Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons Research Articles

The Impact of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: The Crucial Role of the European NATO Allies

This article makes the argument that the role of the European NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) allies, and especially the non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), may and should play a key role in the future of nuclear disarmament. Once the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is signed and ratified by more or less 100 NNWS, mostly from the Global South, it will be up to the allied NNWS to make up their mind about their role vis-à-vis nuclear disarmament. Will they continue to behave as protégés by (and in some way also protectors of) the nuclear-armed states and break the disarmament process further, or will they shake off the nuclear “protection” in the interest of making progress toward a world without nuclear weapons? This article zooms in on the European NATO allies in particular. The TPNW can and will be used to put pressure on the European NATO allies to switch sides, and it can, on its turn, be used by the European NATO allies to stigmatize the nuclear-armed states in order to make progress in the direction of nuclear elimination. The article starts by reviewing the origins and objectives of the TPNW. In the next section, its impact will be scrutinized. We then turn to the current and possible future role of the European NATO allies.

The Contribution of Latin America and the Caribbean to Multilateral Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament

This article addresses the developments and interconnections between regional and global-level negotiations to prohibit nuclear weapons. Ambassador Sergio Duarte, who has been one of the leading negotiators on nuclear weapons disarmament and nonproliferation since the 1960s and is the current president of the Pugwash movement, traces the history of Latin American and Caribbean efforts to forge stronger ties and foster regional cooperation. He goes back to the first quarter of the nineteenth century to show how those ties laid the ground for the conception of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, the first Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone in a populated area, and facilitated the region’s active role in nuclear affairs. He also dives into other successful arrangements, such as the creation of a binational agency (ABACC) that ensures control of nuclear materials in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to build confidence and increase cooperation in the nuclear field, and he describes the region’s key role in enabling the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

The European Union and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: Let’s Agree that we Disagree

The European Union has traditionally been an efficient actor on nonproliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, but a poor actor on disarmament, mainly due to internal decisions within the Union on this issue. However, due to the growing crisis in the global arms control architecture and the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), increased pressure is being exerted on the EU not only to adopt concrete positions on this issue, but also to act. This, it is argued, will be complicated, if not impossible, due to the internal structure and decision-making process of the Union, which cannot be asked to do more than it can do.

How Great Powers Resist Emerging Norms: The United States and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

According to theories of international order-making, the most powerful states seek to institute global norms that suit their interests. Less appreciated, however, is that powerful states have also sought to undermine certain norms to maintain particular types of order. With their outsized influence in the international system, how do great powers resist emerging norms? This article presents a case illustration of US strategies to resist the reemerging anti-nuclear weapon norm. This norm was institutionalized in July 2017 with the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Though US strategies did not stop the norm from codification within the TPNW, US actions seek to maintain this norm in a state of limbo, whereby the norm does not become fully entrenched within the international system.

Post-nuclear worldmaking and counter-hegemony: Against catastrophic failures of imagination

Abstract Studies of nuclear politics and IR more widely have failed to seriously engage with what future nuclear-disarmed worlds would or should look like. I respond to this failure of imagination by advocating for a project of ‘post-nuclear worldmaking’. Counter-hegemonic political efforts around the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) are a useful first step to ‘connecting’ our nuclear-armed present to a disarmed future. However, they do not tell us much about the broader characteristics of this future. Moreover, they often fail to transcend conservative assumptions of plausibility and probability, which unnecessarily exclude what might be called ‘utopian’ visions of alternative futures. In the context of mounting uncertainty generated by threats to planetary security, post-nuclear worldmaking can assist in drawing strong connections between the present and radically different future worlds, which should not be discounted as improbable or impossible. This project enables a widening of the scope of nuclear futures and policy options which are considered thinkable, as well as contributing a future-facing, prefigurative element of politics which complements existing counter-hegemonic strategy. It highlights the unavoidable obligation for nuclear scholars to think in utopian terms.

