China
View country profileWhat has the NWS done so far (prior to the current Review Cycle)?
What is the NWS doing on this action in the current Review Cycle?
Sources
France
View country profileWhat has the NWS done so far (prior to the current Review Cycle)?
France stopped the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons in 1992 (plutonium) and 1996 (highly enriched uranium). It proceeded to the dismantlement of the facilities producing weapon-related fissile material. This dismantlement became irreversible in the 2000s.
Several visits have been organised on the sites of Marcoule and Pierrelatte for diplomats and media (2008 and 2009).
What is the NWS doing on this action in the current Review Cycle?
France continues to work on the technical dismantlement of the last reactors of Marcoule and to clean up the zone of the former facility.
Sources
Working paper submitted by France. Dismantling of plants for the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. NPT/CONF.2010/WP.37. 12 April 2010. https://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/npt/revcon2010/documents/WP37.pdf
National Report submitted by France. Report submitted by France under actions 5, 20 and 21 of the Final Document of the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (2022–2026). NPT/CONF.2026/PC.III/2. 7 March 2025, https://docs.un.org/en/NPT/CONF.2026/PC.III/2
Russia
View country profileWhat has the NWS done so far (prior to the current Review Cycle)?
Russia ceased production of HEU for military purposes in 1989 and shut down its plutonium production sites in between 1987 and 2010
What is the NWS doing on this action in the current Review Cycle?
Russia has not communicated on further implementation of this action in the current review cycle.
Sources
National report of the Russian Federation, 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (New York), 2 March 2026.
https://docs.un.org/en/NPT/CONF.2026/14
Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the United States of America Concerning the Disposition of Highly Enriched Uranium Extracted from Nuclear Weapons, 1993.
https://fissilematerials.org/library/heu93b.pdf
Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the United States of America Concerning the Shutdown of Plutonium Production Reactors and The Cessation of Use of Newly Produced Plutonium for Nuclear Weapons, 1994.
https://fissilematerials.org/library/gov94.pdf
Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the United States of America Concerning Cooperation Regarding Plutonium Production Reactors, 1997.
https://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/international_contracts/international_contracts/2_contract/47399/
United Kingdom
View country profileWhat has the NWS done so far (prior to the current Review Cycle)?
The UK does not operate any fissile material production or reprocessing facilities for nuclear weapons purposes and “ceased the production of fissile material for explosive purposes” in April 1995.
Production of HEU for defence programmes at the UK’s Capenhurst Plant ended in 1962. Since then the UK has received HEU for both its warhead programme and naval reactor programme through exchanges of special nuclear material with the US Department of Energy under the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement. In the 1960s, the plant was modified to produce Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) for civil nuclear power reactors until it ceased operations in 1982.
The UK has operated three reprocessing facilities at its Sellafield nuclear site: the First Generation Reprocessing Plant (B204) from 1952 to 1964 to extract plutonium from spent nuclear fuel for the UK’s nuclear weapon programme. It was replaced by the Magnox Reprocessing Plant (B205), which operated from 1964 to 2022. The Magnox Reprocessing Plant reprocessed spent fuel from UK Magnox nuclear reactors for civilian purposes until 2022 and for military purposes until 1995. It is now in cleanup/decommissioning. The Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) was a civil reprocessing plant that operated from 1994-2018 but did not separate plutonium for the UK nuclear weapons programme.
The Calder Hall Magnox power station at the Sellafield site consisting of four dual-purpose reactors began operations in 1956 for commercial electricity generation and plutonium production for defence needs. The Chapelcross power station in Southern Scotland operated on the same basis as Calder Hall from 1958. Following the UK government’s announcement in 1995 that it would end production of fissile material for the nuclear weapons programme, Calder Hall reactors were brought under Euratom safeguards and made liable to inspection under the terms of the safeguards agreement between the UK, Euratom and the IAEA. Calder Hall closed in 2003.
Chapelcross reactors continued to produce tritium for nuclear weapons and were not subject to international safeguards inspection. However, the 1998 Strategic Defence Review announced that all reprocessing of spent fuel from defence reactors at Chapelcross would be conducted under Euratom safeguards and made liable to inspection by the IAEA. Chapelcross ceased operations in 2004.
What is the NWS doing on this action in the current Review Cycle?
The UK is currently exploring options to re-establish a nuclear fuel cycle for reactor fuel for defence purposes, i.e. to fuel nuclear-powered submarines including nuclear-armed submarines. The UK states that such a fuel production cycle “will be consistent with the UK’s international obligations, including the NPT. It will also be consistent with the UK’s voluntary moratorium, established in 1995, on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices”.
The UK also “retains the right to resume such activities outside safeguards, under the terms of the UK’s Voluntary Offer Agreement with the IAEA, until negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament on a proposed FMCT are concluded.”
