Non-proliferation Agreements Research Articles

Failure of International Agreements in Confronting Environmental Crimes: A Case Study of the Climate Crisis in Vanuatu

The fossil fuel non-proliferation agreement comes in response to the escalating climate crisis threatening Vanuatu, which was raised by the President of Vanuatu at the 77th General Assembly of the United Nations. This article analyzes the failure of international agreements as an effort to prevent environmental crimes that cause the global climate crisis, especially those felt by Vanuatu, as well as the extent to which international agreements can play a role in addressing these problems, as well as safeguarding the well-being of people in affected countries. The use of fossil fuels, which is still the primary energy in various countries, has become a focus in the context of environmental crimes because of its negative impact on the environment, including the climate crisis. Although these efforts are considered a step in the face of environmental crimes, their implementation is still limited. From a criminological perspective, the restriction of action through the law is a common approach to tackling crime. However, the issue of environmental crimes and international agreements shows the complexity involving many stakeholders. Taking into account the urgency of addressing the climate crisis and its impact on human rights, countries are expected to prioritize people's well-being. Through literature analysis, this article concludes that international treaties will not be effective in tackling environmental crimes without the support of domestic laws and policies, as well as the commitment of state leaders.

Plague, Pestilence and the Peninsula: International Humanitarian Law Concerns of North Korea’s Biological Weapons Program

Abstract Suspected development of advanced biological weapons by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), despite its status as a party to both the Biological Weapons Convention and other nonproliferation agreements, bears significant implications for both public health and security around the globe. A steady decrease in resources and attention devoted to preparedness for biological attacks or outbreaks since 2001 has exacerbated the vulnerability of the USA and its allies to outbreaks of such pathogens, both from North Korean biological weapons and natural sources. This article assesses several International Humanitarian Law (IHL) issues raised by the prospect of an international armed conflict in which North Korea deploys biological weapons. Historical context is discussed to contextualize the various IHL issues raised by a potential armed conflict, which include United Nations Enforcement actions, anticipatory self-defense, protection of civilians, targeting and proportionality. Preparing for and responding to a potential biological weapons attack by North Korea presents a host of unique challenges for the USA and its allies. An international armed conflict involving the use of such weapons by North Korea against the USA or its allies would be devastating for civilians and military personnel alike. It is thus imperative to understand the IHL issues raised by such a conflict, including circumstances that would warrant pre-emptive use of force by the USA and its allies, the scale and scope of any military response, and the need to protect civilians throughout the Korean peninsula.

The Iran nuclear deal: A Bionian commentary

The threat of a nuclear war became more evident when President Trump walked away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—the Iran nuclear deal. The agreement, reached between Iran and the P5+1 (The United States, Britain, China, France, Russia, and Germany) in 2015, was the most important nonproliferation agreement in decades. In this paper, the author provides a detailed history of the relationship between Iran and the United States starting with the Central Intelligence Agency's covert Operation Ajax in 1953 that led to the overthrow of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran. The impact of the United States' role in the Iran–Iraq war as well as President Bush's declaration of Iran as a part of the “Axis of Evil” will be discussed in the context of the present situation. The challenges facing the Biden administration in negotiating with Iran will be explored, given the past and current chasm between Iran and the United States. The author draws on Wilfred Bion's model of the mind and offers a perspective on the unconscious group dynamics present in the current geopolitical climate around the threat of the impasse, or possible collapse of the negotiations, in reviving the nuclear deal between Iran and the United States. The paradoxes and dilemmas faced by both parties will be examined through the vertex of Bion's concept of the container/contained, and the significance of the “function of linking” as the foundation of psychic existence.

Free-moving Quantitative Gamma-ray Imaging

The ability to map and estimate the activity of radiological source distributions in unknown three-dimensional environments has applications in the prevention and response to radiological accidents or threats as well as the enforcement and verification of international nuclear non-proliferation agreements. Such a capability requires well-characterized detector response functions, accurate time-dependent detector position and orientation data, a digitized representation of the surrounding 3D environment, and appropriate image reconstruction and uncertainty quantification methods. We have previously demonstrated 3D mapping of gamma-ray emitters with free-moving detector systems on a relative intensity scale using a technique called Scene Data Fusion (SDF). Here we characterize the detector response of a multi-element gamma-ray imaging system using experimentally benchmarked Monte Carlo simulations and perform 3D mapping on an absolute intensity scale. We present experimental reconstruction results from hand-carried and airborne measurements with point-like and distributed sources in known configurations, demonstrating quantitative SDF in complex 3D environments.

