption against Russian missile silos, which is suicidal. We've got destroying a dozen cities at once, which we're not gonna do unless we're crazy. And every other military target can be destroyed with precision weapons that don't poison the landscape, don't cross the nuclear threshold. We don't have a military need for nuclear weapons. We have them for domestic political reasons that are based on misinformation and other things. What is your question? But I don't think we have a military use- Could you follow me to your question, please? My question is, tell me in detail exactly when the use of a US nuclear weapon will improve the situation which caused that weapon to be used. I think this is a good moment to go back to the panel, but I see a lot of questions, so I'd ask you to keep your answers brief. Maybe, Del, first on the question of entry into force provision, and if you'd like to comment on the second question. Well, the second one would be way beyond my skill set about when the US, oh, let's be on my side. I'll try to answer. Okay, I should take that one. Just entry into force, yeah, entry into force. I mean, every treaty has an entry into force provision, so there definitely will be one in the prohibition treaty. I can say that with 100% confidence. What it will be, I can't opine, but I think that if you look at recent treaties, they try to set some sort of threshold, normally between 30 to 50 states. I think what lay behind that question was maybe the CTBT one, which is like a lesson in not ever putting in place an entry into force provision that can't ever enter into force because the standard setting is so impossibly high. So yes, there will be an entry into force provision. Yes, it will be readily attainable. I assume it to be simply a fairly low numerical threshold. Yeah, I agree. I mean, treaties need to enter into force. So obviously, as civil society, we're going to advocate for as low as possible. I can see the governments will want it higher. We'll get a number sometime. And I don't think it's very complicated. I'm also looking forward to hearing the explanation of the other question. I think that the United States government could have come to Oslo and Ritz and made that clear. I know that we could debate that forever, but I wish they would have been there and it said these things. I'm thinking of it. Susan, about the norms that are in existence. About, would they, you want to acknowledge that they would not be affected by a ban, the non-use and non-testing? I don't have any idea today, okay, what will be affected by anything. But I don't think, if the idea was the ban would somehow cause behavioral changes or attitude changes on the part of the weapons possessors, I don't believe that's the case. But I do, I'm a firm believer in the thesis you put forward that we need to maintain non-use and non-testing and then continue to march down the road. And I don't want to, so I just don't know and I wouldn't even hazard a guess in today's environment to tell you the truth. I agree with her. I don't think it would affect the norm on use and testing, but Howard, I, let's- Very briefly, George. Yeah, let's say that the US doesn't have a military need for nuclear weapons because I think you can make that argument. And I've made that argument and that's precisely a reason why the Russian military establishment and President Putin says they need nuclear weapons. And it's also an argument that Chinese military makes about why they need nuclear weapons is, and it's how they reacted to the Prague speech. The Prague speech was this brilliant president setting a trap for everybody else, precisely because the US doesn't need nuclear weapons. He was trying to then argue that we should move to a world without nuclear weapons because the US wins in a world without nuclear weapons. We'll go to the other microphone now. Yep, thanks. My name's Heather Williams from Kings College, London. My question's for Ambassador Higgy. So now that we understand how entry into force will happen, my question is what comes after entry into force with the Ban Treaty? And I would just put forward three very brief possible options. Will one be pursuing expanded membership to include nuclear possessors or states under nuclear umbrella? Would the second option be trying to turn the ban into some sort of a convention with verification? Or the third option would it be, is the idea that the existence of the ban itself is enough to strengthen the norm and have an impact on disarmament? So what comes after entry into force? Thank you for that. And we'll take the second question also on that slide. Hi, my name is Jackie Kemper with the Stimson Center and kind of building on that question, actually. Going back to a few of the comments from the panel, in the discussion of how negotiations on disarmament will still be left to the P5, who are currently not interested in becoming part of this treaty. And then also discussing the value of the treaty. I'd like to hear more, especially from Dell, maybe, and Beatrice, on specifics of what you're hoping that the treaty is going to accomplish. Whether that is, well, actually, aside from strengthening a pre-existing norm, what specifically are the aims and where is the value in it? Thank you. Thanks. I think we can take in a third question from that slide as well. And then next round we'll be there, promise. Right, my name is Rebecca Davis-Gibbons. I'm from Bowdoin College. It strikes me that there's been so much energy that it's been expended for the ban with the humanitarian consequences movement. A lot of young people have learned about nuclear weapons because of this effort that may not have otherwise, and yet the P5 largely has ignored this effort. And so I'm