In 2024, the UK joined Japan's Friends of the FMCT initiative, which aims to facilitate political discussion of an FMCT and increase momentum towards the early commencement of negotiations on an FMCT in the Conference on Disarmament.
Sources
Ministry of Defence (2000). The United Kingdom's Defence Nuclear Weapons Programme: Plutonium and Aldermaston – An Historical Account.
House of Commons (1994). Written Answers. Column 573. 19 May. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1994-05-19/debates/fbc99297-99c3-4c01-b8a8-0a97c5731fdc/ThermalOxideReprocessingPlant
Ministry of Defence (2000). The United Kingdom's Defence Nuclear Weapons Programme: Plutonium and Aldermaston – An Historical Account.
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (2026). National report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland pursuant to actions 5, 20 and 21 of the action plan of the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons for the eleventh Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty (London), 2026. <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69df600a53469bbcdf408e8b/UK-National-Report-11th-Treaty-on-the-Non-Proliferation-of-Nuclear-Weapons-NPT-Review-Conference.pdf>
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (2026). National report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland pursuant to actions 5, 20 and 21 of the action plan of the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons for the eleventh Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty (London), 2026, p. 11. <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69df600a53469bbcdf408e8b/UK-National-Report-11th-Treaty-on-the-Non-Proliferation-of-Nuclear-Weapons-NPT-Review-Conference.pdf>
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (2026). National report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland pursuant to actions 5, 20 and 21 of the action plan of the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons for the eleventh Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty. <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69df600a53469bbcdf408e8b/UK-National-Report-11th-Treaty-on-the-Non-Proliferation-of-Nuclear-Weapons-NPT-Review-Conference.pdf>
United States
View country profileWhat has the NWS done so far (prior to the current Review Cycle)?
Many of the United States’ fissile material production facilities were largely shuttered during or immediately after the Cold War.
The United States maintained two plutonium production complexes during the Cold War: the Hanford Site in Washington and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Other sites, including Rocky Flats in Colorado, were responsible for the fabrication of plutonium pits rather than the production of the material itself and are therefore not covered by this Action.
The Hanford plutonium production reactors, which manufactured the plutonium that was used in the majority of US nuclear weapons during the Cold War, were shut down between 1964 and 1971, with Hanford’s dual-purpose N Reactor eventually shutting down in 1987. Following the decommissioning of the Hanford Site, the United States initiated a significant environmental clean-up effort to mitigate harms related to nuclear waste generated by the site. The Savannah River Site reactors, which were also used to manufacture plutonium and tritium for military use, were shut down by 1988. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush announced that the United States would no longer produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
What is the NWS doing on this action in the current Review Cycle?
The United States largely completed the process of dismantlement or conversion of fissile material production facilities prior to the current Review Cycle.
During the current Review Cycle, the United States has continued with environmental remediation and cleanup efforts at its historic fissile material production facilities, including at the Hanford Site, where by the end of 2024 workers had finished removing more than 3 million gallons of radioactive waste.
While the United States is not producing new plutonium for weapons programs, it intends to significantly upscale its capability to fabricate plutonium pits using reserve plutonium at two sites: Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site. Between these two sites, the United States intends to produce no fewer than 80 pits per year once construction and modernization at the two facilities is complete.
In addition, the United States continues to produce tritium at the Watts Bar Nuclear Power Station––a civilian reactor that has produced tritium for the U.S. nuclear programme since 2004. Moreover, in 2026 the Trump administration announced the commitment of $2.7 billion to support U.S.-based uranium enrichment.
Sources
U.S. Department of Energy. ‘The Hanford Site: Understand the PAST’. https://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/understandPAST.
U.S. Department of Energy. ‘The Hanford Site: Discover the PRESENT’. https://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/discoverPresent.
U.S. Department of Energy. ‘Savannah River Site History 1950-1989’. https://www.energy.gov/srs/savannah-river-site-history-1950-1989.
Bush, George H. W., ‘Statement on Nuclear Nonproliferation Efforts: 13 July 1992,’, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush, Book I, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PPP-1992-book1/html/PPP-1992-book1-doc-pg1110-2.htm.
U.S. Department of Energy. ‘Plutonium Pit Production at SRS’. National Nuclear Security Administration. https://www.srs.gov/general/news/factsheets/SRS_SRPPF_Fact%20Sheet_r8.pdf.
U.S. Department of Energy. ‘U.S. Department of Energy Awards $2.7 Billion to Restore American Uranium Enrichment’. 5 January 2026. https://www.energy.gov/articles/us-department-energy-awards-27-billion-restore-american-uranium-enrichment.