RENEWING THE AGENDA FOR PEACE: MOBILIZING THE MULTILATERAL SYSTEM TO PREVENT NUCLEAR RISKS

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought back the spectre of nuclear war. A sustained nuclear “sabre-rattling” from Russian authorities has triggered a dynamic debate about the Russian nuclear doctrine, the feasibility of use of “tactical” nuclear warheads in the Ukrainian battle theatre, the alleged consequences of such use, including escalation to a wider nuclear exchange with the United States and NATO, and the impact of such developments in global peace and security. The alarming prospect of nuclear devastation requires a bold political response from all peace-loving nations, particularly those from the South, cooperating with United Nations members coalescing around the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and, more widely, in like-minded coalitions galvanized by the humanitarian consequences of nuclear detonations. The Latin American and Caribbean region, and Chile in particular, have a special responsibility to deploy their diplomatic capabilities, inter alia, by supporting the Secretary General’s “New agenda for peace”, and mobilising the normative and operational powers of the General Assembly.

Australia and the US nuclear umbrella: from deterrence taker to deterrence maker

ABSTRACT Historically, Australia's approach to extended nuclear deterrence can be seen as a consumer rather than contributor within the framework of its alliance with the United States. Despite invoking the nuclear umbrella in strategic guidance since the early 1990s, successive Australian governments have been reluctant to engage with operationally supporting extended nuclear deterrence and content to point to the Joint Facilities as evidence of Australia's contribution. The changing nature of the Indo-Pacific strategic balance means that this approach is increasingly misaligned with contemporary strategic risks and Australia's evolving strategic focus on deterrence. The recent intensification of defence and force posture cooperation between Canberra and Washington presents a window of opportunity for Australia to redefine its approach to the nuclear umbrella in the context of a more holistic understanding of mutual commitments in the alliance. This article outlines how Australia should bolster its contribution through more structured dialogue with the US on nuclear strategy and mutual expectations, supporting preparation for and potential execution of US nuclear operations in the Indo-Pacific, and returning to a formal position of opposing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Svjetla budućnost za nuklearno razoružanje ili utopija?: Pravna ocjena Ugovora o zabrani nuklearnog oružja iz 2017. i njegov odnos s Ugovorom o neširenju nuklearnog oružja iz 1968.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is the first universal international treaty that stipulates the prohibition of nuclear weapons and as such represents a major contribution to international law in the field of nuclear disarmament. The main purpose and goal of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. States that are parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons belong to the group that does not possess nuclear weapons, and in relation to them, compliance with the rules and fulfilment of the obligations prescribed by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons should not pose any problem. However, the practical effect of the nuclear arms control treaty is seen by the major nuclear powers as an unrealistic and progressive approach to disarmament. Therefore, it is very difficult to predict that the nuclear states and their allies will decide to ratify the treaty in the near future. Therefore, in the context of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, an attempt will be made to offer an answer to the following questions. First, can the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons per se constitute a fundamental legal framework to which all states must adhere? And secondly, can nuclear states, according to the persistent objector rule, prevent the possible establishment of customary international law? It is to be assumed that the pressure of the non-nuclear states may in some way influence the nuclear states so that they feel the obligation to comply with the provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to a certain extent. Due to the establishment of a norm that prohibits nuclear weapons, it is necessary to ultimately explain the relationship of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons with already existing legal instruments, especially with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Super-Networks Shaping International Agreements: Comparing the Climate Change and Nuclear Weapons Arenas

Abstract While research on transnational advocacy networks (TANs) is well established in international relations, knowledge gaps remain concerning TAN collaboration across policy fields. To address this gap, this article highlights how super-networks (networks above individual TANs) emerge across issue areas and explores the tactics utilized to achieve their objectives and shape international agreements. We develop an analytical framework that emphasizes the important interplay between political opportunity structures, mobilizing structures, and tactics in understanding how super-networks operate. We apply this framework via a comparative case study approach, analyzing the Inter-Constituency Alliance, whose advocacy brought about the inclusion of human rights language in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, and the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, whose activities based on humanitarian principles resulted in the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Contributing new knowledge to TANs research, we identify that super-networks utilize multilevel advocacy activities that draw upon a package approach tactic. Via the package approach, super-networks synthesize multiple voices from different issue areas into one key message grounded in humanitarian framing, thereby enhancing their moral leverage and legitimacy, making it more difficult for states to neglect their concerns.

