Publication

An international regime is a strong as the coherence among its members and the convergence of their expectations and behaviour around the rules and norms they have agreed upon. This fact is not obvious to everybody, but it is nevertheless true. In this article, the drama - or boredom - of the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in New York in May 2005 and the way it failed will be described. A look will then be taken at the two criteria of treaty stability - utility and legitimacy - and both discussed in relation to various groups of states. In conclusion, some steps will be proposed for the European Union to take to limit the damage, if possible.