Jack I. Garvey
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199841271
- eISBN:
- 9780199332649
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199841271.003.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
This introductory chapter analyzes how the legal framework intended to ensure nonproliferation—the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), adopted in 1970—is failing to contain the evolution and ...
More
This introductory chapter analyzes how the legal framework intended to ensure nonproliferation—the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), adopted in 1970—is failing to contain the evolution and exponential growth of nuclear risk. It explains why the Grand Bargain of the NPT is not succeeding as conceived, and why counterproliferation will continue to fall short in achieving nuclear security unless reinforced and eventually supplanted by a different legal and institutional framework. The task of creating a new legal and institutional framework requires, first, understanding why the current legal and institutional infrastructure is failing, and how contemporary nuclear risk defies containment. This in turn requires examination of nuclear risk in greater detail, to understand its components and its dynamics, at every principal stage, from source to detonation, to identify where in the process we can work a new regime to construct security.Less
This introductory chapter analyzes how the legal framework intended to ensure nonproliferation—the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), adopted in 1970—is failing to contain the evolution and exponential growth of nuclear risk. It explains why the Grand Bargain of the NPT is not succeeding as conceived, and why counterproliferation will continue to fall short in achieving nuclear security unless reinforced and eventually supplanted by a different legal and institutional framework. The task of creating a new legal and institutional framework requires, first, understanding why the current legal and institutional infrastructure is failing, and how contemporary nuclear risk defies containment. This in turn requires examination of nuclear risk in greater detail, to understand its components and its dynamics, at every principal stage, from source to detonation, to identify where in the process we can work a new regime to construct security.
David James Gill
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804786584
- eISBN:
- 9780804788588
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804786584.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Drawing on primary sources from both sides of the Atlantic, Britain and the Bomb explores how economic, political, and strategic considerations have shaped British nuclear diplomacy. The book ...
More
Drawing on primary sources from both sides of the Atlantic, Britain and the Bomb explores how economic, political, and strategic considerations have shaped British nuclear diplomacy. The book concentrates on Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s first two terms of office, 1964-1970, which represent a critical period in international nuclear history. Wilson’s commitment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and his support for continued investment in the British nuclear weapons program, despite serious economic and political challenges, established precedents that still influence policymakers today. The continued independence of Britain’s nuclear force, and the enduring absence of a German or European deterrent, certainly owes a debt to Wilson’s handling of nuclear diplomacy more than four decades ago. Beyond highlighting the importance of this period, the book explains how and why British nuclear diplomacy evolved during Wilson’s leadership. Cabinet discussions, financial crises, and international tensions encouraged a degree of flexibility in the pursuit of strategic independence and the creation of a non-proliferation treaty. The book shows us that British nuclear diplomacy was a series of compromises, an intricate blend of political, economic, and strategic considerations.Less
Drawing on primary sources from both sides of the Atlantic, Britain and the Bomb explores how economic, political, and strategic considerations have shaped British nuclear diplomacy. The book concentrates on Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s first two terms of office, 1964-1970, which represent a critical period in international nuclear history. Wilson’s commitment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and his support for continued investment in the British nuclear weapons program, despite serious economic and political challenges, established precedents that still influence policymakers today. The continued independence of Britain’s nuclear force, and the enduring absence of a German or European deterrent, certainly owes a debt to Wilson’s handling of nuclear diplomacy more than four decades ago. Beyond highlighting the importance of this period, the book explains how and why British nuclear diplomacy evolved during Wilson’s leadership. Cabinet discussions, financial crises, and international tensions encouraged a degree of flexibility in the pursuit of strategic independence and the creation of a non-proliferation treaty. The book shows us that British nuclear diplomacy was a series of compromises, an intricate blend of political, economic, and strategic considerations.
John Simpson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778275
- eISBN:
- 9780804784917
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778275.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
This chapter outlines the sustained demands from Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) states, especially those within the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), for security assurances ...
