Mexico has no nuclear weapons, but it possesses the technical capability to manufacturenuclear weapons.[1] However, it has renounced them and has pledged to only use its nuclear technology for peaceful purposes following theTreaty of Tlatelolco in 1967.[2] In the 1970s, Mexico's National Institute for Nuclear Research (Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, or ININ) successfully achieved the creation ofhighly enriched uranium, which is used in nuclear power plants and in the construction of nuclear weapons. However, the country agreed in 2012 to downgrade the high enriched uranium used on its nuclear power plants tolow enriched uranium. This process was carried out with the assistance of theInternational Atomic Energy Agency.[3][4]
Mexico has been using technologies such asX-rays since the late 19th century. Evidence of the use of variousradiations andradioisotopes for medical activities since the 1920s exists, practices that strengthened during the next decades alongside the use of industrialscintigraphies. Given its huge importance, the investigation of nuclear sciences formally began in the late 1940s with two fields of interest: energetic and non-energetic applications and the study ofnuclear sciences.
The CNEN (Mexico's Nuclear Energy National Committee) started nine programs:nuclear physics, education and training, seminaries,reactors,radioisotopes,industrial applications for nuclear energy,agronomy,genetics andradiologic protection.
During the sixties, the most relevant scientific project on the country was the construction of the Salazar Nuclear Center in the state of Mexico, which started in 1964. Two years later, the center already possessed atandem Van de Graaffparticle accelerator and in 1968 aTRIGA Mark III. In 1972, the CNEN changed its name to ININ (National Institute for Nuclear Research). However, regardless of the new name, its objective remains the same until today.[5]
In 1961 the Mexican government argued that the use of nuclear weapons could not be justified under the right to self-defense in the UN charter.[6] Seven years later the country would sign theTreaty of Tlatelolco in which Mexico and several otherLatin American countries agreed not to manufacture nuclear weapons and to limit its nuclear technology for peaceful purposes only.[2][7]
In 2000, Mexico was one of 7 nations launching a declaration "Towards a Nuclear Weapon Free World: The Need for a New Agenda" calling for further action to implement the provisions of theTreaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.[8]
In April 2010, the Mexican government reportedly reached an agreement to turn over itshighly enriched uranium to the United States.[3][4] The US would help convert highly enriched uranium stored at Mexican research facilities into a less enriched form unsuitable for weapons, thus eliminating all highly enriched uranium in Mexico.[9] Later in March 2012Rachel Maddow reported that all highly enriched uranium had been removed from Mexico.[10][11]
In October 2010 Mexico signed a contract with the Russian uranium supplierRosatom, which will supplylow enriched uranium (3%, a level of enrichment unsuitable for weapons) for the Mexican nuclear power plantLaguna Verde.[12]
In 2012 Mexico was admitted into theNuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) as an observer state, which the US claimed as an achievement in preventing nuclear proliferation.[13]
Mexico signed theTreaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on September 20, 2017, and ratified it on January 16, 2018.[14]
