Action 8

Since 1982, France has provided negative security assurances to more than 100 non-nuclear-weapon states that comply with their non-proliferation obligations. This commitment by France, as well as by other nuclear-weapon states, is enshrined in Resolution 984 adopted by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 1995, which was reiterated in UNSC Resolution 1887 (2009) and Resolution 2310 (2016). In 2015, the negative assurances given by France to non-nuclear-weapon states were repeated by the President of the Republic, who recognised that these were ‘legitimate’ expectations.

On 4 August 2022, the United States, France and the United Kingdom published a joint statement at the NPT Review Conference reiterating their commitment to security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon states.
France specifies that its negative security assurances apply to countries that comply with their non-proliferation obligations and does not affect its right of legitimate self-defence as recognised by the UN Charter.

In 1995, President Clinton issued a negative security assurance to non-nuclear weapon states party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, with the sole exception “in the case of an invasion or any other attack on the United States, its territories, its armed forces or other troops, its allies, or on a state toward which it has a security commitment, carried out or sustained by such a non-nuclear weapon state in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.”

In its 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), in response to the changing security environment, the United States introduced new language that it “will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations,” and noted that “any state eligible for the assurance that uses chemical or biological weapons against the United States or its allies and partners would face the prospect of a devastating conventional military response.” The document also noted that “In the case of countries not covered by this assurance – states that possess nuclear weapons and states not in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations – there remains a narrow range of contingencies in which U.S. nuclear weapons may still play a role in deterring a conventional or CBW attack against the United States or its allies and partners.” It did include a hedge, however, that the United States “reserves the right to make any adjustment in the assurance that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the biological weapons threat and U.S. capacities to counter that threat.”

The formulation that was included in the 2010 NPR was also echoed in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, although the document and statements from Trump administration officials at the time also appeared to indicate that the United States could consider a nuclear response to a non-nuclear attack “that was strategic in nature, that imposed substantial impacts to our infrastructure, to our people.”