Overview
- Delegates gather Monday at the United Nations for the five‑year review, with the UN disarmament chief urging concessions to avoid another failed outcome.
- Because the treaty requires all 191 parties to agree, the 2015 and 2022 reviews collapsed without a final text, and the conference’s secretary-general now warns a third miss could start an unraveling.
- The arms-control backdrop has darkened after New START expired in February and as watchdogs report expanding and modernizing nuclear arsenals in major powers.
- Japanese officials and civic leaders are pushing a bridge role that draws on hibakusha testimony, with the mayors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima preparing to press for sustained dialogue at the conference’s civil society forum.
- Delegations expect hard fights over references to the wars in Ukraine and Iran and to North Korea’s program, and some states plan to raise AI safeguards that keep humans in control of any nuclear use.