Nuclear weapon-free zones and the issue of maritime transit in Latin America

Abstract

Why did Latin American states exclude a prohibition on maritime nuclear transit from their regional nuclear weapon-free zone (NWFZ)? Latin American countries and nuclear powers shared common anxieties about the dangers of the nuclear arms race in the early 1960s. Thus, they decided to craft a regional nuclear non-proliferation mechanism. Latin American states favoured limiting maritime nuclear transit as part of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco. However, they disagreed on defining transit and the zone of application of a ban, and they faced US opposition. This article identifies issue bracketing as a negotiating tactic Latin America used to ensure a successful treaty codification. It argues that Latin American states bracketed the maritime nuclear transit issue out of the NWFZ discussions and onto the agenda of the negotiations establishing ocean governance rules in the 1970s. The Latin American construction of a NWFZ questions assumptions in international law and nuclear politics studies about the agency of the global South in the global nuclear order. Latin American concessions in Tlatelolco were not impositions from nuclear powers. Their compromises were strategic decisions that helped them promote their governance preferences.

An Ocean Free of Nuclear Weapons? Regional Security Governance in the South Atlantic

“…In a geopolitical context fixated on territorial nation-states, it is not surprising that attempts by NWFZs to materialise as regionalisms with a maritime dimension have been subject to contention with respect to expanding their respective geographic areas beyond the original landmasses targeted by denuclearisation. The transit of nuclear weapons through territorial waters was bracketed from the Treaty of Tlatelolco, as not all Latin American states agreed on its importance (Rodriguez & Mendenhall, 2022). Even offshore territories explicitly included in the Pelindaba Treaty, like the Chagos Archipelago, been argued to be exempted by NWSs (Sand, 2019).…”