Reducing the Risks of Nuclear War— the Role of Health Professionals

Reducing the Risks of Nuclear War— the Role of Health Professionals

Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: Towards Sustainable Human Security

Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: Towards Sustainable Human Security

Accommodating Nutopia: The nuclear ban treaty and the developmental interests of Global South countries

Abstract This article argues that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) would not have been possible without protecting the inalienable rights of states to pursue nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. While some Western states and NGOs have pushed to ban all applications of nuclear technology, this was unacceptable to a large number of disarmament-supporting states from the Global South and the Non-Aligned Movement. Without support from states across the Global South, the TPNW would not have achieved the required number of signatories to be adopted. Thus, we argue that to properly understand the TPNW, an appreciation of states’ interests and motivations beyond their more widely discussed frustrations with the pace of nuclear disarmament is essential. We also argue that nuclear weapons scholarship must pay more attention to perspectives from the Global South and the concept of Nutopia – a belief in both the dystopian potential of nuclear weapons and the utopian possibilities of nuclear energy – in its understanding of nuclear politics, past and present. Global South perspectives are often overlooked, and as such, current regimes of nuclear arms control and disarmament remain only partially understood in Western literature.

Opinion: How fear of nuclear winter has helped save the world, so far

Abstract. The direct effects of nuclear war would be horrific, with blasts, fires, and radiation killing and injuring many people. But in 1983, United States and Soviet Union scientists showed that a nuclear war could also produce a nuclear winter, with catastrophic consequences for global food supplies for people far removed from the conflict. Smoke from fires ignited by nuclear weapons exploded on cities and industrial targets would block out sunlight, causing dark, cold, and dry surface conditions, producing a nuclear winter, with surface temperatures below freezing even in summer for years. Nuclear winter theory helped to end the nuclear arms race in the 1980s and helped to produce the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017, for which the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Because awareness of nuclear winter is now widespread, nuclear nations have so far not used nuclear weapons. But the mere existence of nuclear weapons means that they can be used, by unstable leaders, accidently from technical malfunctions, such as in computers and sensors, due to human error, or by terrorists. Because they cannot be used without the danger of escalation (resulting in a global humanitarian catastrophe), because of recent threats to use them by Russia, and because nuclear deterrence doctrines of all nuclear-armed states are based on the capability and readiness to use nuclear weapons, it is even more urgent for scientists to study these issues, to broadly communicate their results, and to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Challenging war traditions: humanitarian discourse and the nuclear prohibition treaty

Abstract This article interrogates the humanitarian discourse and the emergence of the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Often acknowledged as decisive for adopting the TPNW, the humanitarian discourse is considered vital to stigmatizing nuclear weapons and their purported deterrence value. However, the literature has not thoroughly examined the mechanisms through which speaking in humanitarian terms enabled proponents of the TPNW to exercise agency, failing to appreciate the complex discursive practices sustaining power relations in nuclear politics. This article introduces a theoretical framework that can help us make sense of these complexities, while illuminating additional ways through which the humanitarian discourse contributed to the TPNW. Using a feminist post-structuralist lens, I argue that the humanitarian discourse enabled small and middle-power states to challenge war traditions that sustain dominant configurations of power in nuclear politics. Upon speaking in humanitarian terms, these states destabilized the ongoing reiteration of the protector/protected dichotomy that has placed non-nuclear states in a position of subordination. The article draws attention to how dominant assumptions of the masculine and feminine shape global politics, while advancing theoretical tools to help us grasp and seize possibilities for policy innovation and change.

Represented but not always heard: an analysis of the progress of gender equality at the United Nations through the lens of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Represented but not always heard: an analysis of the progress of gender equality at the United Nations through the lens of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Environmental remediation as social archaeology: Excavating sites contaminated by early nuclear weapons activities in New York City, both literally and hermeneutically

