International Law

Topic- Nuclear Weapons, Human Security, and International Law

Introduction

At the end of the cold war it might had ended the era animosity between the two poles but a threat to
human society had already been created which had not been discontinued till now those were the
nuclear weapon capable of clearing the human race or of making a loss which had no better cure
Humans have had some experience with this sort of deadly global climate change. In 1815, the largest
volcanic eruption in recorded history took place in Indonesia. Mount Tambora exploded and created a
stratospheric layer of sulfuric acid droplets that blocked sunlight from reaching Earth. During the
following year, which was known as “The Year without summer,” the northeastern United States
experienced snowstorms in June and debilitating frosts every month of the year, and there was famine
in Europe.
Deadly climate change from nuclear war must be included as a primary consideration in the ongoing
debate about the abolition of nuclear weapons. A failure to address the apocalyptic potential of existing
nuclear arsenals will cause the abolition discussion to lack the necessary sense of urgency needed to
facilitate the elimination of these true weapons of mass destruction—before it’s too late.

Consequences of the use of nuclear weapons

Recent scientific studies have found that a war fought with the deployed U.S. and Russian nuclear
arsenals would leave Earth virtually uninhabitable. In fact, NASA computer models have shown that
even a “successful” first strike by Washington or Moscow would inflict catastrophic environmental
damage that would make agriculture impossible and cause mass starvation. Similarly, in the January
2010 edition of Scientific American, Alan Robock and Brian Toon, the foremost experts on the climatic
impact of nuclear war, warn that the environmental consequences of a “regional” nuclear war fought
between India and Pakistan would cause a global famine that could kill one billion people.

Robock and Toon (American climatologist) predict that the detonation of 100 15-kiloton nuclear
weapons in Indian and Pakistani megacities would create urban firestorms that would loft 5 million tons
of thick, black smoke above cloud level, which would engulf the entire planet within 10 days. Because
the smoke couldn't be rained out, it would remain in the stratosphere for at least a decade and have
profoundly disruptive effects. Specifically, the smoke layer would heat the upper atmosphere, and cause
massive destruction of protective stratospheric ozone, while simultaneously blocking warming sunlight
and creating Ice Age weather conditions on Earth.

The human society had already observed the misery associated with the dropping of atomic bombs over
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August 1945 is vividly captured in the accounts of horrific, ghastly
scenes witnessed by medical and rescue workers. It is also important to remember that, even if nuclear
weapons are never used again, they pose an intolerable threat to humanity.
The abolition of nuclear weapons is an urgent humanitarian necessity. Any use of nuclear weapons
would have catastrophic consequences. No effective humanitarian response would be possible, and the
effects of radiation on human beings would cause suffering and death many years after the initial
explosion. Prohibiting and completely eliminating nuclear weapons is the only guarantee against their
use. Even if a nuclear weapon were never again exploded over a city, there are intolerable effects from
the production, testing and deployment of nuclear arsenals that are experienced as an ongoing personal
and community catastrophe by many people around the globe. This humanitarian harm, too, must
inform and motivate efforts to outlaw and eradicate nuclear weapons.

Efforts made to eliminate the nuclear weapon

The United States tested the first nuclear device at Alamogordo, New Mexico in the summer of 1945.
Over the next 65 years, the international community has struggled with a basic dilemma: how to restrain
the atom’s destructive effects while harnessing its vast potential for peaceful uses. The earliest efforts to
address this dilemma achieved little success. The 1946 U.S.-sponsored Baruch Plan sought to outlaw
nuclear weapons and internationalize the use of nuclear energy. It failed, and by 1952, three states had
nuclear weapons. The 1950s and early 1960s saw U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace
initiative, the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the development of IAEA
safeguards, and the expansion of the peaceful use of nuclear energy. However, two more countries
exploded nuclear devices by 1964, and concern heightened that the spread of nuclear technology for
peaceful purposes could not be divorced from the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In March of 1963,
U.S. President John F. Kennedy described a world where as many as 25 states possessed nuclear
weapons as “the greatest possible danger and hazard.” By the early 1960s, efforts to achieve a legally
binding agreement to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons began to show results. In 1961,
the United Nations General Assembly approved a Resolution sponsored by Ireland calling on all states to
conclude an agreement that would ban the further acquisition and transfer of nuclear weapons. In 1965,
the Geneva disarmament conference began consideration of a draft nuclear nonproliferation treaty. The
conference completed its negotiations in 1968, and on July 1, 1968, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was opened for signature. The NPT entered into force on March 5, 1970, with
43 Parties, including three of the five nuclear-weapon stat: the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and
the United States

