Abstract
ABSTRACTBy refusing to sign the new UN Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty, Japan has put itself on the wrong side of history, geography, legality, morality, and humanity. The treaty is part of the broad historically progressive trend since 1945 to limit and abolish nuclear weapons and their use. The normative architecture includes the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, regional nuclear weapon-free zones, the Proliferation Security Initiative, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Geographically, global nuclear risks and threats exist in especially acute form in the Asia-Pacific and most states of the region voted solidly for the ban treaty. The NPT’s legal obligation to eliminate nuclear weapons was strengthened by the World Court’s Advisory Opinion in 1996. Most countries and peoples of the world overwhelmingly abhor the bomb as deeply immoral. The ban treaty expresses their collective moral revulsion and is rooted in humanitarian principles.
Highlights
As of 2017, two of three classes of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) had been banned by the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention
By refusing to sign the new UN Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty, Japan has put itself on the wrong side of history, geography, legality, morality, and humanity
Disenchanted with the recalcitrance of the nuclear weapon states (NWS) on disarmament, two-thirds of Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) parties have proven that serious negotiations can produce an acceptable nuclear disarmament text in less than four weeks of multilateral negotiations conducted in good faith and with goodwill
Summary
To cite this article: Ramesh Thakur (2018) Japan and the Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty: The Wrong Side of History, Geography, Legality, Morality, and Humanity, Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, 1:1, 11-31, DOI: 10.1080/25751654.2018.1407579 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/25751654.2018.1407579
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