wondering, is there anywhere to find common ground between the P5 and this ban effort and all this energy that has come in favor of this treaty? It strikes me that we all care about reducing nuclear risks. So is that a place to find common ground between these two groups? And do you see any hope of that common ground progressing in the future? Thank you. Deli, to answer first, the question about what happens, the three questions basically, and what happens after entry into force, the common ground, and the accomplishments except for norms. So what happens after entry into force depends on a little way on specific terms of the treaty. And we can't, of course, yet predict what those are, but is there gonna be a reporting requirement? Will there be annual meetings of states, parties, or so on? If we look at the most recent treaty adopted by the UN, the Arms Trade Treaty, after entry into force comes this annual meeting of states, parties, implementation support unit, and so on. We can't say what will come after the BAN Treaty till we know its actual provisions, but if underlying that question is a concern, maybe from whichever side of the spectrum, a concern that it will have no impact, I take the point that Susan made before at the outset and also Chris Ford said this morning about, it can't make a pineal eurus because of the variety of existing positions that by states it wouldn't be ready to sign up to it. You can have a groundswell and you can have the enhancement of a norm without requiring it to have a pineal eurus and be Yoskogans or whatever. It can still have impact and influence without having to become part of customary international law. So insofar as that, underlay the question about what happens after entry into force, I'd just like to put that down. Common ground and it's risk, a common ground. Well risk is an interesting one because most people would agree that the risk of nuclear weapons detonation whether accident, miscalculation, design, whatever, has to be something more than zero. But of course we all recall those rather incendiary statements by France in the previous review conference process that there was absolutely no risk to the French nuclear deterrent. So I'm not sure that risk is necessarily going to be the common ground. And just a question about common ground, if you're genuinely interested in common ground you have to be prepared to move off your position to find common ground. I have been irritated during much of the review conference processes by people who keep saying, no, no, you other people, abandon your position, come find common ground, read, my position is to be joined. So I'm a little bit dubious about the false lure of common ground. Susan, do you want to react as well to the questions? Oh, on common ground? Well, that was one of my talking points when I was doing 2010 was we need to find common ground, find the sweet spot in the consensus. And I agree with Dell, I think it's hard. I think there are some areas where, and they're not the kind of stuff, if you're looking for instant gratification, this is not where you go. But I think work on verification, I think that's one of the difficulties in trying to establish a norm for a convention or a ban or something like that that really requires verification. The United States and others at NTI launched a verification initiative. And I never participated, but I read the statements at the end. They never provided nearly enough information for this public. But I think these are areas where serious work needs to be done because if we are to get to that world without nuclear weapons, the standard of verification has to be something which doesn't exist right now. So I don't know that that produces the results, people right away, but it's an area where I think weapon states and non-weapon states can work together. I think common ground and building blocks, and I know this was an area that New Zealand and others pushed, but FMCT, these are things, I know it's old news, it was in the plan in 1968. I mean, my God, it's ancient history. But I do understand that there have been some developments recently on FMCT, kind of taking it up a little notch. This, to my mind, is a nuclear agreement, a non-proliferation arms control agreement that is the best opportunity that we have right now that would bring the NPT weapons states together with the states outside the NPT who possess nuclear weapons. And I know that this is hard, and I don't know what this administration, the US administration will say about it. I know what they said in the Bush administration, but I think these are areas that we ought not let them roll off the screen because they have a significant impact on reducing nuclear dangers. And there are other initiatives like that too, but I think it's when we get tired of beating our head against the cinder blocks, we wanna get something fresh and a new idea, but I just don't ignore the old ideas that haven't been, we haven't been successful at the time they come when there'll be an opportunity to move forward. Beatrice, on those three questions that were asked. Yeah, in just terms of sort of finding common ground, again, I think we have common ground. It's the outcome document from 2010. That was a compromise, not, I mean, that was negotiated for four weeks in New York and there was a lot of countries that wanted much more ambitious actions there and there was nuclear weapon states that wanted less and this is the common ground. And I think there's no one, I mean, the non-nuclear weapon states, for example, especially those that are supportive of the ban tree, they're ready to do it. It's not the non-nuclear weapon states that are holding the implementation of those actions, especially on the