NPT(non plorification treaty)

From 43 Parties in 1970, NPT adherence has grown to nearly 190 Parties, making it the most widely
adhered to nonproliferation or arms control agreement in history. In 1995, Parties convened a Treaty-
mandated review and extension conference which agreed to extend the Treaty indefinitely. Only three
states--India, Israel, and Pakistan-have never adhered to the Treaty. Only one state--North Korea--has
announced its withdrawal from the NPT

The NPT is critical to sustaining progress toward disarmament because it is the principal legal barrier to
the spread of nuclear weapons and because its Parties undertake in Article VI “to pursue negotiations in
good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to
nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective
international control.” There has been significant progress on disarmament since the NPT’s entry into
force. The Cold War era nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union ended two
decades ago. Treaties banning chemical and biological weapons are now in force. At the 2000 NPT
Review Conference, the five NPT nuclear weapon states reiterated their commitment to the elimination
of nuclear weapons. The United States, through negotiated agreements and unilateral actions, has
reduced significantly its nuclear stockpile, reduced the role that nuclear weapons play in its security
policy, and removed from its stockpile excess highly-enriched uranium and plutonium.

Conference on Disarmament (CD)

The Conference on Disarmament (CD), established in 1979 as the single multilateral disarmament
negotiating forum of the international community, following the first Special Session on Disarmament
(SSOD I) of the United Nations General Assembly held in 1978. The Director-General of UNOG is the
Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament as well as the Personal Representative of the UN
Secretary-General to the CD. Under the Anti-Personnel Landmine Convention (APLC), the United Nations
Secretariat has been given a number of tasks, which are carried out by the Geneva Branch of the Office
for Disarmament Affairs. These include, inter alia, collecting Article 7 reports on measures taken to
implement the Convention and updating the relevant database, maintaining the Article 8 (9) List of
qualified experts, as well as the organization of the meetings of States parties, which take place
alternatively in a mine affected country and at the United Nations Office at Geneva. As a result of
prolonged efforts by the international community to establish a new instrument that would supplement
the 1925 Geneva Protocol, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the first multilateral disarmament
treaty banning the production and use of an entire category of weapons, was opened for signature on
10 April 1972 and entered into force on 26 March 1975. All the meetings related to this instrument are
currently being held in UNOG, and are serviced by the BWC Implementation Support Unit in the Geneva
Branch of the Office for Disarmament Affairs.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions was concluded by the Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster
Munitions at Dublin on 30 May 2008. The tasks performed by the Secretary General of the United
Nations are mandated in the text of the conventions and in relevant General Assembly resolutions.
These include the collection and dissemination of national transparency reports (Article 7), the
facilitation of clarification of compliance (Article 8); and the convening of the Meetings of States Parties
(Article 11) and Review Conferences (Article 12).

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) began its substantive negotiations on a comprehensive nuclear-
test-ban treaty in January 1994 within the framework of an Ad Hoc Committee established for that
purpose. Although the CD had long been involved with the issue of a test-ban, only in 1982 did it
establish a subsidiary body on the item. Disagreement over a mandate for that body blocked tangible
progress for years. After more than two years of intensive negotiations, the Chairman of the Ad Hoc
Committee, Ambassador Jaap Ramaker of the Netherlands, presented a final draft treaty to the CD in
June 1996. An overwhelming majority of Member States of the CD expressed their readiness to support
the draft treaty. India, for its part, stated that it could not go along with a consensus on the draft text
and its transmittal to the United Nations General Assembly. The main reasons for such a decision, as
India pointed out, were related to its strong misgivings about the provision for the entry-into-force of
the treaty, which it considered unprecedented in multilateral practice and running contrary to
customary international law, and the failure of the treaty to include a commitment by the nuclear-
weapon States to eliminate nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework. As a result, Australia, on
22 August 1996, requested that the General Assembly resume the consideration of agenda item 65,
entitled “Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty” as provided for in resolution 50/65 of 12 December
1995. For that purpose it also submitted the draft CTBT, identical to that negotiated in the CD, for
adoption by the General Assembly. On 10 September, the General Assembly by resolution
(A/RES/50/245) adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and requested the Secretary-
General of the United Nations, in his capacity as Depositary of the Treaty, to open it for signature at the
earliest possible date. The Treaty was opened for signature in September 1996.