Appendix: Extracts from the Speech delivered by the Leader of the Brazilian Delegation, Ambassador Sette Camara

“There exists a division of responsibilities and, consequently, there cannot but be a distribution of the reciprocal rights and duties between the nuclear powers and the non-nuclearized countries in the solution of the problem of non-proliferation. It is not admissible to build up anything solid and definitive in the field of non-dissemination based only on the unilateral and disinterested renunciation of the non-nuclear countries. All of us have responsibilities in relation to the future generations of our respective peoples and nobody will be ready to assume the risks of a gratuitous renunciation, to transfer to other powers the essential duty of defending the prestige of our Nations, the security of our States and the very survival of our peoples. It is not proper for any government to delegate its fundamental obligations towards its people to foreign powers, to take shelter, unarmed and defenseless in the precarious shade of the famous ‘nuclear umbrella’ of a friendly power.

“No, gentlemen, non-proliferation whether as a global solution, or in the regional sphere can never be attained, or even approached, as an act of unilateral and gratuitous renunciation, offered disinterestedly to the nuclear powers without their being obliged to give any compensation.

“…the negotiations which we are coming to realize and which we should carry on further with the nuclear powers constitute an important precedent which essentially interests all the non-nuclearized nations. In order to count on the support and applause of the rest of the non-nuclear countries, we ourselves know how to defend our rights, to judge our responsibilities and negotiate our concessions against the rights, responsibilities and concessions of the nuclear powers. We are now the representatives of all the non-nuclear powers of the world. The other non-nuclear countries would not pardon us for the hasty, gratuitous, falsely disinterested, almost light-hearted capitulation to the nuclear powers.

“…The signature of the Additional Protocol of Guarantee I by all the nuclear powers constitutes the formalization of the guarantees, and indispensable step for the coming into force of the instrument. If we undertake in a solemn and formal manner to proscribe nuclear weapons from our continent, it is just that we seek to obtain from the atomic powers a concession in a form which assures the same character of a judicial obligation. Non-proliferation, we may be permitted to repeat, benefits the countries possessing atomic arms much more than the non-nuclearized states, at least in the immediate stage, since it guarantees the maintenance of a status quo, in which they figure as a veritable directorate of power in the world of our days. There is no reason why we should be content with exchanging our express and formal renunciation for a flatus vocis of mere promises devoid of legal value.”