The Hermit Kingdom’s Forgotten Threat: Evaluating UNSCR 1540’s Effectiveness in Controlling North Korea’s Biological Weapons Program

Abstract Mitigating the proliferation of biological weapons remains uniquely challenging, even 48 years after the ratification of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Suspected development of advanced biological weapons by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), despite its status as a party to both the BWC and other nonproliferation agreements, has emphasized the need for international efforts to keep biological weapons out of the hands of rogue nations and terrorist networks. Among the numerous weaponized cultures believed to be in development by the North Korean military are anthrax, botulism, cholera, plague and smallpox. With a steady decrease in resources and attention devoted to preparedness for biological attacks or outbreaks since 2001, the United States and its allies remain vulnerable to biological weapons in development by North Korea. An ongoing example of this danger is demonstrated by the international community’s struggle to respond to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. With United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540’s expiration in 2021, this paper aims to assess its effectiveness in preventing the proliferation of biological weapons by analyzing the legal requirements UNSCR 1540 imposes on UN member nations. Using North Korea’s biological weapons program as a case study, this paper will evaluate the successes and failures of UNSCR 1540’s legal mechanisms in controlling biological weapons development in North Korea in its penultimate year of validity. This paper will also examine the overlapping roles served by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), and UNSCR 1540, and how their administrative frameworks identify and respond to natural disease outbreaks and biological attacks. Finally, this paper will recommend actions the United Nations Security Council may take to more effectively pursue its mission of nonproliferation.

Do nonproliferation agreements constrain?

One way nuclear agreements might keep signatories from proliferating is by constraining nuclear capacity. Theoretical work on nonproliferation often points to such constraints as an important driver of nonproliferation success. Some have argued that, absent sufficient constraint, states with the desire and capability to proliferate will do so. Faced with more costly routes to a weapon, states subject to technological constraint may abide by the terms of the deal. This perspective poses an important empirical question: do nonproliferation agreements result in significant technological constraint in practice? This article evaluates the empirical prevalence of constraints arising from nonproliferation deals. Doing so requires (1) providing an appropriate measure of nuclear proficiency and (2) developing an estimate of the counterfactual, no-agreement capacity of states that received such agreements. This study addresses both of these points. First, new data are gathered to estimate proficiency, improving upon existing measures in the literature. Second, the generalized synthetic control method is applied to estimate counterfactual proficiency levels for the recipients of agreements. With this approach, the constraining effects of deals the United States implemented with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan and the Declaration of Iguaçu between Brazil and Argentina are evaluated. The findings indicate that the constraining effect of these nonproliferation agreements is minimal.

The future of nuclear energy and maritime power relations

Considering the presence of the nuclear issue in the main international forum and agenda as well as the increase in the visibility of the Brazilian Navy's Strategic Projects in the nuclear area, it is necessary to discuss the long-term aspects of this sector of capital importance for Brazil, which is likely to shape the country's development path in the next decades. This paper aims to propose a reflection on future environments concerning nuclear energy in which organs and sectors of Brazilian society (including Brazilian Navy) will act primarily in areas that have direct or indirect implications for maritime power and its interconnections with national development and international relations. This proposal includes discussing the prospective methods that will allow the reflection on the benefits of nuclear technology for Brazil and the international community, the technological challenges that are still facing for its effective implementation, and the possible revisions or redefinitions of formats for non-proliferation agreements. Issues to be addressed include the expansion of the uses of nuclear power and benefits can it provide to the future international community and to the maritime power; the changes that may occur in non-proliferation agreements. In environments of uncertainty and complexities, such as the nuclear area, the use of this methodology stimulates the interaction among the different involved parts, with its cultural, economic and social vision, taking part in defining the possible scenarios. Planners and leaders can gain exceptional ability to anticipate the actions that can drive the real world and produce potent insights.

