Tehran, the capital of Iran. Credit: Unsplash/Hosein Charbaghi. Source: UN News

By Jacqueline Cabasso and John Burroughs
OAKLAND, California, Mar 4 2026 (IPS)

Operation “Epic Fury” manifests an epic tantrum by President Donald Trump, supported by his sycophantic minions, with dire consequences for the people in the region, peace and security worldwide, the global economy, and the post-World War II international legal order.

The United States/Israeli bombing of Iran clearly violates fundamental rules of international law. It violates the sovereignty of Iran, contrary to Article 2(4) of the UN Charter which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

There is no plausible case that the U.S. and Israel are acting in self-defense against an imminent attack. Nor is regime change an acceptable justification for use of force, as it runs directly counter to the injunction to respect the political independence of states.

Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, briefing reporters outside the Security Council, described the United States’ bombing in Iran as a “dangerous escalation.”
“I am gravely alarmed by the use of force by the United States against Iran today,” said the UN chief, reiterating that there is no military solution. “This is a dangerous escalation in a region already on the edge – and a direct threat to international peace and security.”

It is striking that the Trump administration has made no real effort to use multilateral mechanisms or to invoke international law. Both by its action and by its contempt for international law, the administration is accelerating the erosion of basic rules relating to use of force that has been underway for nearly three decades following the end of the Cold War.

The erosion of the legal framework formally limiting the use of armed force has been a long process, punctuated in the 21st century by increasingly frequent shocks of large-scale wars launched by major powers with less and less regard for international law and institutions.

The first of these was the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the stage set by the long, massive U.S. presence in and around Iraq in the 1990s and the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 2001. Unlike the Trump administration, the George W. Bush administration at least gestured toward providing an international law rationale for the invasion—but built its justifications for war on a foundation of lies.

Then came the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which both lacked any serious international law justification. There have been other instances of aggression in this century, such as the recent U.S. invasion of Venezuela to abduct its president. But U.S. actions in relation to Iraq, those of Russia in Ukraine, and the U.S./Israel bombing of Iran stand out as major developments in the erosion of rules on use of force.

Concerning Iran’s nuclear program, prior to the bombing it was not at a stage of development that provided any basis for a claim of self-defense. In general, it has appeared for many years that Iran had a uranium enrichment capability, in part in order to preserve the option of acquiring nuclear weapons at some point in the future, but had not made the acquisition decision.

And it was the United States, during the first Trump administration, that unilaterally withdrew from the painstakingly negotiated 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an international agreement that placed effective and verifiable restraints on Iran’s nuclear program.

Discussions of Iran’s program generally do not address the fact that Israel has a robust nuclear arsenal. In the long run it is not practical to allow some states to have nuclear weapons and to deny them to others. The most straightforward way to deal with problems posed by the actual proliferation of nuclear weapons, as in the case of North Korea, or their potential proliferation, as in the case of Iran, is to move expeditiously toward the global abolition of nuclear arms.

Another at least partial way is to build new regional nuclear weapons free zones. That approach has indeed been tried in the case of the Middle East. Both in the context of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and in the United Nations, there have been serious efforts to get negotiation of a Middle East zone underway, with Iran’s willing participation.

However, Israel and the United States have boycotted these efforts. This severely undercuts the legitimacy of their position as they claim to act to stop a menacing Iranian nuclear program.

What should be the response to these developments?

First, the invasion of Iran should be condemned as unlawful aggression, and the basic UN Charter rules should be defended, with the aim of at least preserving them for the future.

Second, it should be recognized that the world is undergoing a major transformation marked by the resurgence of authoritarian nationalism, with authoritarian ethno-nationalist factions in power or constituting significant political forces in many countries, including all of the nuclear-armed states.

There is a need for realism about the nature of the challenge, and for new thinking and innovative forms of advocacy and politics for a more fair, democratic, peaceful, and post-nationalist world.

Jacqueline Cabasso is the Executive Director of Western States Legal Foundation in Oakland, California; John Burroughs is a member of the organization’s Board of Directors.

IPS UN Bureau

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A photograph of the 1971 Licorne nuclear test, which was conducted in French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean. Credit: CTBTO

By John Burroughs
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Feb 12 2026 (IPS)

The most recent agreement limiting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals, New START, expired on February 5, and prospects for any kind of follow-on agreement are very uncertain.

Progress over several decades in halting the growth of nuclear arsenals and then in reducing them is in acute danger of being undone. That is despite the fact that the objective of “cessation of the nuclear arms race” is embedded in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a keystone multilateral global security agreement.

In a U.S. statement delivered February 6 in the Conference on Disarmament, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno said that a “new architecture” is needed, one that takes “into account all Russian nuclear weapons, both novel and existing strategic systems, and address[es] the breakout growth of Chinese nuclear weapons stockpiles.”

