On Nuclear Weapons: Denuclearization, Demilitarization and Disarmament
Selected Writings of Richard Falk

Highlights the threats posed by nuclear weapons and shows a way to denuclearization through the application of international law.

Stefan Andersson (Edited by), Curt Dahlgren (With)

9781108717298, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 June 2022

402 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.54 kg

We are at a time when international law and the law of war are particularly important. The testing of nuclear weapons that is being used in the rhetoric surrounding threats of war is creating new fears and heightening current tensions. Richard Falk has for decades been an outspoken authority calling for nuclear disarmament and the enforcement of non-proliferation treaties. In this collection of essays, Falk examines the global threats to all humanity posed by nuclear weapons. He is not satisfied with accepting arms control measures as a managerial stopgap to these threats and seeks no less than to move the world back from the nuclear precipice and towards denuclearization. Falk's essays reflect the wisdom and innovative thinking he has brought to his long career as a scholar and activist, as he reminds nuclear weapons states of their obligation under international law and moral imperative to seek nuclear disarmament.

Part I. International Law and World Order: 1. The Shimoda case: a legal appraisal of the atomic attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki
2. Nuclear policy and world order: why denuclearization
3. Toward a legal regime for nuclear weapons
4. Nuclear weapons, international law and the world court: a historic encounter
5. The nuclear weapons advisory opinion and the new jurisprudence of global civil society
6. Inhibiting reliance on biological weaponry: the role and relevance of international law
Part II. Impacts of Democracy, Neutrality and National Interest: 7. Nuclear weapons and the end of democracy
8. Nuclear weapons and the renewal of democracy
9. Neutrality, international law and the nuclear arms race
10. Nuclearism and national interest – the situation of a non-nuclear ally
11. A radical world order challenge: addressing global climate change and the threat of nuclear weapons
Part III. Nuclear Policy Initiatives: 12. Arms control, foreign policy, and global reform
13. The illegitimacy of the non-proliferation regime
14. No first use of nuclear weapons: pros and cons
15. Environmental warfare and ecocide facts, appraisal, and proposals
Part IV. Remembering the Past, Encountering the Future: 16. The paucity of the millennial moment: the case of nuclearism
17. The nuclear challenge after seventy years
18. The spirit of Thoreau in the age of Trident.

Subject Areas: International organisations & institutions [LBBU], Public international law [LBB], International law [LB], Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB], Nuclear weapons [JWMN], Weapons & equipment [JWM], War & defence operations [JWL], Military administration [JWJ]