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Recommendations for Further Development of International Law on Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

23 Apr, 2017 FOREIGN & INTERNATIONAL LAW

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Recommendations for Further Development of International Law on Disarmament, Arms Control, and Non-Proliferation


INTRODUCTION


Which tasks should be given priority in future work to promote the international legal regulation of disarmament, arms control, and non-proliferation?


Several disarmament and arms control civil society organizations and individual experts have made recommendations on the next steps to take in the disarmament and arms control process. The recommendations are contained in various reports, including the following:


•Report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, August 1996;


•Protecting against the Spread of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons: An Action Agenda for the Global Partnership, Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 2003;


•Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, June 2006;1


•Abolishing Nuclear Weapons, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2008.


A number of civil society organizations, including NTI2 and the Nuclear Security Project (NSP), have also presented many recommendations for further disarmament and arms control steps. The recommendations by the NTI are presented in the DVD Nuclear Tipping Point, produced by the Nuclear Security Project to raise awareness about nuclear threats and to help build support for the urgent actions needed to reduce nuclear dangers.


Some of the most important recommendations in these reports are reproduced below. The list of recommendations for the next disarmament steps also contains the author’s own suggestions. The order in which the recommendations are mentioned does not reflect any priority, but follows the methodology in the book.


GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS


•Encourage states to adhere to existing treaties and conventions, so that the treaty regimes become universal with the participation of all states.


•Ensure that the existing treaties and conventions are implemented and made more effective to fulfill the purposes of the treaties and conventions.


•Promote compliance with the existing treaties and conventions so that all countries fully comply with the rules.


•Strengthen verification of compliance with the existing treaties and conventions so that states that do not comply with the rules are quickly exposed and held accountable for their violations of the agreements.


•Strengthen sanctions for violations of the existing treaties and conventions to deter potential violators of the rules from committing breaches of the agreements.