Opposing Trends: The Renewed Salience of Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Abolitionism (original) (raw)

The Treaty is Out of the Bottle: The Power and Logic of Nuclear Disarmament

Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, 2019

The nuclear genie is out of the bottle, manifesting as nuclear proliferation. Efforts to contain it have generated another genie whose agenda is to establish a verifiable nuclear disarmament regime. Despite several achievements and remarkable stability, the limits of the nuclear arms control and non-proliferation regime have become evident. In the mid-1990s, therefore, civil society, in cooperation with governments and international organizations, launched a concerted effort to promote nuclear abolition. Immediate results included the 1996 International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the legality of nuclear weapons and the 1997 Model Nuclear Weapons Convention (Model NWC). Two decades later the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (Ban Treaty) creates a legal framework and provides a platform to develop a negotiating process and norm-building instruments for a nuclear-weapon-free world. Drawing on international legal theory and international relations theory (and their critiques of each other), this article examines the normative value, logic and power of nuclear disarmament. Taking the existing regime as a reference point, we compare the elements and implications of the Ban Treaty and Model NWC, and draw conclusions across various dimensions, including elements of the treaties and their approaches to elimination, verification, compliance and organization.

The global nuclear order and the crisis of the nuclear non-proliferation regime: Taking stock and moving forward

Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, 2022

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is a central element of the global nuclear order, the primary goal of which is to prevent nuclear war. But this understanding is being threatened by a number of developments. Frustration about the lack of nuclear disarmament and concerns about humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons led to the negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The new treaty has further exposed existing fault lines within the NPT and exacerbated unresolved conflicts over the proper approach to disarmament and the weighting of the NPT pillars. Currently, disagreements over the compatibility of the two treaties and the approach to the TPNW in particular divide the membership of the NPT. At the same time, real proliferation cases test the regime’s ability to act, as norm enforcement is regularly hampered by interference from the great powers. These developments—the absence of genuine disarmament, disputes among NPT members, competitio...

Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation: towards a nuclear-weapon free world?

2010

This book examines the current debate on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, notably the international non-proliferation regime and how to implement its disarmament provisions. Discussing the requirements of a new international consensus on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, this book builds on the three pillars of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT): non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It reviews the impact of Cold War and post-Cold War policies on current disarmament initiatives and analyses contemporary proliferation problems: how to deal with the states that never joined the NPT (India, Pakistan and Israel); how states that have been moving towards nuclear weapons have been brought back to non-nuclear-weapon status; and, in particular, how to deal with Iran and North Korea. The analysis centres on the relationship between disarmament and non-proliferation in an increasingly multi-centric world involving China and India as well as the US, the European powers and Russia. It concludes with a description and discussion of three different worlds without nuclear weapons and their implications for nuclear-disarmament policies. This book will be of great interest to all students of arms control, strategic studies, war and conflict studies, and IR/security studies in general.

Setting the Stage for Progress towards Nuclear Disarmament

2018

Recognizing that the current international context is hardly conducive to arms control and disarmament, SIPRI working paper ‘Setting the stage for progress towards nuclear disarmament’ identifies 10 practical steps to revitalize the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as the principal normative and legal foundation of the global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime. At the same time, it recognizes the NPT’s inherent compatibility with other disarmament initiatives, most notably the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In addition to restoring a sense of common purpose and addressing ‘old’ nuclear weapon-related risks, the paper highlights ‘new’ risks arising from developments in conventional capabilities and emerging technologies. The overarching objective is to set the stage for future concrete steps and initiatives to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and to eventually eliminate them. The paper was co-authored with Dr Tytti Erästö, Dr Sibylle Bauer, and Shannon N. Kile.

Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation

Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, 2010

The road to prohibition : nuclear hierarchy and disarmament, 1968-2017

2017

Year in year out, hundreds of diplomats and civil society representatives partake in a seemingly endless stream of meetings on nuclear disarmament. These meetings seldom produce materially significant agreements. In fact, no nuclear warhead has ever been dismantled as a direct result of multilateral negotiations. And yet the web of institutions that make up the ‘multilateral nuclear disarmament framework’ continues to expand. Why? In this thesis, I identify three waves of institutional expansion in the multilateral nuclear disarmament framework (1975–1978; 1991–1999; 2013–2017), linking them to crises of legitimacy in the nuclear order. Institutional expansion, I argue, has been driven by ‘struggles for recognition’ by non-nuclear powers loath to accept permanent legal subordination. Institutional contestation has allowed non-nuclear powers to exercise symbolic resistance to the frozen nuclear hierarchy enshrined by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its distinction betw...

