Justifying attacks on nuclear facilities

Abstract

The recent Russian military attacks on nuclear facilities in Ukraine raise questions about the normalization of kinetic military operations carried out by states against nuclear facilities. Although doubts persist about their practical efficacy, the first and second amendment protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions expressly prohibit kinetic attacks on nuclear facilities. Nonetheless, the practice of targeting nuclear facilities as a tool of statecraft has been gradually normalized. This article seeks to explore the reasons behind this trend through a historical analysis of past instances of attacks on nuclear facilities, with a particular emphasis on the rationale offered by the attacking states and the subsequent political responses of the international community. The analysis reveals that the lax legal regulation of such attacks is not a flaw but rather a feature of the global nuclear-nonproliferation regime. Because these kinds of attacks are seen as playing an important role in that regime, there has been an enduring endeavor to maintain the practice, which has prevented the establishment of a more stringent legal framework. As a consequence, this practice continues to be permissible as a mechanism of coercion inherent in the regime. But it also has been applied outside that context, in Ukraine.