Non‐Nuclear Weapons States Must Lead in Shaping International Norms on Nuclear Weapons: A Practitioner Commentary

Abstract

AbstractNuclear weapons States continue to defy their responsibilities for achieving nuclear, as well as general and complete, disarmament while they simultaneously hold non‐nuclear States to their non‐proliferation commitments. Costa Rica is part of that non‐nuclear armed majority. We take a firm stand that the lack of legal prohibition of nuclear weapons constitutes a legal anomaly among weapons of mass destruction. As such, Costa Rica is committed to encouraging negotiations towards a treaty establishing new legal obligations to ban nuclear weapons once and for all. The time has come for a new era of nuclear politics in which the non‐nuclear majority of States can lead the way in charting the course towards a non‐nuclear world.