Peace and Security

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract   On 2 April, 2013, the Arms Trade Treaty, which had been blocked for ten years in the consensus-bound Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, was put directly before the United Nations General Assembly, and was passed by a massive majority. This historic victory opens new possibilities for progress on other seemingly intractable issues. In particular, it gives hope that a Nuclear Weapons Convention might be adopted by a direct vote on the floor of the General...

Get Full Text in PDF Climate change and nuclear weapons, the two great security threats of the 21st century, are uniquely influential in the Arctic. Although the current risk of conflict is low, the global future is potentially turbulent. There is a ‘new’ Arctic because of meltdown induced by climate change. Some see great economic opportunities; others see ecological and human security threats. Governance requires new national and multinational agreements; now is the time to gain acceptance...

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract This article presents highlights and insights from the International Conference on “Nuclear Threats and Security” organized by the World Academy of Art and Science in association with the European Leadership Network and the Dag Hammarskjöld University College of International Relations and Diplomacy and sponsored by NATO at the Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik on September 14-16, 2012. The conference examined important issues related to nuclear non-proliferation...

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The run up to the NPT Review Conference in 2010 brought nuclear disarmament into focus. Transitory though this trend turned out to be, it nevertheless became a trigger for India to re-examine its own position on disarmament. In order to take a considered view on the subject, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh instituted an Informal Group in October 2010 with the specific mandate to examine the relevance of the Action Plan that had been presented by Rajiv Gandhi in...

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The primary objections raised against total elimination of nuclear weapons are built around a few arguments mostly of non-technical nature. Nuclear weapons and the strategies for their use have resulted in the establishment of a vicious circle within which the international community is trapped. The argument that the world will be unsafe without nuclear weapons is only meant to further the narrow self-interest of the nuclear weapon states and their allies. The...

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Deployment of nuclear forces as an international security mechanism for prevention of major war is far removed from the world envisaged by the United Nations Charter in which threat or use of force is the exception, not the rule. Reliance on nuclear weapons has also distorted the development of major instruments of international humanitarian law and international criminal law, the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and the 1998 Rome Statute of the...

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Recent evidence from World War II and the Cold War shows that nuclear weapons are far less useful as military and political tools than has been believed. Far from giving a madman the power to conquer the world, nuclear weapons are clumsy, dangerous technology with very few real uses — even if you have a monopoly. No one does his best thinking when gripped by fear. This is why audiences often call urgently to people on movie screens: “No! Get out of the cabin! Now...

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The current international security framework is based on an incomplete, anachronistic conception of sovereignty shaped largely by historical circumstance rather than principles of universal justice. Evolution of the global community over the past half century necessitates a reformulation of the concept to justly represent the rights of individual citizens and the global community as a whole. The reconceptualization of sovereignty is an essential condition for the...

Get the Full Text in PDF Abstract The concept of nuclear deterrence is seriously flawed, and it violates the fundamental ethical principles of all major religions. Besides being morally unacceptable, nuclear weapons are also illegal according to a historic 1996 decision of the International Court of Justice, a ruling that reflects the opinion of the vast majority of the worldʼs peoples. Even a small nuclear war  would be  an  ecological catastrophe,  not only killing...

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The author prepared this simulated judgment at the request of Cadmus editors to demonstrate that there is ample ground for revisiting and revising the landmark 1996 advisory opinion of the ICJ on the legality of nuclear weapons. The ICJ failed to anticipate the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which expands the evolution of the concept of sovereignty, the potential cataclysmic impact of nuclear war on climate change, the multiplication of nuclear-weapon-free...