After Oslo: Humanitarian perspectives and the changing nuclear weapons discourse (original) (raw)
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.
Viewing Nuclear Weapons through a Humanitarian Lens
is renewed and deep international concern about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from the detonation of nuclear weapons in populated areas. Yet 25 years after the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence remain central to the security doctrines of a significant number of states. Drawing on a range of perspectives, this volume explores what viewing nuclear weapons through a humanitarian lens entails, and why it is of value. Recent developments in this respect are also examined, as well as what these could mean for nuclear arms control in the near future.
Oslo’s “new track”: Norwegian nuclear disarmament diplomacy, 2005–2013
Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament
Adopted by 122 non-nuclear-weapon states in July 2017, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was promoted by a transnational network of government agencies, international organizations, and civil society actors. Now, as the agreement creeps towards entry into force, a debate about the history of the TPNW has begun. While supporters of the TPNW argue that the adoption of the treaty was a reasoned response to diplomatic impasse and the pileup of empirical evidence on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear detonations, revisionists have argued that the humanitarian initiative was never about banning nuclear weapons, but was hijacked by radicals eager to shame the Western nuclear powers or discredit the NPT. Reading the TPNW as a manifestation of "frustration" with lacking progress on disarmament in other forums, observers have framed the adoption of the TPNW as an irrational outburst of emotions. In this article, I investigate Norway's nuclear disarmament diplomacy in the period from 2005 to 2013. Against the revisionists, I argue that the goal of negotiating a new legal instrument outlawing nuclear weapons provided a key aim for the Norwegian centre-left coalition government from 2010 onwards. Drawing on elite interviews, internal MFA documents released on freedom of information requests, and official statements by foreign policy officials, I maintain that the humanitarian initiative, including the pursuit of a new legal instrument, were products of a carefully deliberated policy of strategic social construction.
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.
The Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons
2021
This book chronicles the genesis of the negotiations that led to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which challenged the established nuclear order. The work provides readers with an authoritative account of the complex evolution of the "Humanitarian Initiative" (HI) and the negotiation history of the TPNW. It includes a close analysis of internal strategy documents and communications in the author's possession which trace the tactical and political decisions of a small group of state actors. By demonstrating the unacceptable humanitarian consequences and uncontrollable risks that these weapons pose to everyone's security, the HI convinced many states to ban nuclear weapons and reject the policy of nuclear deterrence as unsustainable and illegitimate. As such, this book is a case-study of multilateral diplomacy and cooperation between state and civil society actors. It also contains a full discussion of both sides of the nuclear argument and assesses the extent to which the HI and the TPNW have moved the dial and presented opportunities for transformational change. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation, diplomacy, global governance and international relations 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.
The Dangerous Outsider: Historicizing and Interrogating the Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
Open Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 2020
The Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which is one of the world's most widely adopted security conventions, which also proved to be one of the most controversial treaty. Its provisions define the core bargain between those few Nuclear weapon states and numerous Non-Nuclear weapon states. The paper examines the NPT and undertakes an excursus on the dangers posed to the international nuclear control effort by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Using secondary sources of information, the paper examines the NPT by tracing its historical basis. This enabled the study to interrogate the NPT, in spite of its major achievements, questions and criticisms are being raised about the implementation of the NPT and its overall strength. The past years have seen a series of efforts by multilateral institutions to enforce the treaty by combining restrictive measures and proposals for long-term arrangements. These efforts have not yielded results so far. The existing Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) are not required by the treaty to give up nuclear weapons but rather to negotiate in good faith. This has questioned the credibility of the nuclear states to press others to drop their nuclear ambitions. More ominous still, is the risk of the qualitative escalation of proliferation of nations following North Korea's withdrawal and series of test. The findings of the study reveal that the potential danger posed by North Korea are in threefold; firstly, if there is war in the Korean peninsula it could use nuclear weapons against its neighbors. Secondly, North Korea could help other states build a nuclear reactor that could produce materials for nuclear weapon. And lastly, North Korea's nuclear programme could breakdown the international regime intended to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. The paper concludes that the case of North Korea has proved that arms control by example is an important adjunct to specific nonproliferation treaties and cooperative measures. Although it cannot by itself stop states or leaders determined to violate an international agreement or tacit understanding, it can enhance the moral authority of the major powers to press others to drop their nuclear ambitions.