Towards A World Free From Nuclear Weapons

A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via www.tandfebooks.com as well as the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license and is part of the OAPEN-UK research project. This book examines the current debate on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, notably the international non-proliferation regime and how to implement its disarmament provisions. Discussing the requirements of a new international consensus on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, this book builds on the three pillars of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT): non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It reviews the impact of Cold War and post-Cold War policies on current disarmament initiatives and analyses contemporary proliferation problems: how to deal with the states that never joined the NPT (India, Pakistan and Israel); how states that have been moving toward nuclear weapons have been brought back to non-nuclear-weapon status; and, in particular, how to deal with Iran and North Korea. The analysis centres on the relationship between disarmament and non-proliferation in an increasingly multi-centric world involving China and India as well as the US, the European powers and Russia. It concludes with a description and discussion of three different worlds without nuclear weapons and their implications for nuclear disarmament policies. This book will be of great interest to all students of arms control, strategic studies, war and conflict studies, and IR/security studies in general Sverre Lodgaard is a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo

On November 10, 2017, Pope Francis became the first pontiff in the nuclear era to take a complete stand against nuclear weapons, even as a form of deterrence. At a Vatican conference of leaders in the field of disarmament, he made it clear that the possession of the bomb itself was immoral. A World Free from Nuclear Weapons presents the pope’s address and original testimony from Nobel Peace Prize laureates, religious leaders, diplomats, and civil society activists. These luminaries, which include the pope and a Hiroshima survivor, make the moral case against possessing, manufacturing, and deploying nuclear arms. Drew Christiansen, a member of the Holy See delegation to the 2017 United Nations conference that negotiated the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, helps readers to understand this conference in its historical context. A World Free from Nuclear Weapons is a critical companion for scholars of modern Catholicism, moral theology, and peace studies, as well as policymakers working on effective disarmament. It shows how the Church’s revised position presents an opportunity for global leaders to connect disarmament to larger movements for peace, pointing toward future action.

In this volume, scientists write on the desirability and feasibility of eliminating nuclear weapons, including reflections 50 years after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs. The following topics are discussed: strategies for preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; ways and means to monitor and control the arms trade; the need for global governance; specific aspects of security in the Asia-Pacific region; and interactions between the problems of meeting the world's energy demand, reducing environmental pollution, and promoting sustainable development.

South Africa is the first country to dismantle its nuclear weapons capability voluntarily. All nuclear devices were destroyed in 1989 and in 1993 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that there were no nuclear weapons components that have not been "rendered useless or converted to commercial non-nuclear applications or peaceful nuclear usage". South Africa's decision was a challenge to the world to take firm steps towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons, and a demonstration of the benefits that disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control hold for international peace and security.

2. The use of nuclear weapons as a potential war crime

The world total of some 50,000 nuclear warheads is beginning to fall off sharply. It should be well below 10,000 by the year 2000. Should the ultimate target be zero? The idea of a nuclear-weapon-free world (NWFW) was put back on the world agenda by President Gorbachev in 1986. President Reagan also had a vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

Apocalypse Never illuminates why we must abolish nuclear weapons, how we can, and what the world will look like after we do. On the wings of a brand new era in American history, Apocalypse Never makes the case that a comprehensive nuclear policy agenda that fully integrates nonproliferation with disarmament, can both eliminate immediate nuclear dangers and set us irreversibly on the road to abolition. In jargon-free language, Daley explores the possible verification measures, enforcement mechanisms, and governance structures of a nuclear weapon-free world.

Getting to Zero takes on the much-debated goal of nuclear zero—exploring the serious policy questions raised by nuclear disarmament and suggesting practical steps for the nuclear weapon states to take to achieve it. It documents the successes and failures of six decades of attempts to control nuclear weapons proliferation and, within this context, asks the urgent questions that world leaders, politicians, NGOs, and scholars must address in the years ahead.