More
This chapter outlines the sustained demands from Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) states, especially those within the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), for security assurances during the last half-century. It also presents a short analysis of the options available to improve existing NPT-related security assurances. The effect of recent changes in the security environment on the demands for NPT security assurances is dealt with. Security assurances entered the NPT review meeting in 2000, but in a way that suggested they were declining in salience. Recently, attempts to improve security assurances have been fought by long-standing pressures in order to enhance the diplomatic atmospherics surrounding the nuclear nonproliferation regime and the NPT. It is suggested that strengthening assurances and ensuring compliance continue to be pursued together, rather than be seen as competitive alternatives.Less
This chapter outlines the sustained demands from Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) states, especially those within the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), for security assurances during the last half-century. It also presents a short analysis of the options available to improve existing NPT-related security assurances. The effect of recent changes in the security environment on the demands for NPT security assurances is dealt with. Security assurances entered the NPT review meeting in 2000, but in a way that suggested they were declining in salience. Recently, attempts to improve security assurances have been fought by long-standing pressures in order to enhance the diplomatic atmospherics surrounding the nuclear nonproliferation regime and the NPT. It is suggested that strengthening assurances and ensuring compliance continue to be pursued together, rather than be seen as competitive alternatives.
Matthew Harries and Benedict Wilkinson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190851163
- eISBN:
- 9780190872601
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190851163.003.0017
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter spans Freedman’s earliest focus on nuclear weapons and his development of strategic scripts as an analytical tool over three decades later. It discusses the way in which opposing logics ...
More
This chapter spans Freedman’s earliest focus on nuclear weapons and his development of strategic scripts as an analytical tool over three decades later. It discusses the way in which opposing logics of disarmament and armament co-existed in relation to nuclear weapons. It deploys the notion of strategic scripts to explain the contradictions inherent in approaches to nuclear disarmament, developing the concept of strategic scripts as it does so. The notion of scripts can be used to explore and even to promote nuclear disarmament. Two scripts, one of ‘stable reduction’, the other of ‘disarmament’, each serve to frame thinking. These scripts and the interactions they generate facilitate understanding of the way in which opposite instinctive reactions and, stemming from these, scripts about nuclear weapons co-exist, but are fragile as either an analytical or a strategic tool.Less
This chapter spans Freedman’s earliest focus on nuclear weapons and his development of strategic scripts as an analytical tool over three decades later. It discusses the way in which opposing logics of disarmament and armament co-existed in relation to nuclear weapons. It deploys the notion of strategic scripts to explain the contradictions inherent in approaches to nuclear disarmament, developing the concept of strategic scripts as it does so. The notion of scripts can be used to explore and even to promote nuclear disarmament. Two scripts, one of ‘stable reduction’, the other of ‘disarmament’, each serve to frame thinking. These scripts and the interactions they generate facilitate understanding of the way in which opposite instinctive reactions and, stemming from these, scripts about nuclear weapons co-exist, but are fragile as either an analytical or a strategic tool.
Yoriko Otomo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198733812
- eISBN:
- 9780191817250
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198733812.003.0008
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law, Philosophy of Law
This concluding chapter places the Nuclear Weapons and EC–Biotech cases within a post-war context. What emerges is a picture of a public discourse imbricated in a crisis of modernity. The chapter ...
More
This concluding chapter places the Nuclear Weapons and EC–Biotech cases within a post-war context. What emerges is a picture of a public discourse imbricated in a crisis of modernity. The chapter shows that while the public language of international law promises to guarantee humanness in a world without God, the decisions in Nuclear Weapons and EC–Biotech do not deliver. The terms ‘risk’ and ‘unconditionality’ referred to in the case studies are expressions of the eschatological tensions embedded in public language that deals with technology. The ICJ and the WTO’s DSB could not choose between the mutually constitutive bodies of the sovereign state and the biological human, nor between international law and other technologies that have a saving and a destroying power vis-à-vis human life. International law’s order, in other words, is driven by a desire to produce and guarantee ‘unconditional life’: human life without condition, infinite and immortal.Less
This concluding chapter places the Nuclear Weapons and EC–Biotech cases within a post-war context. What emerges is a picture of a public discourse imbricated in a crisis of modernity. The chapter shows that while the public language of international law promises to guarantee humanness in a world without God, the decisions in Nuclear Weapons and EC–Biotech do not deliver. The terms ‘risk’ and ‘unconditionality’ referred to in the case studies are expressions of the eschatological tensions embedded in public language that deals with technology. The ICJ and the WTO’s DSB could not choose between the mutually constitutive bodies of the sovereign state and the biological human, nor between international law and other technologies that have a saving and a destroying power vis-à-vis human life. International law’s order, in other words, is driven by a desire to produce and guarantee ‘unconditional life’: human life without condition, infinite and immortal.
Yoriko Otomo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198733812
- eISBN:
- 9780191817250
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198733812.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law, Philosophy of Law
Drawing on philosophy, history, and critical theory, this book introduces a new perspective on the significance of post-war international law developments. The book examines the public discourse ...
