concentrate on a single issue, with no responsibility for the impact that their
undoubtedly good work in one policy area may have to resources or even
policy plans in another area.
Many NGOs operate in a national, as opposed to the international, arena
and are often partially involved with government. The NSPCC, for example,
not only provides its own children’s homes and child-care investigation
activities, but it has statutory authority in some contexts. The rise to promi-
nence of NGOs is in part due to the failure of governments to mobilize
resources, but it goes also to the widespread distrust of the state in civil society,
and to the inherently suspect nature of individual states acting at the interna-
tional level. It is notable that many large NGOs have less trouble recruiting
young professionals for their services than the national civil services, even
though the financial rewards are very much less.
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
One of the early fruits of international attempts to limit the danger of nuclear
warfare was the signing in 1968 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This was
signed at the time by only three of the five then known nuclear powers, the
United Kingdom, the USA and the Soviet Union, who undertook not to
provide the technology for making nuclear weapons to those countries who
had not already acquired it. The idea seems to have been that international
instability was particularly likely to arise if a country not locked into the
superpowerstrategic deterrence game was able to make such weapons. It
seems also to have been thought that such a new nuclear power, especially if its
principal adversary had not yet become nuclear, would be much more tempted
to use the weapons than were the existing nuclear powers. The treaty was also
available for signing by those non-nuclear powers who wished publicly to state
that they would never seek to develop or purchase such technology.
It is unclear whether the treaty has or could have any effect. Not only did
France and the People’s Republic of China refuse, until 1992, to accord to the
treaty, theoretically on the grounds that it discriminated too much in favour of
those powers who were already nuclear, but the technology cannot easily be
constrained. Apart from a real difficulty in distinguishing between peaceful,
energy-producing nuclear technology and potentially warlike usage, the
scientific mysteries are not so great, nor the secrecy so well enforced, that a
medium-sized nation cannot develop a weapon quite unaided. Entirely non-
alarmist estimates suggest, for example, that at least seven nations which were
non-nuclear in 1968 are now nuclear, or could develop such weapons within
five years of so deciding. These include Argentina, India, Pakistan, Brazil and
Egypt, as well as Iraq, which is now known to have such a programme. Israel is,
of course, a nuclear power and managed this with no overt help from any other
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)