By Anam Murad Khan

Atomic Reporters welcomes the views of a wide range of specialists to these pages. The views of the author are entirely her own.

The recent visit to Pakistan by a delegation of the Conseil européen pour la Recherche nucléaire (CERN) to assess its performance as an Associate Member marked something more than a scientific venture.

For Pakistan, it was recognition of its nuclear dignity–for the broader scientific community it brought into focus the rigid, exclusionary practices of the outdated post-Cold War era nuclear order: can such rigidity prevail in an era of scientific advancement requiring equitable cooperation?

The core issue is Pakistan’s membership status in CERN, a test of whether global scientific institutions, outside regimes like the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), can respect states on merit and not politics. Pakistan’s globally recognized nuclear safety and security architecture suggests that its exclusion stems from structural biases rather than lack of capability, experience or commitment. Henceforth, the visit to CERN is much more than a scientific venture. It is rather a sign that the country’s credentials place it on high merit to be included in the world’s leading hub of science and technology.

The relationship of Pakistan and CERN is a decade old partnership. After becoming an associate member in 2015, the country took part in groundbreaking enterprises led by CERN, Pakistani engineers and scientists playing an integral role in the development of one of the history’s most ambitious scientific projects, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The collaborations involved Pakistan’s iconic institutions of science and technology, such as the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) and the National Center for Physics (NCP).

The CERN visit indicates that the contribution is not peripheral: the three dividends yielded by Pakistan’s associate membership, students, engineers, and scientists, have proved to be valuable assets to CERN. Where Pakistan gained access to cutting-edge CERN global programmes it contributed with its skilled technical force.

The concern now is whether these half-measures gained by associate membership do justice to the scale of such collaboration. The case rests not only on scientific contributions but on the technical merits and credibility of Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure, long subject to misperception.

Pakistan has established itself as a responsible nuclear power, providing nuclear safety and security training to member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and elected as a member of the IAEA board of governors for the 21st time in 2023, affirming its standing.

In 2024 IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi praised Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure on a visit and highlighted the country’s contribution to the peaceful uses of nuclear technologies, commending the expansion of nuclear energy and techniques for health, agriculture, and industry programmes.

As well as governance Pakistan hosts four collaborating centers with the IAEA: the National Institute for Safety and Security (NISAS); the Nuclear Research and Development Center at the Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS); the National Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB); and the Water Resource Management Center at PINSTECH. Often neglected in Western discussion of Pakistan’s civil nuclear programme such activities are integrally involved in global scientific and development initiatives.

This is where Pakistan’s full membership of CERN becomes of strategic significance. From not being a member of the NPT Pakistan is selectively excluded from nuclear governance institutions associated with the treaty such as the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG).

CERN’s mission is an unbiased pursuit of fundamental science. Pakistan’s scientific ability and institutional responsibility establish its claim for full membership based on merit, not geopolitics; its exclusion from the global nuclear order highlights politics, not scientific criteria.

Granting full CERN membership to Pakistan, would set a precedent and acknowledge that pursuit of global nuclear science and technology for peaceful purposes is legitimized by merit and not Cold War-era structural hierarchies. Such acknowledgement would strengthen the legitimacy of international science and technology.

Being a defining moment, this has global implications as well. In this defining moment of multi-polarity and fragmentation, membership would be science diplomacy bridging regions. CERN was established during the Cold War to connect Europe, now its expansion to South Asia can connect the Global South which is usually overshadowed by nuclear rivalries.

For Pakistan, the benefits of such membership would be both material and symbolic, testifying that knowledge is a global commons for the benefit of humanity. Through strong institutional linkage, it would earn recognition and contribute to the collective good, delivering a strong message for the world that science has the potential to outpace politics and performance and merit determine benefiting from its rewards.

Now is the moment to seize and prove that the world community can triumph over outdated hierarchies.

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Anam Murad Khan conducts research on nuclear energy policy and its peaceful applications at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad.

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Image: Pakistan Institute of Nuclear science and Technology (PINSTECH), its so-called “Nuclear Taj Mahal, used with permission by the author of this article.