A big Uncle Sam who has huge suitcase with Atomic energy sign, is looking down his nose at a small North Korean who has tiny briefcase with Atomic energy sign, and telling him " Hey, your briefcase looks very heavy. So, take it down now!!". This was the cartoon from one progressive South Korean news paper in 1994 when some U.S. hard-liners insisted on israeli-style surprise attack on North Korea. I think this cartoon satirized the situation very well. And also, it implicitly suggested every controversial problem the NPT has. With 178 signatory nations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT) is the sole, global, legal, and diplomatic barrier to the spread of nuclear weapons. When the treaty was first negotiated, five nations had nuclear weapons-the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, and China - and experts feared that nuclear weapons would soon spread to dozens of countries. Today only three or four countries (India, Pakistan, Israel, and South Africa) have nuclear weapons, and they remain outside the treaty. The basic purpose of the NPT was to provide another choice-to establish a common nonproliferation norm that would assure cooperating nuclear weapon 'have-not' countries that if they did not acquire nuclear weapons, their neighbors and rivals would not do so either. The resulting Non-Proliferation Treaty, with 98 countries as signatories, entered into force in 1970. The treaty has three basic elements. The first and most important element is spelled out in Articles I and 11 of the treaty. States without nuclear weapons agree not to acquire them, and those with nuclear weapons cannot transfer to anyone these weapons or control over them, or aid any nonnuclear state in the manufacture or acquisition of them. Second, an international safeguard regime is established in Articles III, IV, and V to ensure that a country can acquire the materials and technology for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, but only if it allows IAEA inspections. Finally, in Article VI the nuclear states promise to undertake good-faith negotiations on "effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament. . ." Three of these measures are explicitly cited in the treaty : a comprehensive nuclear test ban; an end to the manufacture of nuclear weapons; and the elimination of existing nuclear weapons. A fourth is implied: refraining from the threat or use of nuclear weapons. Both the Soviet Union and the United States wanted a permanent treaty, but they were blocked by the reluctance of Italy, Germany, Japan, and Sweden to abandon forever their nuclear options. And Egypt, Mexico, and other nations wanted a short-term treaty as a check on the performance of the nuclear powers in implementing their Article VI commitments (which had been forced on the reluctant nuclear powers). The resulting compromise mandated a review conference every five years, and a conference in the twenty fifth year to decide how to extend the treaty. It allowed only three options: extend indefinitely; extend for a fixed period (after which the treaty would expire); or extend for fixed periods. A simple majority vote was required. On May, 1995, representatives from the 178 states party to the treaty gathered in New York, and extended NPT indefinitely after a year-long debates. But it was not easy. The NPT is unprecedentedly unfair treaty. It allows 5 nations to have nuclear bombs with obscure responsibilities and keep other countries out of potential nuclear bombs. Unfairness of the NPT is the main reason the 1994 crisis over suspected North Korean nuclear activities couldn't be resolved easily through inspection and negotiation. That times, North Koreans emphasized three shortcomings of NPT, so they asserted that they couldn't simply follow the NPT. First, NPT could confine the have-nots' rights of utilizing plutonium for peaceful purpose. Plutonium is regarded as a main energy source in 21st century, so the confinement of utilizing Plutonium will cause economic dependency in the future. Second, NPT is intend to ban vertical proliferation as well as horizontal proliferation. However, after 26 years, the nuclear states can still threaten to use nuclear weapons ; they also note that nuclear tests continue, as does the production of nuclear weapons materials and nuclear missiles, submarines, and bombers. Despite several sweeping arms control treaties negotiated in recent years, the most ambitious, the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II), is still not ratified by both sides. Even when implemented fully by the year 2003, there will still be almost as many nuclear weapons in the world as there were when the NPT entered into force 25 years ago. It is clear that the nuclear weapons states have not fulfilled their part of the bargain. They continue to rely on nuclear weapons and do not seem prepared to give them up in the foreseeable future. Quite the contrary, they are looking for ways to freeze the NPT's dichotomy between the nuclear haves and the nuclear have-nots. I'm sure you know about the series of nuclear blasts by France and China right after the extension of the NPT. That's why many were reluctant to agree to an indefinite extension. (for fear of losing a lever to pry long-promised disarmament measures from the nuclear states.) Finally, Question on the credibility and universality of the NPT. North Korean assert that NPT is just one of the tool of the imperialistic U.S. Sanctions by the NPT (IAEA) has only applied for anti-U.S. nations such as Iraq, North Korea. Pro-U.S. nations such as Israel are always an exception. Israel is believed to have 100 to 200 nuclear bombs, although it practices a policy of "nuclear ambiguity," neither denying nor acknowledging its arsenal. And they have never been under the situation that North Korean faced. The moral authority of the treaty is undoubtedly weakened under such circumstances. I'm not talking about the development of Nuclear weapon by North Korean is right but talking about structural unfairness and partial application. ( I'm strongly oppose the development of Nuclear weapon by North Korean. If the North Korean nuclear bomb would blast, it will be on Korean peninsula. Moreover, it will justify ambitious Japan's possible Nuclear Bombs development.) Do you think the justice is practiced throughout the world now?. "It's kind of hard for us to say to North Korea, 'you're terrible people, you're developing a nuclear weapon,' when we have, oh, 8,000. " ( Air Force General Charles A. Homer, who commanded the air forces in the Persian Gulf War.) 모든 생명체는 다른 생명체와 단절된 존재로 결국 죽음을 통해서만 이 고독에서 벗어날수 있다/인간도 역시 항상 절대적인 외로움속에 놓여있다/이 외로움을 벗어나기 위해 인간은 사랑한다//..그러나 연인들에겐 만나서 행복한 시간보다 떨어져 괴로운 시간이 더 많은 법이다............. <에로티즘> 조르쥬 바타유.