Arms Control and Non-proliferation

India's five underground nuclear explosions detonated on May 11-13, 1998, raise such international law questions as these: Is India prohibited by any applicable treaty or customary rule of international law from testing or possessing nuclear weapons? Is there any other source of international law that might prohibit India's testing or possessing nuclear weapons? If India may test and possess them, under what circumstances would it be lawful to use them? Do India's tests provide any other states, such as Pakistan, with legal justification to conduct their own nuclear tests? 

Introduction

 

            The perceived threat from weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has become one of the most important issues on foreign policy and national security agendas. The WMD threat has, for example, profoundly influenced the Bush administration's national security and homeland security strategies. [1] For the United States and like-minded allies, Iraq's alleged possession of WMD has become a casus belli. The rise to prominence of the WMD threat raises questions about the role of international law concerning WMD in this new environment.

           On January 10, 2003, North Korea announced (a) that it was withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), effective immediately, and (b) that its withdrawal from the NPT left it free from the binding force of its Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

 

The U.N. Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change has issued a lengthy report setting out a broad framework for collective security. [1]   It touches on several issues of international law and organization, including some important ones that are the focus of this Insight.  

 

The Bush administration's proposed budget for FY 2006 contains appropriation lines for resuming research on the nuclear bunker-buster. This proposal is likely to renew the heated debate within the United States over the role and shape of U.S. nuclear forces. It also raises an important legal issue: does this research cause the United States to run afoul of its disarmament obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)?