summer or not. So I think, yes, CTB, do you verify it? We're waiting, FMCT. People have been waiting for 20, 30 years for that. Come on, let's do it. All of those things there, it's just to start doing it. I think that that is the common ground. So we don't need to renegotiate that. We don't need to focus a whole other review cycle of just agreeing to that again. We've already agreed to it, it still stands. In terms of the impact of the ban treaty and what will happen afterwards, I'm just gonna speak from ICANN's perspective and what we sort of wanna do from civil society. I think, of course, it's, I mean, we've already seen that we haven't even started negotiations yet and it's still, it already has an impact this treaty. It already changes the way we talk about nuclear weapons in some forms, perhaps not this, so much. But it has put questions and comfortable questions to some states that have been very happy to portray themselves as supporters of this armament. But when it comes down to it, actually quite like nuclear weapons, I wanna keep them for a while. So I think this polarization has always been there. I think we just now, people are in some ways telling the truth. So I think that that, it's raised awareness levels, I think, around the world on it. So I think it has a lot of positive impact already. There will be a lot of practical things, as Del said, the ratification, we will work to bring attention to any country that signs onto the treaty, ratifies the treaty, talk about nuclear weapons as unacceptable, as illegal, as much as possible in our community, in national context, in media, trying for us to strengthen that kind of norm as much as possible. We will identify what kind of behavior is now illegal under this treaty and start criticizing governments for doing those actions, even if they haven't signed onto the treaty. And I heard this morning, Chris Ward said that, customary law and how it works, we don't think that this is going to be customary law until it is customary law. And that is going to require a lot. But we will work to strengthen that kind of norm and to build this norm. It's a long-term sort of perspective. So I think we will work to rally the publics in countries. I mean, we have people in Scotland, for example, who are very upset that they are not represented at these negotiations, trying to give energy to movements in nuclear arms states that are working on this and try to start stigmatizing that kind of behavior, planning for nuclear war, exercising for these kinds of things, investments in nuclear weapons, productions, the modernization programs, all of those things. Try to push this idea that this is now unacceptable behavior. George? No, I must take some more questions. Yeah? Okay. That's Edward F. State Department. The ban movement has been very clear that nuclear deterrence is immoral and must be eliminated, but the movement has said virtually nothing about deterrence in general. It would be useful to hear whether the ban movement believes that in a world without nuclear weapons, deterrence using conventional weapons would be acceptable and moral. And I need to push back on another point. I've been hearing for a couple of years the claim that the two-stage process that is being proposed will ban nuclear weapons, then we'll come back at some later time and figure out how to get rid of them is how we always do it. I'm sorry. Not only is that not how we always do it, we have never done it that way. The Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Ottawa Treaty on Landmines, the INF Treaty, all of those. In a single document, we banned something and then we provided for the elimination, procedures, timelines, verification, et cetera. I'm not saying that the two-stage process isn't logical or that it can't work, but it definitely is not how we always do it. Thank you. Thank you. I think we can, I see the clock ticking here. We can take two more questions and then we'll have to wrap up. Thank you, Alex Liebowitz, formally with the State Department. I wanna question one of the sort of basic assumptions, especially as raised by Ambassador Higgy, that the NPT is in peril. I mean, I would like to know why she sees the NPT in peril. I mean, I haven't seen states sort of breaking out of the NPT other than Iran and it seems to me we've kinda dealt with that, hopefully for some time, hopefully permanently, or North Korea and if this ban is gonna help do something with North Korea, I would be both surprised, I mean, grateful but also rather surprised. I don't see where sort of in the real world the NPT is really in peril and if it is in peril, how this ban is gonna stop the problems there. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Leah Matchett. I'm at the University of Oxford. My question is a lot of your discussion is focused on whether or not this proposed ban will influence the NPT and one of the things I'd like to hear, especially the people who oppose the ban talk about, is a little bit more of how we can address the legitimate concerns of non-nuclear weapon states who feel frustrated and unable to participate in an amplification regime or disarmament regime, which they haven't been actively included in, which is mostly focused on bipolar nuclear arms reductions. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I think we give each of the panelists an opportunity to respond to those questions just now and maybe in the seating order that we have here. So, Del, you're up first. Okay. Well, I think that lady who just spoke then provided some of the answer to the previous question. To say it's in peril is overstating it and I didn't say it's in peril. I said it was in some jeopardy and I do believe that it's in some jeopardy. Having attended two rev-cons now and a lot of prep-cons, the extent of the frustration is very palpable. So, yes, it's true that there hasn't been massive withdrawals or any withdrawals beyond North Korea. But we don't talk about that because we'd be terrified if it happened. But nonetheless, in the academic commentary, you will see widely referenced that possibility. I hope it never comes to pass. But I think that to suggest that the NPT is just tickety-boo and it's carry on as we carry on. I think that that's not going to be possible. What were the other questions? About what the NPT is in peril, deterrence, how to address the concerns of non-nuclear weapon states and then maybe the relationship with or how it is always done, relationship to other treaties. And North Korea. I don't think any, and I thought I'd made this clear in my initial comments, that not for one moment am I expecting North Korea to join the prohibition treaty. So there was not to be a suggestion. Someone, one of our questioners, said, how will it help North Korea? I don't think North Korea will join the treaty. I mean, it's an outlier. It's a maverick or whatever. I don't see that the prohibition treaty is something that's going to appeal to it. But I do think the norm enforcement, reinforcement, sorry, I think that that will undermine North Korea's repeated assertion that having withdrawn from the NPT, it's perfectly entitled to develop nuclear weapons. In terms of the two-stage process, well, I guess I'm thinking very much of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which was simply a statement against chemical and bacteriological weapons without any sort of consequence and without any sort of dispute settlement verification. And then later that got developed in those two treaties, but those two treaties also provided for, in chemical weapons, sorry, provided for destruction processes within them. So that's what I mean about prohibition being ahead, often, of actual elimination. You could, as we know, ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and retain chemical weapons, but you had to commit to proceed to destroy them. Thanks, Del. Susan. The NPT in peril, in recent years, I think every review conference, the NPT is in peril. And if you've been to a review conference, it's a high stakes poker game, and it goes till three in the morning, except in 2010 when it finishes six o'clock. And so there is this air of urgency, and it's sort of multilateral diplomacy, that's the way it is. At the same time, I think the world today is different than it was in 1985. And so we are facing an area where in South Asia have two countries in a nuclear arms race. We heard it yesterday. You've got a country that's withdrawn from the treaty that is provocatively carrying out activities that are completely inconsistent. So I don't think we need to say, oh, it's the end of the world, but I think we ignore these developments and the impact on this treaty and on the regime at our peril. And I think we cannot take this agreement or the regime for granted. On an areas of cooperation, I go back again. I think that the P5 in the NPT context, they have a special responsibility because they're the ones that have the nuclear weapons to be paying attention and taking seriously the concerns that have led to the humanitarian consequences movement and this movement to negotiate a ban treaty. This is not crazy stuff. These are concerns that are legitimate concerns and concerns about the ability to respond to a nuclear incident. And I think if you look at our ability to respond to natural disasters, that's a concern I would have too. And so I think we need to take that seriously. It's not aimed at being mean to the P5, but the P5 need to step up and the United States needs to step up and they need to be moving forward, looking at risk reduction measures and other kinds of things. And then I believe that they also need to be more open and transparent in terms of briefing the others on what they're doing. The verification exercise is a really good one. I hope it continues. I think more effort should be made to bring in non-aligned states. There are a lot of non-aligned states that have very sophisticated infrastructures. This should be a more representative group that begins to really tackle the tough issues of verification in a world with lower and lower nuclear weapons and where nuclear materials need to be secured and so forth. And there are other areas. So I think that there are areas to work there, but it's gonna take, it's two to tango, four to square dance. We need more people to be involved. The P5 have a special responsibility and those who want a faster progress need to be as patient as they can be because it's not gonna happen before the conditions are right to happen. But it is deterrence with conventional weapons. Yeah, I wanted to just pick up first on the elimination and provision first. I think that I think the treaty needs to have an obligation to eliminate your nuclear weapons and it can also have a timeline, not just for the elimination of nuclear weapons, but also for all the other provisions, sort of deployment of nuclear weapons on your soil, for example, or assistance, that kind of stuff. You will, hopefully there will be, say, 10 years or something that you get if you can make, like in the land mines and crust emissions treaties. So it's more that I don't suggest that we negotiate the entire sort of verification part and the kind of detailed things that I assume the nuclear arms states would want in such an agreement, but obviously there would need to be an obligation to eliminate in the treaty and hopefully with a timeline as well. In terms of deterrence in general, I think, again, the