Shared Responsibilities for Nuclear Disarmament: A Global Debate

American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2010

Shared, But Not Equal Responsibilities Mohamed I. Shaker 40 CHAPTER 8 Shared Responsibilities, Shared Rights Achilles Zaluar 45 CONTRIBUTORS INTRODUCTION The pursuit of nuclear disarmament has been a central component of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, starting with the initial signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968. The inclusion under Article VI of the NPT of a commitment to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament" reflected the desire of the non-nuclear-weapons states (NNWS) not to create a regime that would allow nuclear-weapons states (NWS) to retain their weapons in perpetuity. Governments in Washington, Moscow, and London-representing the only three nuclear powers that signed the NPT in 1968-insisted, however, that no precise standards and no time-bound guarantees about when disarmament would be achieved were possible. The interest and emphasis given to nuclear disarmament by the leaders of the nuclear weapons powers have waxed and waned throughout the history of the NPT, and for much of the past decade, many governments in NNWS have complained that the disarmament goal has been given short shrift by those with nuclear weapons. Renewed interest in arms control and restated commitments to the longterm goal of nuclear disarmament have clearly increased over recent years, most dramatically with President Barack Obama's April 2009 speech in Prague. With that change in focus comes an opportunity for the international community to rethink how Article VI of the NPT is traditionally interpreted and to move beyond the cycle of repeated complaints from the "have-nots" that the "haves" are not doing enough to disarm themselves and repeated retorts by the "haves" that they are already taking every step that is realistic or prudent. The promise of a different approach to the commitments made under the NPT forms the basis of the Scott Sagan's valuable article-"Shared Responsibilities for Nuclear Disarmament"-which was the concluding essay in the Fall 2009 special issue of Daedalus that focused on the global nuclear future. Sagan's paper, and its call for rethinking the balance of responsibilities and the relationship between different articles in the NPT, now provides the basis for a series of invited response papers from seven distinguished authors. These international scholars and diplomats present their interpretations of the commitments made under the NPT regime and suggest new ways in which shared responsibilities for nuclear disarmament may or may not be realized in practice. Their contributions serve to expand the discussion that was started by the original Daedalus article-and together they are intended to spark renewed policy debates about how best to pursue global disarmament, debates that will be prominent at the May 2010 NPT Review Conference in New York City and in the years following that important meeting. The distinguished authors in this American Academy of Arts and Sciences Occasional Paper come from a diverse set of countries and reflect a diverse and crosscutting set of perspectives on the disarmament debate. With respect to nuclear arsenals, Scott Sagan (United States) and James Acton (United Kingdom) are from NWS; Harald Müller (Germany), Jayantha Dhanapala (Sri Lanka), Mustafa Kibaroglu (Turkey), Yukio Satoh (Japan), Mohamed Shaker (Egypt), and Achilles Zaluar (Brazil) are leading specialists from NNWS. Three of these states-Germany, Turkey, and Japan-are U.S. allies and come under extended nuclear deterrence guarantees; Sri Lanka, Egypt, and Brazil, however, do not. With respect to the use of nuclear energy today, Brazil, Germany, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom all maintain nuclear power plants. Sri Lanka, Egypt, and Turkey are aspirant nuclear energy states and have not yet constructed the power plants that they hope to use in the future. The differences in national perspectives and the differences in individual opinions about appropriate disarmament steps among the authors should not mask a commitment they all share. The contributors to this volume agree that new thinking and continued debate about how best to maintain momentum toward nuclear disarmament is to be welcomed. Only by seeking out, and taking into consideration, a cross section of views can progress toward the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world continue. We hope that this Occasional Paper may therefore serve as an important contribution to a global disarmament debate that has become increasingly prominent over the past couple of years. This Occasional Paper is part of the American Academy's Global Nuclear Future Initiative, which is guided by the Academy's Committee on International Security Studies. The Initiative examines the safety, security, and nonproliferation implications of the global spread of nuclear energy and is developing pragmatic recommendations for managing the emerging nuclear order. The Global Nuclear Future Initiative is supported by generous grants from Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr.; the S.D. Bechtel Foundation; the Carnegie Corporation of New York; the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; the Flora Family Foundation; and the Kavli Foundation. We thank these funders for their support. The Academy is grateful to the principal investigators of the Global Nuclear Future Initiative-Steven E. Miller, Scott D. Sagan, Robert Rosner, and Thomas Isaacs-along with expert members of the project's advisory committee-John W. Rowe, Richard A. Meserve, and Albert Carnesale-for contributing their time, experience, and expertise to the work of the Initiative. We would also like to thank the authors for bringing their knowledge and insight to bear on these important issues.

Rethinking the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons

Acta Juridica Hungarica, 2009

The article aims to assess the effectiveness of the non-proliferation regime established more than 40 years ago with the adoption of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Since that time the international community had achieved considerable success in the prevention of nuclear weapons' proliferation. Nevertheless, while noting the results of the NPT and the verification system established under that instrument, one cannot remain silent about the shortcomings of the system and the non-compliance with some of its provisions. By its structure and provisions the NPT has divided States into two groups, distinguishing those possessing and those not possessing nuclear weapons. In effect, the rights and obligations of the Contracting Parties to the NPT are tailored to the group to which they belong, and the gravest violation of the NPT is that when States seek to change their status as defined in the NPT, notably by trying to munfacture or control of nuclear weapons. Under the NPT, research in, production and application of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes are inalienable rights, but their exercise should be in keeping with the basic obligation of nonnuclear-weapon States under the Treaty not to acquire in any form nuclear weapons and not to carry out unauthorized nuclear activities under the guise of their peaceful nuclear programs. While emphasizing the need to strengthen the non-proliferation regime, the article describes in nutshell the nuclear program of two States (the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) which gave cause for serious international concern.

Arms, Influence and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Survival, 2019

The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) has correctly been described as a 'challenge to nuclear deterrence'. 1 But what, precisely, is the nature of the challenge? Prohibiting the development, hosting and use of nuclear weapons, as well as any assistance, encouragement or inducement of prohibited acts, the TPNW was negotiated with a view to amplifying anti-nuclear norms and galvanising nuclear-disarmament processes. Delegitimising nuclear weapons, supporters believe, will help create the conditions for the abolition of nuclear weapons and enhance international security in the long term. 2 For its most strident opponents, however, the TPNW constitutes little more than moralistic posturing or, worse, an enabler for clandestine nuclear-weapons programmes or withdrawals from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). 3 Others have praised the intentions of those seeking to abolish nuclear weapons, but hypothesised that the TPNW could produce dangerous unintended effects, such as unbalanced stockpile reductions or the destabilisation of deterrence relations and US alliances in Europe and East Asia. 4 Still others have expressed concern about the apparent polarisation of the nuclear-security debate, urging more intellectual engagement across the divide between 'righteous abolitionists' and 'dismissive realists'. 5

Opposing Trends: The Renewed Salience of Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Abolitionism (original) (raw)

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