Disarmament

This volume, Nuclear Disarmament, provides a comprehensive overview of nuclear disarmament and a critical assessment of the way forward. Comprising essays by leading scholars on nuclear disarmament, the book highlights arguments in favour and against a world without nuclear weapons (global zero). In doing so, it proposes a new baseline from which an everchanging nuclear arms control and disarmament agenda can be assessed. Numerous paths to nuclear disarmament have been proposed and scrutinized, and with an increasing number of countries signing off on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, it is vital to ask which path is the most likely and realistic to succeed. The chapters here also address the rapid pace of technological, political and climatic developments, in relation to nuclear disarmament, and how they add to the complexity of the issue. Taking care to unite the different tribes in the debate, this book provides a community of dissent at a time when academic tribalism all too often prevents genuine debates from taking place. This book will be of interest to students of nuclear proliferation, arms control, security studies and International Relations.

Fifty years into the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) regime, the risks of nuclear war, terrorism, and the threat of further proliferation remain. A lack of significant progress towards disarmament will cast doubt upon the viability of the NPT. By recognizing that certain fissile materials are essential to every nuclear weapon and that controlling their usage provides the foundation for international efforts to limit their spread, this book presents a comprehensive framework for nuclear disarmament. Based upon phased reductions, Shea provides a mechanism for the disposal of weapon-origin fissile material and controls on peaceful nuclear activities and non-explosive military uses. He explores the technological means for monitoring and verification, the legal arrangements required to provide an enduring foundation, and a financial structure which will enable progress. This book will be invaluable to professional organizations, arms control NGOs, government officials, scientists, and politicians. It will also appeal to academics and postgraduate researchers working on security studies, disarmament diplomacy and the politics and science of verification.

From the former UN head weapons inspector in Iraq, a plea for a renewed global disarmament movement. In 2002 Dr. Hans Blix, then chief United Nations weapons inspector, led his team on a search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Before the United States went to war with Iraq the next March, he maintained there were no WMD in Iraq. History proved him right. For more than forty years Dr. Blix has worked on global disarmament, and with this new book he renews the call for nuclear nonproliferation. His interests, though, go beyond stemming the threat of nuclear attack from rogue states and terrorists. It is not, he argues, a recipe for success for nuclear states to tell the rest of the world that it must stay away from the very weapons that nuclear states claim are indispensable. We will never be able to convince rogue states to halt the pursuit of nuclear weapons programs unless we take the lead in a new nonproliferation and disarmament movement. Looking back at the UN post-World War II efforts against the use of nuclear weapons, Blix documents the retreat from early commitments by nuclear powers, most alarmingly from pledges against first use and toward programs to develop new types of nuclear weapons. He urges us to revive these efforts, and that the world's powers also look at issues of global disarmament and security as pieces of the same puzzle. Why Nuclear Disarmament Matters includes specific suggestions—how the UN can set the stage for a credible multilateral disarmament and nonproliferation process; what kind of treaties would be most helpful—and recommendations for regional policy, including providing the Middle East with enriched uranium for civilian nuclear power production but not allowing uranium enrichment there. From March 2000 to June 2003 Hans Blix was Executive Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). Dr. Blix, author of Disarming Iraq, is Chair of the Swedish government's Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Treaties are essential to the maintenance of international law and order, and States depend on them to provide stability and consistency in international relations. This publication contains the text of multilateral treaties that focus on nuclear weapons, other weapons of mass destruction, conventional arms, and nuclear-weapon-free zones, all of which are essential for promoting peace and security. It also includes treaties in which disarmament and non-proliferation are important elements within a larger framework of issues, such as the Antarctic Treaty or the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs hopes this book will be a useful tool for diplomats, researchers, those in the service of States parties to the various treaties and conventions, those States not yet parties, and in promoting and furthering the universalization of these instruments.

Humanitarian disarmament is not new, but instead represents a re-emergence of a long-standing sensibility in disarmament discourse

This book while comprehending the contemporary global security environment, offers a new roadmap for nuclear disarmament by creating a balance between deterrence supporters and disarmament advocators. The author identifies the divide between competing approaches such as traditional security-centric aspects and humanity-centered disarmament perspectives, tackling the complex question of how to balance some states’ requirements for effective nuclear deterrence with other states’ long-term desire for a nuclear-free world. The book explores how new technologies such as cyber and Artificial Intelligence advances are available to more countries than nuclear technology, and could level the playing field for weaker nuclear weapons states. It also looks into the issues which continue to be obstacles in the way of convincing the nuclear weapon states on nuclear disarmament presented in this volume. The author argues that the gap between states' security needs and disarmament aspirations can be bridged by building a new roadmap and creating new security environment. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars, researchers, policymakers, NGOs and members of the diplomatic community, in the fields of security studies, strategic studies and nuclear policy.

This book examines the issue of nuclear disarmament in different strategic, political, and regional contexts. This volume seeks to provide a rich theoretical and practical insight to one of the major topics in the field of international security: global abolishment of nuclear weapons. Renewed calls for a nuclear weapons-free world have sparked a wide academic debate on both the attainability of such goal and the steps that should be taken. Comparably less attention, however, has been paid to theoretically informed considerations of the consequences of nuclear abolition. Comprising essays from leading scholars and experts within the field, this collection discusses the fundamental theoretical and conceptual foundations of nuclear disarmament and subsequently tries to assess its hypothetical impact in global and regional contexts. The varied methodological approach of the contributors aims to advance a multi-theoretical and multi-perspectival view of the issue. The book is organized in three main sections: ‘Strategic Perspectives’, dealing with the specific constraints and facilitators for the states to achieve their core objectives; ‘Political Perspectives’, with the focus on the power of norms, belief-systems and ideas; and ‘Regional Perspectives’, with the analyses of seven regional and/or state-specific nuclear contexts. As a whole, the volume provides a detailed, complex overview of the risks and opportunities that are embedded in the vision of a nuclear weapon-free world. This book will be of great interest to students of nuclear proliferation, arms control, war and conflict studies, international relations and security studies.