anti-nuclear weapons movement is very closely connected to a bigger peace movement, but the ban treaty is not that. It's a treaty based on humanitarian concerns. I think war and armed conflicts is not going to be eliminated anytime soon. And this is not intended to fix those kind of problems. This is intended to regulate what kind of weapons are acceptable to use or not. And at some point, if we agree that we will have a world for your nuclear weapons, if we want to have zero nuclear weapons in the world, at some point governments have to be prepared to give that up. And that is, I think, always gonna be a painful decision and there's always going to be people in countries that are disagreeing with it. I mean, in the United States, there's even people disagreeing that we shouldn't do nuclear testing. I mean, I think that, so this ban treaty is meant to help. It's meant to empower those that don't think the nuclear weapons should be around. It's helped to make it harder to justify to keep nuclear weapons around. And this will be painful for some countries and for some people that believe in this, but at some point down the line, if we're going to do this, if we're going to have a world for your nuclear weapons, that decision has to come. George. Just very briefly, couple of things. I mean, I think if that's the objective, then I think a lot more effort's gonna be, have to be put into defining terms, even though there's not an effort to define verification and it's gonna be left for later. I can tell you that if it's vague and short and sweet, you're gonna have a 20 year negotiation at some point over what elimination means. So you can't avoid actually the hard issues. And I think there's an effort here to avoid them and say, let them decide. It's not gonna work that way would be one point. Second point, the BW convention's been mentioned as a model in a lot of ways. And without going into a lot of details, there's a problem with that model, which is the BW convention doesn't really have verification and many states believe it's being violated today. And that one of the reasons that can be managed is they've retained nuclear weapons to deter that kind of use and to reassure themselves in a sense that if a state or more that we're violating it, actually use those weapons, there would be a response. If you kind of try to have a similar prohibition on nuclear weapons that a number of states will go isn't verifiable and could be cheated upon in addition to biological weapons, the international security consequences of that can't be ignored. Third quick point, we talk a lot about the P5. It's very important in my view to realize this is a conversation of at least nine states the nuclear arms states and talking just about the P5 kind of ducks, not intentionally, it inadvertently ducks the very distinct issues related to Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea without which you can't get this done. And so I think that should be addressed. And lastly, I really appreciate the question about is the NPT in parallel. So I think the answer is no, and we can talk about it, but it's hard right now to name the next state that is a likely state to try to break out of the non-proliferation regime. That's all good news. So if the NPT is not in parallel I would argue international security is. And we can have lots of places we can point around the world where international security is jeopardized. And so that I think brings back the argument about the role of nuclear weapons and how to achieve international security that goes beyond the confines of the NPT. Thanks. I'm afraid we've run out of time. I'm sure we could carry on about this topic for hours. And I am sure we will, but not today. So I'd like to thank you all for being present for bearing red dust and for participating actively. And before I turn to George, because I've been told you do today's wrap up. I'd just like to ask you to join me in thanking our panelists. So thank you, Marlon. I am now on behalf of Carnegie and my colleagues all at Carnegie, especially Toby Dalton and James Acton who led this effort to thank you all. And people were quite, what's the right word? Diligent, perseverant, you stuck around. And that's quite impressive. You are asked to please fill out the feedback form either on the app, and some of you know what the app is, or by email which we will send to you, which even I know what that is. I want to thank again our funders who we've mentioned. And then especially I want to thank our colleagues, Erin McLaughlin and Lauren Dweck, really, and Erin's back there, I'm not sure where Lauren is. There's Lauren. They were heroic. They were absolutely heroic in making all of this happen. And you've seen it and it's been seamless. It was actually seamless in the back room for the last couple of months too. So I really, really want to thank them for that. Tim Martin set up a four-mentioned app. And so tell him if you think it's great. Jess Margolis, Bert Thompson, Chelsea Green and Liz Doval are a communications team again. And then many of the people who've helped you out in various ways, checking you and guiding you to places and so on are from other programs at Carnegie. So the institution basically dedicated a lot of personnel here. They're the younger ones. And so I want to thank all our colleagues from Carnegie. And then finally, Katie Beto and her team from Linder Associates. So if anybody's organizing a big conference and you want to hire somebody to do a lot of that work, we heartily remember Commend Linder and Associates. They've been wonderful. There is a reception right out that door, like 30 steps out that door. And we'll see you again in spring two years from now to see how your predictions did.