More
Drawing on philosophy, history, and critical theory, this book introduces a new perspective on the significance of post-war international law developments. The book examines the public discourse regarding technological risk in the Second World War texts of unconditional surrender in the World Trade Organization’s EC–Biotech dispute and in the International Court of Justices’ Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion. The volume describes international law in terms of its management of, and relation to, the risks associated with technological innovation in war and in trade. It proposes that international law, too, is itself a kind of technology: one intended to manage the material and existential risks inherent in the creation of a new international, post-colonial, political community emerging out of the Second World War. Members of this community are imagined to possess a universal quality: humanness, which itself is underscored by a power of invention. The book demonstrates how international lawyers’ inability to adjudicate questions of large-scale technological risk is due to the competing and intractable claims of international law. Offering a feminist analysis of the political economy that has created this crisis of governance, the book provides a way of understanding the structural inequities that will need to be addressed if international law is to remain a relevant forum for the adjudication of war and trade into the twenty-first century.Less
Drawing on philosophy, history, and critical theory, this book introduces a new perspective on the significance of post-war international law developments. The book examines the public discourse regarding technological risk in the Second World War texts of unconditional surrender in the World Trade Organization’s EC–Biotech dispute and in the International Court of Justices’ Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion. The volume describes international law in terms of its management of, and relation to, the risks associated with technological innovation in war and in trade. It proposes that international law, too, is itself a kind of technology: one intended to manage the material and existential risks inherent in the creation of a new international, post-colonial, political community emerging out of the Second World War. Members of this community are imagined to possess a universal quality: humanness, which itself is underscored by a power of invention. The book demonstrates how international lawyers’ inability to adjudicate questions of large-scale technological risk is due to the competing and intractable claims of international law. Offering a feminist analysis of the political economy that has created this crisis of governance, the book provides a way of understanding the structural inequities that will need to be addressed if international law is to remain a relevant forum for the adjudication of war and trade into the twenty-first century.
Ken Young
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719086755
- eISBN:
- 9781526115300
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719086755.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter takes forward the emerging co-operation between Britain and the United States in the field of weapon supply. British authorities were both gratified and suspicious of the new ...
More
This chapter takes forward the emerging co-operation between Britain and the United States in the field of weapon supply. British authorities were both gratified and suspicious of the new arrangements whereby nuclear weapons would be transferred to the RAF, with first the tactical Canberras and then the strategic V-bombers being modified under American supervision for this purpose. This work, and the need to adopt common safety and security procedures, drew the two air forces into much closer co-operation in a strategic partnership.Less
This chapter takes forward the emerging co-operation between Britain and the United States in the field of weapon supply. British authorities were both gratified and suspicious of the new arrangements whereby nuclear weapons would be transferred to the RAF, with first the tactical Canberras and then the strategic V-bombers being modified under American supervision for this purpose. This work, and the need to adopt common safety and security procedures, drew the two air forces into much closer co-operation in a strategic partnership.
Phillip Drew
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198808435
- eISBN:
- 9780191846151
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198808435.003.0009
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
The years since the beginning of the twenty-first century have seen a significant incursion of international human rights law into the domain that had previously been the within the exclusive purview ...
More
The years since the beginning of the twenty-first century have seen a significant incursion of international human rights law into the domain that had previously been the within the exclusive purview of international humanitarian law. The expansion of extraterritorial jurisdiction, particularly by the European Court of Human Rights, means that for many states, the exercise of physical power and control over an individual outside their territory may engage the jurisdiction of human rights obligations. Understanding the expansive tendencies of certain human rights tribunals, and the apparent disdain they have for any ambiguity respecting human rights, it is offered that the uncertain nature of the law surrounding humanitarian relief during blockades could leave blockading forces vulnerable to legal challenge under human rights legislation, particularly in cases in which starvation occurs as a result of a blockade.Less
The years since the beginning of the twenty-first century have seen a significant incursion of international human rights law into the domain that had previously been the within the exclusive purview of international humanitarian law. The expansion of extraterritorial jurisdiction, particularly by the European Court of Human Rights, means that for many states, the exercise of physical power and control over an individual outside their territory may engage the jurisdiction of human rights obligations. Understanding the expansive tendencies of certain human rights tribunals, and the apparent disdain they have for any ambiguity respecting human rights, it is offered that the uncertain nature of the law surrounding humanitarian relief during blockades could leave blockading forces vulnerable to legal challenge under human rights legislation, particularly in cases in which starvation occurs as a result of a blockade.