Вооружения и дипломатия

The United States’ withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 2019 threatens to dismantle the entire nuclear arms control system built over the last 50 years. It may lead to an uncontrolled multilateral arms race involving strategic, intermediate-range, tactical nuclear and non-nuclear offensive and defensive weapons. This dangerous turn of events is met with different attitude by different politicians and experts. One expanding school of thought postulates that the bipolar world of the Cold War era has given way to multipolarity, so bilateral nuclear weapons restrictions are no longer feasible. This assumption is supplemented by a hypothesis that it is impossible to control the newest weapons and military technologies using previous methods of negotiations and agreements, so those methods should also be abandoned. The focus should allegedly shift to various multilateral forums on creating an environment for nuclear disarmament and enhancing nuclear deterrence, transparency and predictability. Thus, the main premise is that the current arms control crisis is unavoidable and does not pose much danger: it is possible to do without formal nuclear arms reduction, limitation and non-proliferation agreements. However, scientific analysis demonstrates that the above assumptions about the advent of nuclear multipolarity and effects of new technologies are wrong. Firstly, despite deep reductions in nuclear weapons over the last 30 years, the proportion of those controlled by the two leading nuclear powers has barely declined at all, and the nuclear landscape remains largely bilateral. Secondly, the revolutionary impact of military technological progress is not something new, but is a logical phenomenon that has occurred regularly throughout history. Nonetheless, five decades of experience clearly demonstrated that arms control can be very successful, provided there is political will at the highest governments’ level to reach agreements on limitation and reduction of nuclear weapons. Like in the past, in the foreseeable future, arms control measures are able to substantially reduce the threat posed by innovative weapons systems. No doubt, arms control agreements do have their limits. But overall, despite certain gaps and failures, the arms control process has scored a number of historical victories during the past 50 years, and it should remain at the core of international security, even if many problems cannot be resolved quickly or all at once. Only the continuation of nuclear arms control can create political and military conditions for eventual limitations of many innovative weapons systems and technologies, as well as for a phased shift to a multilateral format of nuclear disarmament.

Das Vadanya" To the Multilateral Force: The Societ Union's Role in the Johnson Administration's Decision to Abandon the MLF

The Multilateral Force (MLF) was a proposed nuclear sharing arrangement between the United States and a number of its NATO partners. Proposed in 1958, the MLF was debated until about 1965 or 1966 and was often distinguished by its controversial nature and failure to gain traction. This paper examines documents from the Digital National Security Archive (DNSA), Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), Record Group 59: General Records of the Department of State, and various secondary sources to evaluate the extent to which the Soviet Union contributed to the MLF’s failure as an initiative. The Force is often treated as a narrow and highly technical policy debate by existing literature. However, examination of these documents highlighted the necessity of viewing the Force as a topic of distinct political import in American-Soviet nuclear negotiations. While technical disputes over the MLF’s constitution was an immediate cause of its demise, U.S. policymakers also faced strategic incentives not to pursue the treaty. In particular, the documents reflect growing belief within the Johnson administration that exiting the agreement could improve broader bilateral relations with the Soviet Union and ensure that the international community could continue to make progress on the creation of a nuclear non-proliferation agreement.

Supply to Deny: The Benefits of Nuclear Assistance for Nuclear Nonproliferation

AbstractRecent scholarship on nuclear proliferation finds that many forms of nuclear assistance increase the odds that recipient states pursue nuclear weapons programs. While these studies may help us understand select cases of proliferation, they overshadow the role of nuclear supply in bolstering global nonproliferation efforts. After the risks of nuclear assistance became well-known following India's nuclear explosion in 1974, most major suppliers conditioned their assistance on recipients joining nonproliferation agreements. Case studies of states’ decision-making regarding these agreements illustrate how the provision of nuclear technology has been an effective tool in persuading states to join such agreements, the most important of which is the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). By joining the NPT, states strengthen the global nonproliferation regime and increase the costs of any potential future decision to proliferate. The offer of nuclear assistance has done far more to bolster global nuclear nonproliferation efforts than recent research suggests.