That is a challenging project. An informal arrangement between the United States and Russia for transparently abiding by New START limits for at least a short period of time seems within the realm of possibility.

But obstacles to successful negotiation of a new treaty or treaties involving the United States, Russia, and China are major.

The Chinese have shown no interest in discussing limits on their arsenal, which remains much smaller than the U.S. and Russian arsenals. Russia wants negotiations to address U.S. missile defense plans and non-nuclear strategic strike capabilities.

The United States wants Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons and novel systems like a long-range nuclear-armed torpedo, both not limited by New START, to be addressed. More broadly, the ascendance of authoritarian nationalism and acute geopolitical tensions are not conducive to progress.

Nonetheless, especially with the next five-year Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference coming up this spring, it must be emphasized that the United States, Russia, and China are bound by the NPT Article VI obligation to pursue in good faith negotiations on “cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date” and on nuclear disarmament.

When the negotiations on the NPT were completed in 1968, cessation of the nuclear arms race was understood to centrally involve a cap on strategic arsenals held by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, a ban on nuclear explosive testing, and a ban on producing fissile materials for nuclear weapons.

Ending nuclear arms racing was seen as setting the stage for negotiations on nuclear disarmament, meaning the elimination of nuclear arms.

After the NPT entered into force in 1970, the United States and Russia expeditiously moved to cut back on arms racing by negotiating bilateral treaties limiting delivery systems and missile defenses.

The size of the Soviet stockpile of nuclear warheads, however, continued to climb until the mid-1980s. Then a series of treaties, above all the 1991 START I agreement, dramatically reduced the two arsenals while still leaving in place civilization destroying numbers of warheads.

With the demise of New START, there is no treaty regulating the arsenals of the United States, Russia, China, and other nuclear-armed states. China is expanding its arsenal and the United States and Russia are poised to follow suit. The three countries also in differing ways are diversifying their arsenals and increasing the capabilities of delivery systems.

Increasing, diversifying, and modernizing nuclear arsenals as now underway or planned amounts to a repudiation of the NPT objective of cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and fails to meet the legal requirement of good faith in pursuing that objective.

The NPT Review Conference would be an appropriate setting for launching an initiative to reverse this dangerous and unlawful trend. It must also be stressed that arms control among the three powers does not and should not exclude multilateral negotiations for establishment of the “architecture” of a world free of nuclear weapons.

John Burroughs is Senior Analyst, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy

IPS UN Bureau

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The first USSR nuclear test Joe 1 at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, 29 August 1949. Credit: CTBTO

By John Burroughs
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Dec 2 2025 (IPS)

In a Truth Social post that reverberated around the world, on October 29 President Donald Trump wrote: “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.”

A month later, it remains unclear what “testing programs” Trump had in mind. Other than North Korea, which last tested in 2017, no country has carried out nuclear-explosive testing since 1998.

Some commentators speculated that Trump was referring to tests of nuclear weapons delivery systems, since Russia had just carried out tests of innovative systems, a long-range torpedo and a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

Perhaps to underline that the United States too tests delivery systems, in an unusual November 13 press release Sandia National Laboratories announced an August test in which an F-35 aircraft dropped inert nuclear bombs.

It appears, though, that the testing in question concerns nuclear warheads. In what was clearly an effort to contain the implications of Trump’s announcement, on November 2, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said regarding US plans that “I think the tests we’re talking about right now” involve “noncritical” rather than “nuclear” explosions. The Energy Department is responsible for development and maintenance of the nuclear arsenal.

In contrast, Trump’s remarks in an interview taped on October 31 point toward alleged underground nuclear-explosive testing by Russia, China, and other countries as the basis for parallel US testing. His remarks perhaps were sparked by years-old US intelligence assessments that Russia and China may have conducted extremely low-yield experiments that cannot be detected remotely.

The prudent approach is to assume that Trump is talking about a US return to nuclear-explosive testing. That assumption is reinforced by the fact that a few days after Trump’s social media post, the United States was the sole country to vote against a UN General Assembly resolution supporting the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

The Russian government is taking this approach. On November 5, President Vladimir Putin ordered relevant agencies to study the possible start of preparations for explosive testing of nuclear warheads.

US resumption of nuclear-explosive testing would be a disastrous policy. It would elevate the role of nuclear arms in international affairs, making nuclear conflict more likely. Indeed, nuclear tests can function as a kind of threat.

It likely would also stimulate and facilitate nuclear arms racing already underway among the United States, Russia, and China. Over the longer term nuclear-explosive testing would encourage additional countries to acquire nuclear weapons, as they come to terms with deeper reliance on nuclear arms by the major powers.