Yoriko Otomo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198733812
- eISBN:
- 9780191817250
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198733812.003.0009
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law, Philosophy of Law
This cases within a post-war context. What emerges is a picture of a public discourse imbricated in a crisis of modernity. The chapter shows that while the public language of international law ...
More
This cases within a post-war context. What emerges is a picture of a public discourse imbricated in a crisis of modernity. The chapter shows that while the public language of international law promises to guarantee humanness in a world without God, the decisions in Nuclear Weapons and EC–Biotech do not deliver. The terms ‘risk’ and ‘unconditionality’ referred to in the case studies are expressions of the eschatological tensions embedded in public language that deals with technology. The ICJ and the WTO’s DSB could not choose between the mutually constitutive bodies of the sovereign state and the biological human, nor between international law and other technologies that have a saving and a destroying power vis-à-vis human life. International law’s order, in other words, is driven by a desire to produce and guarantee ‘unconditional life’: human life without condition, infinite and immortal.Less
This cases within a post-war context. What emerges is a picture of a public discourse imbricated in a crisis of modernity. The chapter shows that while the public language of international law promises to guarantee humanness in a world without God, the decisions in Nuclear Weapons and EC–Biotech do not deliver. The terms ‘risk’ and ‘unconditionality’ referred to in the case studies are expressions of the eschatological tensions embedded in public language that deals with technology. The ICJ and the WTO’s DSB could not choose between the mutually constitutive bodies of the sovereign state and the biological human, nor between international law and other technologies that have a saving and a destroying power vis-à-vis human life. International law’s order, in other words, is driven by a desire to produce and guarantee ‘unconditional life’: human life without condition, infinite and immortal.
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226239682
- eISBN:
- 9780226239705
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226239705.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Henry Kissinger made his first crucial contacts with the foreign policy elite on the corner of Park and Sixty-eighth serving as staff director for a council study group whose findings resulted in his ...
More
Henry Kissinger made his first crucial contacts with the foreign policy elite on the corner of Park and Sixty-eighth serving as staff director for a council study group whose findings resulted in his first book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. Since 1957, when Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy had spent fourteen weeks on the best-seller list, he had been one of America's most prominent policy intellectuals and his brilliance was widely recognized. Two Rode Together is far from being the director's best, even if Jean-Luc Godard did name it the best film of 1961. Protocol dictated that it be Kissinger, as secretary of state, to whom Nixon addressed his official letter of resignation. But that was pro forma, it could as easily have been Rogers or the man initially slated to succeed Rogers, Kenneth Rush.Less
Henry Kissinger made his first crucial contacts with the foreign policy elite on the corner of Park and Sixty-eighth serving as staff director for a council study group whose findings resulted in his first book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. Since 1957, when Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy had spent fourteen weeks on the best-seller list, he had been one of America's most prominent policy intellectuals and his brilliance was widely recognized. Two Rode Together is far from being the director's best, even if Jean-Luc Godard did name it the best film of 1961. Protocol dictated that it be Kissinger, as secretary of state, to whom Nixon addressed his official letter of resignation. But that was pro forma, it could as easily have been Rogers or the man initially slated to succeed Rogers, Kenneth Rush.
Heather E. Douglas
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262533287
- eISBN:
- 9780262340267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262533287.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
When completing his creation, Victor Frankenstein is in the thrall of technical sweetness, which is the allure of the pieces of an intellectual puzzle fitting neatly together. Scientists working at ...
More
When completing his creation, Victor Frankenstein is in the thrall of technical sweetness, which is the allure of the pieces of an intellectual puzzle fitting neatly together. Scientists working at Los Alamos experienced a similar excitement and blindness to the full implications of their work, and they reacted similarly to Victor, bearing a burden of responsibility for their work into the post-WWII context. Frankenstein thus serves as a useful parable for scientists and engineers, showing the difficulty of looking past immediate technical success to the broader implications of their work.Less
When completing his creation, Victor Frankenstein is in the thrall of technical sweetness, which is the allure of the pieces of an intellectual puzzle fitting neatly together. Scientists working at Los Alamos experienced a similar excitement and blindness to the full implications of their work, and they reacted similarly to Victor, bearing a burden of responsibility for their work into the post-WWII context. Frankenstein thus serves as a useful parable for scientists and engineers, showing the difficulty of looking past immediate technical success to the broader implications of their work.