Employing antineutrino detectors to safeguard future nuclear reactors from diversions

The Non-Proliferation Treaty and other non-proliferation agreements are in place worldwide to ensure that nuclear material and facilities are used only for peaceful purposes. Antineutrino detectors, sensitive to reactor power and fuel changes, can complement the tools already at the disposal of international agencies to safeguard nuclear facilities and to verify the States’ compliance with the agreements. Recent advancement in these detectors has made it possible to leverage them to reduce the likelihood of an undetected diversion of irradiated nuclear material. Here we show the sensitivity of antineutrino monitors to fuel divergence from two reactor types: a traditional light-water reactor and an advanced sodium-cooled reactor design, a likely candidate for future deployment. The analysis demonstrates that a variety of potential diversion scenarios can be detected by such a system. We outline recent developments in monitoring capabilities and discuss their potential security implications to the international community.

Iran: An Experiment in Strategic Risk-Taking

The Vienna agreement is the most detailed non-proliferation agreement ever devised, but we will only know in a few years if it was a reasonable bet.

From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-Proliferation Club: South Africa and the NPT

South Africa is recognised for the termination of its nuclear weapons programme at the end of the 1980s. Despite global diplomatic efforts and sanctions, it took South Africa 21 years to accede to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). During this period, global opposition to its apartheid policies resulted in embargoes and sanctions, which served as catalysts for the country becoming a recognised nuclear proliferator and sanctions buster. Driven by domestic and regional threat perceptions, South Africa produced six nuclear devices as a deterrent strategy. It was only by 1987 that South Africa for the first time indicated its intention to accede to the NPT. Therefore, this contribution describes South Africa's position on and involvement in the multilateral negotiations leading to the NPT's agreed text, and South Africa's perspective on the nascent non-proliferation agreement. In order to achieve this, the contribution is chronologically limited to the period 1959 until 1991. The domestic and international motives, intentions and incentives that shaped South Africa's refused participation in the new regime until its ratification of the NPT in 1991, are analysed.

Introduction: Global Order, Cooperation between the Superpowers, and Alliance Politics in the Making of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime

Introduction: Global Order, Cooperation between the Superpowers, and Alliance Politics in the Making of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime

Politics and the Bomb. The Role of Experts in the Creation of Cooperative Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreements, Sara Z. Kutchesfahani, 2014, New York, Routledge, 167 p.

Politics and the Bomb. The Role of Experts in the Creation of Cooperative Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreements, Sara Z. Kutchesfahani, 2014, New York, Routledge, 167 p.

Compliance with Treaties in the Context of Nuclear Non-proliferation: Assessing Claims in the Case of Iran

The controversy over the Iranian nuclear programme is probably one of most sensitive contemporary instances of a situation involving legal issues related to compliance and enforcement of non-proliferation treaty obligations. The allegations put forward against Iran in this context are rarely formulated or substantiated in legal terms, nor grounded in a clearly identifiable legal basis or framework. This article aims at the identification of the specific international obligations that Iran would have breached or failed to comply with, whether contained in the NPT or in other non-proliferation agreements, and at the evaluation of the criteria or standards under which the occurrence of a failure or a breach of treaty commitments by Iran is to be assessed. It begins with an overview of the instruments comprising the safeguards system established pursuant to the NPT and monitored by the IAEA, then provides an account of the treatment by the IAEA of the Iranian nuclear program since 2002, which led the IAEA to declare that Iran was in non-compliance with its safeguards agreement, before assessing the IAEA’s findings, in light of relevant rules pertaining to both general international law and the NPT/IAEA legal framework for nuclear safeguards as lex specialis.

Biosecurity 2011: Not a year to change minds

Yet another year passed without a biological attack, ensuring that the international community could spend its time focusing on strengthening global biosecurity measures, rather than responding to immediate threats. In 2011, two meetings—the Seventh Biological Weapons Convention Review Conference and the G8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction—made progress on finding ways to deal with biological threats posed by non-state groups. Less progress was made in countering the prospect of nation-state biological weapons programs, which is not surprising, the author asserts, since the life sciences are not amenable to the arms control tools that have been used to monitor state compliance with other nonproliferation agreements. The author looks at how the Biological Weapons Convention is evolving to adapt to the nature of the biological threat, and at how Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) inspires global efforts to implement biosecurity programs outside the former Soviet Union. The transition from CTR to global scientific engagement requires the G8 Global Partnership to change its philosophy, the author writes; as the original Soviet-based programs targeted scientists known to have worked in weapons programs, the new goal is not to redirect former weapons scientists, but to establish relationships with scientists who were never in weapons programs. The success of such collaboration depends strongly on treating collaborating scientists as partners, not threats. The central questions for biosecurity in 2012 will focus on the international community’s ability to cooperate and whether it can think creatively and strategically and agree to enter partnerships with scientists from all regions of the world.

