Nuclear Weapons under International Law is a comprehensive treatment of nuclear weapons under key international law regimes. It critically reviews international law governing nuclear weapons with regard to the inter-state use of force, international humanitarian law, human rights law, disarmament law, and environmental law, and discusses where relevant the International Court of Justice's 1996 Advisory Opinion. Unique in its approach, it draws upon contributions from expert legal scholars and international law practitioners who have worked with conventional and non-conventional arms control and disarmament issues. As a result, this book embraces academic consideration of legal questions within the context of broader political debates about the status of nuclear weapons under international law.

This book addresses the issue of the legality of the use of nuclear weapons under international law. It includes forwarding remarks by Robert S. McNamara, David W. Leebron, and Kosta Tsipis. Moxley analyzes the question in light of the July 1996 advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice, the law as articulated by the United States, and generally recognized facts as to the characteristics and effects of nuclear weapons. He concludes that the use of nuclear weapons is per se unlawful under the rules of international law and facts recognized by the United States. Nuclear Weapons and International Law in the Post Cold War World is an unprecedented exploration of the application of the necessity, proportionality and discrimination of principles of international law to nuclear weapons.

This book examines the law relating to the possession, threat or use of nuclear weapons. By addressing in logical sequence the law regarding sovereignty, the threat or use of force, the conduct of nuclear hostilities, neutrality, weapons law and war crimes, the book illustrates the topics that an effective national command, control and communications system for nuclear weapons must address. Guidance is given on intractable issues, such as the responsibilities of remote submarine commanders. The continuing relevance of the ICJ's Nuclear Advisory Opinion is assessed, and the prospects for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons are discussed. The book has been written in an accessible style so that it will be equally useful to lawyers and practitioners, including relevant commanders, politicians, policy staffs and academics. The objective is to state the law accurately and to explain its implications and provide practical guidance in this most sensitive area. This book is also available as open access.

A most comprehensive book, first published in 1999, analysing the ICJ Advisory Opinions on nuclear weapons handed down in 1996.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017) sets out to challenge deterrence policies and military defence doctrines, taking a humanitarian approach intended to disrupt the nuclear status quo. States with nuclear weapons oppose its very existence, neither participating in its development nor adopting its final text. Civil society groups seem determined, however, to stigmatize and delegitimize nuclear weapons towards their abolition. This book analyzes how the Treaty influences the international security architecture, examining legal, institutional and diplomatic implications of the Treaty and exploring its real and potential impact for both states acceding to the Treaty and those opposing it. It concludes with practical recommendations for international lawyers and policymakers regarding non-proliferation and disarmament matters, ultimately noting that nuclear weapons threaten peace, and everyone should have the right to nuclear peace and freedom from nuclear fear.

Nuclear proliferation poses a serious threat to international peace and security. The non-proliferation regime is the body of public international law that aims to counter this threat. It has been a cornerstone of global security for decades. This book analyses its main instruments. The book focuses on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, international trade controls and the International Atomic Energy Agency. It describes the internal mechanics of these mechanisms, their development, and their strengths and weaknesses. It shows how they together are the basis of a political-legal order that is more than the sum of its parts, offering new insights on the role of international law in an area dominated by security-driven politics.

This book provides a detailed legal commentary of the Articles of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was passed in July 2017. Laying out its scope and the obligations of signatory states, this commentary clarifies the regulations overseeing the complex relationships between signatory states and nuclear weapon states.

Publisher Description

Proliferation of WMD technologies is by no means a new concern for the international community. Indeed, since the signing of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in 1968, tremendous energies have been expended upon diplomatic efforts to create a web of treaties and international organisations regulating the production and stockpiling of WMD sensitive materials within states, as well as their spread through the increasingly globalised channels of international trade to other states and non-state actors. However, the intervention in 2003 by Western powers in Iraq has served as an illustration of the importance of greater understanding of and attention to this area of law, as disagreements over its content and application have once again lead to a potentially destabilising armed intervention by members of the United Nations into the sovereign territory of another member state. Other ongoing disputes between states regarding the character of obligations assumed under non-proliferation treaty instruments, and the effect of international organisations' decisions in this area, form some of the most contentious and potentially destabilising issues of foreign policy concern for many states. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of international law and organisations in the area of WMD proliferation. It will serve both as a reference for understanding the law as it currently exists in its political and economic context, as well as an analysis of areas in which amendments to existing law and organisations are needed.

The 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty has proven the most complicated and controversial of all arms control treaties, both in principle and in practice. Statements of nuclear-weapon States from the Cold War to the present, led by the United States, show a disproportionate prioritization of the non-proliferation pillar of the Treaty, and an unwarranted underprioritization of the civilian energy development and disarmament pillars of the treaty. This book argues that the way in which nuclear-weapon States have interpreted the Treaty has laid the legal foundation for a number of policies related to trade in civilian nuclear energy technologies and nuclear weapons disarmament. These policies circumscribe the rights of non-nuclear-weapon States under Article IV of the Treaty by imposing conditions on the supply of civilian nuclear technologies. They also provide for the renewal and maintaintenance, and in some cases further development of the nuclear weapons arsenals of nuclear-weapon States. The book provides a legal analysis of this trend in treaty interpretation by nuclear-weapon States and the policies for which it has provided legal justification. It argues, through a close and systematic examination of the Treaty by reference to the rules of treaty interpretation found in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, that this disproportionate prioritization of the non-proliferation pillar of the Treaty leads to erroneous legal interpretations in light of the original balance of principles underlying the Treaty, prejudicing the legitimate legal interests of non-nuclear-weapon States.