AbstractNew York City, where the Manhattan Project began, has some of the world's oldest nuclear weapons production sites, exposing New Yorkers to ongoing risks of ionising radiation. This article considers six sites of particular environmental concern. Assessment, monitoring and clean‐up of these locations have taken place over three different periods: private remediation before 1992; federal government remediation in the early 1990s followed by two decades of neglect; and a long‐standing campaign to deal with risks at two remaining sites. Addressing radioactive legacies has involved a feedback loop between literal excavation of contaminated locations and a more hermeneutical process of meaning‐making. Journalists, activists and politicians have transformed some places into sites of memory, cultivating connections to concerns about environmental justice, radiation protection and nuclear disarmament. The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) established new obligations to remediate environments contaminated by nuclear weapons activities. While the USA refuses to join the TPNW, in‐depth, historical study of remediation at these sites can provide useful insight for states parties establishing policy to implement TPNW obligations. Recent passage of nuclear disarmament legislation by the NY City Council shows the ongoing policy relevance of nuclear weapons issues in local policymaking.

You were bombed and now you have to pay for it: Questioning the positive obligations in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

AbstractOne of the central components of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is its victim assistance and environmental remediation provisions (known collectively as the Treaty’s ‘positive obligations’). While there is much to celebrate about efforts to remedy the damage caused by nuclear weapons, the way the TPNW distributes responsibility for this work is troubling. Under the Treaty, the primary responsibility for fulfilling the positive obligations is placed on the states parties that have individuals under their jurisdiction who are affected by the use or testing of nuclear weapons and areas under their jurisdiction or control that have been contaminated by the use or testing of nuclear weapons (‘the affected states’) despite the fact that, often, these were not the states responsible for detonating the nuclear weapons. This article examines and critiques the reasons the Treaty’s drafters placed the main responsibility for victim assistance and environmental remediation on affected states. It argues that the rationales underpinning these provisions rest on shaky grounds, and that the Treaty’s approach has potential negative ramifications for nuclear disarmament and understanding the history of the use and testing of nuclear weapons. Further, it explores how the Treaty may play into worrying broader dynamics in public international law whereby the Global North is frequently absolved of responsibility for the harms it causes while the Global South is saddled with obligations to redress an array of harms.

Renewing Nagasaki’s Citizen Diplomacy

ABSTRACT For three quarters of a century, the hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki) have stood firm in their quest to save humanity from nuclear annihilation. Through their voice and action, the people of Nagasaki City have demonstrated the strength of citizen diplomacy. The voice of Nagasaki can be heard everywhere – strong in its call that Nagasaki must remain the last place to suffer an atomic bombing. Most significantly, the hibakusha’s compelling testimonies brought the world the historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in 2017. Despite this prohibition, the goal of a nuclear free world seems more elusive than ever, and the nuclear sceptre looms large. Today, the world faces a heightened risk of nuclear weapons use amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What should we do in this time of danger and opportunity? In commemoration of the 10th anniversary of its founding, the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University and the Nagasaki Council for Nuclear Weapons Abolition organised a special public lecture on 29th October 2022, to examine current challenges in the path toward a nuclear weapons-free world and to re-evaluate the roles that the A-Bombed city should play in advancing this goal. This article, adapted from the public lecture, reaffirms the vital role that Nagasaki must continue to play through a renewal of its citizen diplomacy. It highlights lessons from the TPNW negotiations and the opportunities that its adoption has created for Nagasaki to strengthen and expand its citizen diplomacy.

Gender Analysis and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: A Response to Daarstad, Park, and Balogh

Gender Analysis and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: A Response to Daarstad, Park, and Balogh

Why do states commit to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons?

ABSTRACT On January 22, 2021, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force. The aim of the treaty is to delegitimize nuclear weapons by strengthening the antinuclear norm. The aim comes with the expectation that this will gradually contribute to an environment in which nuclear weapons can be eliminated because they are unacceptable instruments of statecraft. However, the effectiveness of antinuclear norms has been contested in discussions around the TPNW. In particular, the question of how norms operate within smaller identity communities has attracted the attention of scholars studying commitment to international treaties. By using a mixed-methods research design, this article adds to the ongoing discussion by exploring the conditions under which regional normative pressure can explain commitment to the TPNW. Statistical analyses show that regional normative pressure significantly increases the likelihood of commitment. Further analyses, using qualitative comparative analysis, indicate that this pressure is effective only toward states with previous nonproliferation commitments and where commitment to the TPNW does not entail a perceived weakening of national security. Thus, in the context of disarmament, normative pressure is trumped by security concerns.