Symposium Nuclear Weapons and International Law: A Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime for the 21ST Century Nuclear Weapons and Compliance with International Humanitarian Law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (original) (raw)
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EVOLUTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL LAW ON THE WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRUCTIONS
Law is a means of controlling, directing, and constrainingpotential actions. If law as an institution is to have international relevance, it must apply to critical issues. The survival of humanity depends on how threats posed by nuclear weapons are addressed. Science, in the service of excessive military means of pursuing peace and security, has placed civilization at risk. Law has a duty to control this risk. At the Security Council Summit of September 24, 2009, the former President of Costa Rica, Óscar Arias Sánchez, a Nobel Peace Laureate, described the current historical moment: “While we sleep, death is awake Death keeps watch from the warehouses that store more than 23,000 nuclear warheads, like 23,000 eyes open and waiting for a moment of carelessness.” These devices are possessed by the five permanent members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council-China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—which are also members of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and by India, Israel, Pakistan, and probably North Korea. The United States alone has over 5000 nuclear weapons in its deployed stockpile and an additional 4000 stored in an assembled state. Russia has over 4500 in its deployed stockpile and also over 7000 stored in an assembled state. The global stockpile of deployed weapons, however frightening, can be quantified with a credibly high degree of accuracy.But the destructive magnitude of a bomb dwarfs imagination.
Introduction : investigating nuclear weapons in a New Era
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MUTHlAH ALAGAPPA two superpowers posed to each other. In the post-Cold War era, nuclear proliferation moved up the security agenda to become the primary concern for the United States and the Western international community. Nuclear proliferation became an even more acute concern in the post-9/rr era. President George W. Bush identified "the gravest danger" confronting the United States as lying "at the crossroads of radicalism and technology." 3 The states of concern for him were Iraq, North Korea, and Iran, which he collectively termed the "axis of evil." 4 Religious terrorist groups also became a concern. Though the probability is low that religious terrorist groups will be able to acquire nuclear weapon capabilities, their interest in doing so and the belief that tt;aditional deterrence will not work against those groups underscore the concern with nuclear terrorism. A third reason for the disinterest in the security roles of nuclear weapons was rooted in a reading of the Cold War as a highly dangerous era in which peace rested on a "delicate balance of terror" and threat of mutual annihilation that should never be repeated. In this view, nuclear weapons were dangerous and immoral and should be delegitimized and denaturalized. The proper focus should be on "cooperative nuclear threat reduction" that includes securing weapons and fissile material, especially in Russia and the former Soviet republics, preventing nuclear proliferation, and moving toward comprehensive disarmament. The world would be safer without nuclear weapons. Nonproliferation became the dominant lens for viewing nuclear weapons and security. It came to be seen as an end in itself rather than one of several approaches to a safer world. Downplaying or disregarding the changing strategic environment and national security imperatives, all proliferation was condemned. 5 A strong effort was made to indefinitely extend the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Fourth, the antinuclear vision was reinforced by uncertainty over the role of nuclear weapons in the information age. Warfare was believed to be on the cusp of a new revolution in which the acquisition or denial of information was the key to victory (Gray :.om). The anticipation was that emphasis on surveillance and information (a presumed consequence of the revolution in military affairs [RMA]) combined with new, more accurate, long-range, and lethal conventional weapons would bring about a revolution in the conduct of warfare that would reduce the significance of nuclear weapons. This belief was due in part to the uncertainty over the role of nuclear weapons in a profoundly altered world. Conventional military capability was seen as the more relevant and useable instrument of policy in the new security environment. A fmal reason for the lack of interest in the security role of nuclear weapons after the Cold War ended was the unwillingness to recognize the security rationales of the new and aspiring entrants to the club and the consequent labeling of these countries as "illegitimate" nuclear weapon states or "rogue" states with irrational leaders who cannot be deterred. 6 Contesting, downplaying, or disregarding the PART I
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This course provides a knowledge base and background for understanding contemporary international relations in which nuclear weapons play a central role. Currently, nuclear weapons policy is of critical importance in U.S. relations with Iran, Pakistan and North Korea. Questions of stockpiles, safety, proliferation and deployment have been ongoing with the Russian Federation since 1991 and with the previous Soviet Union dating back to the dawn of the Atomic Age. In addition, the real but often unacknowledged, nuclear strike capabilities of Israel play a critical role in shaping the dynamics of Middle East affairs. Since the Al Qaeda attack of 9/11, the potential use of nuclear weapons by non-nation states has become a priority focus of national and international attention. The specter of Nuclear Terrorism has become a more central concern than that of Nuclear Deterrence. In order to understand these issues, the course will include study of the fundamentals of nuclear weapons technolo...
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The breakdown of the arms control regime bolstered by the ongoing arms race in the development of new weapon and delivery systems is of grave concern to the international community. Under the concept of flexible deterrence, nuclear weapons upgrades and modifications to lower yields are supposed to expand options for their deployment. The question that arises is, would such use on the modern battlefield be legal under the law of armed conflict, or would it constitute a severe violation of this body of law. The authors argue that most customary principles and rules of the law of armed conflict would not necessarily deem the use of nuclear weapons illegal. However, such use would gravely violate the fundamental principle of prohibition of weapons of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering. The authors examine medical data gathered from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including data related to the long-term health effects of the nuclear bombings. Ionizing radiation emitted...
Fordham International Law Journal, 2011
This Essay proceeds in three Parts. Part I describes the effects of nuclear weapons and the many calls in recent years from across the political spectrum for the abolition of nuclear weapons, including such calls by President Obama both as presidential candidate and as president. Part II describes the Obama NPR and the many respects in which it backs away from the avowed objective of abolition by continuing the United States' Cold War posture, which was premised on the putative legitimacy of nuclear weapons and deterrence and in defiance of international law. Part III suggests how a nuclear posture committed to abolition and compliance with international law might differ from the Obama NPR and highlights fundamental inconsistencies between the NPR and the Action Plan of the 2010 NPT Conference supported by the United States.