Paper delivered as part of Panel 22: The 1970s - A Decade of Arms Control, Disarmament and Nuclear Non-Proliferation.
Abstract of Paper: The objective for Ireland and like-minded small states ('middle powers') at the 1975 NPT RevCon was to manage the expectations gap and establish the NPT on a firm footing. Their efforst saved the RevCon from ignominious collapse. In brokering a Final Declaration they reaffirmed the principles of the NPT. Working loosely together in a form of epistemic community of 'concerned' non-proliferation states, they constructed a ceasefire between the aggrieved Non-Nuclear Weapons States (NNWS) of the developing 'South' and the Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) of the 'North', and their allies, when their sharply divergent perspectives and arguments threatened to rob the treaty of any legitimacy in its formative stage. Small and 'middle powers', such as Ireland, assured the NPT survived its infancy.
College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, UCC; School of History, UCC.