The Problem with Nuclear Mind Reading

during the Second World War by the United States for purely military purposes. Since then, extensive civilian research and the use of nuclear technologies for peaceful ends has not erased this military heritage. Almost all nuclear technology in use around the world today is ‘dual use’, able to contribute to the production of fuel for nuclear reactors or the explosive components of nuclear weapons. For this reason, there is serious concern that supposedly peaceful nuclear programmes are being used for, or could become, cover for the development of nuclear weapons. The inherent ambiguity surrounding almost all nuclear technology complicates the control of nuclear energy. Under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), non-nuclear-weapons states must declare all their nuclear facilities and activities and permit them to be safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). To date all cases of noncompliance have involved states failing to declare nuclear facilities or activities, rather than diverting safeguarded nuclear material.1 In the last few years, for instance, clandestine nuclear activities have been uncovered in Egypt,2 Iran3 and South Korea (Republic of Korea),4 and strong evidence of a clandestine reactor in Syria has emerged.5 These discoveries have prompted debates, of varying intensity, about what, if any, action should be taken in response. The Problem with Nuclear Mind Reading

Non-Proliferation and the Dynamics of the Middle Cold War: The Superpowers, the MLF, and the NPT

During the 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union contended both with one another and with the members of their respective alliances in attempting to deal with the issues raised by nuclear proliferation. These negotiations, which covered a number of matters but centred on the conflict between a non-proliferation agreement and NATO plans for nuclear sharing, illustrate in microcosm some of the most important geopolitical trends of the middle Cold War. This episode was in certain diplomatic and conceptual respects an important precursor to détente. It also illuminated the declining ability of the United States and the Soviet Union to manage their respective European alliances, as well as the degree to which Russo-American cooperation further strained these partnerships. Finally, the negotiations and their aftermath showed that, in geostrategic terms, Moscow and Washington had much in common during the 1960s.

Strategic considerations in the US–China relationship and the role of European soft power

This paper analyses strategic considerations within the conceptual, the policy and the systemic dimension of US–Sino relations. Furthermore, the role of the EU’s soft power in the context of US–China relations will be assessed. It will be argued that current US–China relations are mainly a function of the current US foreign policy towards China, which doesn’t take into account that an engagement policy towards China needs to be paralleled by an engagement policy towards the East Asian region. A functional equivalent of the EU’s soft power and its approach of bilateral and multilateral engagement of East Asian actors is a missing element in US–China relations. The thinking on China affairs in the USA can be broadly structured into two different schools of thought. On the one side there are those who favour an engagement policy vis-a-vis China. The engagement school argues that bilateral and multilateral cooperation with China needs to be intensified. Traditionally members of this school are found in the Department of State and the Bureau of the US Trade Representative. On the other side there are those who think of China as a threat that needs to be contained. The politicians and experts that belong to the threat school (e.g. in the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute) emphasize their fears of China’s future role on the regional and global level. Though China has supported the US’s “war on terrorism” after the attacks of 9/11, Beijing’s increasing military budget, its neglect of non-proliferation agreements (e.g. in its relations with Pakistan) and its behaviour within the Six-Party Talks are taken as examples of the China threat. Security policies do not solely determine the relationship between the USA and China. The US China policy is a function of both the US’s economic and security interests. This explains why Washington follows a dual policy of simultaneous engagement and containment, i.e. a policy of hedged engagement. But the current state of affair of the Sino–US relationship does not reflect the rise of China as a de facto hegemon of an East Asian community. It is the inherent danger of the current US China policy that the missing regional component in US–China relations could facilitate the formation of a fortress Asia. Since Beijing holds the key to Asian regionalism, China should be the main target of European soft power in Asia by exporting the principles of regionalism and multilateralism to Asia. To what extent the EU and its model of intraregional cooperation and integration can influence the objective and trajectory of Asian regionalism will demonstrate partly the extent of Europe’s soft power in the international system.