International Cooperation On Wmd Nonproliferation

International efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)—including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons—rest upon foundations provided by global treaties such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Over time, however, states have created a number of other mechanisms for organizing international cooperation to promote nonproliferation. Examples range from regional efforts to various worldwide export-control regimes and nuclear security summit meetings initiated by U.S. president Barack Obama. Many of these additional nonproliferation arrangements are less formal and have fewer members than the global treaties. International Cooperation on WMD Nonproliferation calls attention to the emergence of international cooperation beyond the core global nonproliferation treaties. The contributors examine why these other cooperative nonproliferation mechanisms have emerged, assess their effectiveness, and ask how well the different pieces of the global nonproliferation regime complex fit together. Collectively, the essayists show that states have added new forms of international cooperation to combat WMD proliferation for multiple reasons, including the need to address new problems and the entrepreneurial activities of key state leaders. Despite the complications created by the existence of so many different cooperative arrangements, this collection shows the world is witnessing a process of building cooperation that is leading to greater levels of activity in support of norms against WMD and terrorism.

The spread of weapons of mass destruction poses one of the greatest threats to international peace and security in modern times--the specter of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons looms over relations among many countries. The September 11 tragedy and other terrorist attacks have been painful warnings about gaps in nonproliferation policies and regimes, specifically with regard to nonstate actors. In this volume, experts in nonproliferation studies examine challenges faced by the international community and propose directions for national and international policy making and lawmaking. The first group of essays outlines the primary threats posed by WMD proliferation and terrorism. Essays in the second section analyze existing treaties and other normative regimes, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Chemical Weapons and Biological Weapons Conventions, and recommend ways to address the challenges to their effectiveness. Essays in part three examine the shift some states have made away from nonproliferation treaties and regimes toward more forceful and proactive policies of counterproliferation, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative, which coordinates efforts to search and seize suspect shipments of WMD-related materials.

This edited volume examines the issue of the proliferation of dual-use technology and the efforts of the international community to control these technologies. Efforts to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) increasingly focus on preventing the proliferation and misuse of dual-use technologies: information, materials and equipment that can be easily applied for peaceful and hostile purposes. The threat of terrorist attacks with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, in particular, makes it necessary to develop a sustainable non-proliferation policy that effectively hinders the misuse of dual-use technologies. In this book, leading non-proliferation experts from different regions of the world reflect on the political, legal and technical obstacles with an aim to finding a better balance between control and cooperation in dual-use technology transfer regulations. This broad approach makes it possible to compare regimes which may be structurally different but are similar in the way they attempt to regulate dual-use technology transfers by balancing controls and cooperative approaches. This book will be of much interest to students of weapons proliferation, arms control, global governance, international organizations and international security.

The establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons, a concept more recently broadened to cover all weapons of mass destruction (WMD), has been before the international community for decades. In this book, two experts from the region explore why the matter remains unresolved, and outline a comprehensive yet achievable roadmap to a Middle East free of WMD. Weapons of mass destruction pose an existential threat to global peace and security. But nowhere is it more urgent to stem their spread than in the Middle East, a region fraught with mistrust and instability. Accounting for these geopolitical realities, including the ongoing talks to curb Iran’s nuclear program, the authors present a practical and innovative strategy to a Middle East free of weapons of mass destructions (WMD). They outline a phased approach toward disarmament in the region, prescribing confidence-building measures and verification tools to create trust among the region’s governments. Their vision also sees the realization of a WMD-free zone within a broader regional agenda for security and cooperation to advance socioeconomic and political progress. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, politics and security studies in the Middle East.

Since the advent of the nuclear era in 1945, Americans and others have been debating whether or how it might be possible to prevent the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD). As each new proliferation challenge has emerged, debate about the shortcomings of the various policy tools for coping with proliferation has intensified. These debates have grown only more intense in the last ten to fifteen years. Despite such debates, American presidents have steered a fairly consistent course promoting nonproliferation, innovating along the way, while also coping with its periodic failures. The end of the Cold War seemed to make new things possible for nonproliferation, with the promise of even more cooperation between East and West on specific proliferation challenges. And the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 seemed to make new things necessary, as the United States faced the first regional war under the shadow of weapons of mass destruction. First President George H.W. Bush and then President William Clinton committed the federal government to significant political efforts to strengthen the tools of nonproliferation policy.

The initial years of the new millennium have seen little substantive progress in nucleararms control. Recent challenges for nuclear non-proliferationinclude: the non-entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT); the 1998India and Pakistan nuclear weapon tests; the withdrawal of North Korea from the NonproliferationTreaty (NPT); the ambiguous status of Iran's nuclear energy developmentprogramme and past Iraqi NPT violations under Saddam Hussein.The strategy of establishing regional NWFZs is generally seen as both a non-proliferation and security-enhancing measure for the regions themselves, and as a partial step towards the eventual global elimination of nuclear weapons. Currently some 107 countries and the larger part of the globe are part of regional NWFZs while NWFZs for such conflict-prone areas such as the Middle East, South Asia, Northeast Asia and Central and Eastern Europe are in various stages of consideration.

Much of the literature on the emerging role of the EU as a non-proliferation actor has only a minimal engagement with theory. This collection aims to rectify this by placing the role of the EU in the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons within an analytical framework inspired by emerging literature on the performance of international organisations.