Resumption of nuclear test explosions would also be contrary to US international obligations. The United States and China have signed but not ratified the CTBT. Russia is in the same position, having withdrawn its ratification in 2023 to maintain parity with the United States. Due to the lack of necessary ratifications, the CTBT has not entered into force. Since the CTBT was negotiated in 1996, the three countries have observed a moratorium on nuclear-explosive testing.

That posture is consistent with the international law obligation, set forth in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, of a signatory state to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty.

The object and purpose of the CTBT is perfectly clear: to prevent and prohibit the carrying out of a nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion.

The CTBT is a major multilateral agreement with an active implementing organization that operates a multi-faceted world-wide system to verify the testing prohibition. It stands as a precedent for a future global agreement or agreements that would control fissile materials used to make nuclear weapons, control missiles and other delivery systems, and reduce and eliminate nuclear arsenals.

The sidelining or evisceration of the CTBT due to an outbreak of nuclear-explosive testing would reverse decades of progress towards establishing a nuclear-weapons-free world.

A return to nuclear-explosive testing would similarly be incompatible with compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Its Article VI requires the negotiation of “cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date.”

Nuclear-explosive testing has long been understood as a driver of nuclear arms racing. The preamble to the NPT recalls the determination expressed in the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits above-ground nuclear tests, “to seek to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time and to continue negotiations to this end.”

In 1995, as part of a package enabling the NPT’s indefinite extension, a review conference committed to completion of negotiations on the CTBT by 1996, which was accomplished. In 2000 and 2010, review conferences called for bringing the CTBT into force.

To resume nuclear-explosive testing though a comprehensive ban has been negotiated, and to support design and development of nuclear weapons through such testing, would be a thoroughgoing repudiation of a key aim of the NPT, the cessation of the nuclear arms race.

That would erode the legitimacy of the NPT, which since 1970 has served as an important barrier to the spread of nuclear arms. The next review conference will be held in the spring of 2026. Resumption of nuclear-explosive testing, or intensified preparations to do so, would severely undermine any prospect of an agreed outcome.

It is imperative that the United States not resume explosive testing of nuclear weapons. It would be a very hard blow to the web of agreements and norms that limit nuclear arms and lay the groundwork for their elimination, and it could even lead toward the truly catastrophic consequences of a nuclear conflict.

IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

A child walks past a damaged building in eastern Ukraine. Around 1.5 million Ukrainians have been forced from their homes since fighting in the far east of the country began in 2014. The UN and other humanitarian organizations are supporting those who have been displaced, as they try to adjust to their new lives. 3 February 2022. Credit: UNICEF/Ashley Gilbertson V

By John Burroughs
NEW YORK, Feb 21 2022 (IPS)

If the Ukraine crisis erupts into war – even intensified limited war in Eastern Ukraine with overt Russian intervention – the consequences will be severe and far-reaching.

A non-comprehensive list includes: vastly greater loss of life due to armed conflict in Ukraine; destabilization of global peace and security, not least the always urgent pursuit of nuclear arms control and disarmament; and impairment of the will and capability for cooperation on climate protection, public health, and other vital matters.

The proximate cause of the crisis is Russia’s menacing behavior, including deployment of troops and equipment near the border with eastern Ukraine and in Crimea and Belarus, and conducting a nuclear forces exercise in Belarus.

Especially in context and combined with Putin’s at times bellicose rhetoric, these actions are unlawful threats under the fundamental UN Charter prohibition of the “threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”.

In the case of the exercise, it is also an unlawful threat because it is contrary to general international law to threaten the commission of an illegal act – here the use of nuclear weapons.

Longer-term causes of the crisis are the utterly reckless declaration, made in 2008, the last year of the second George W Bush term, that NATO membership is in principle open to Ukraine and Georgia; and more broadly the long history since the mid-1990s of US and NATO disregard of Russian security interests and proposals.

To take just one example, when the first GW Bush administration determined that the US would withdraw from the ABM Treaty, Russia proposed renegotiation of the treaty. The US answer was simple: No.

The United States then proceeded to establish missile defense facilities in Romania and Poland that Russia, with some reason, regarded as destabilizing.

The only rational path is diplomacy. At two Security Council meetings on Ukraine, on January 31 and February 17, this was the refrain of all Council members, including Russia.

Diplomacy is indeed mandated by the UN Charter, which requires member states to “settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.”

As the Russian response to a US proposal conveyed, there is some common ground for negotiation on such matters as limits on military deployments and regional arms control, conventional and nuclear. Former US Ambassador to Ukraine Michael McFaul surveys possible topics in this recent Foreign Affairs article.

However, as Russia has been insisting, what is lacking above all is US interest in addressing Russia’s categorical opposition to even the possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine. Instead, the United States has been mechanically saying that foreclosing that possibility is a “non-starter”.

This displays a lack of the creativity and imagination that diplomats on occasion are quite capable of putting to good use. Among possible courses of action: neutrality for Ukraine; an alternative European security arrangement; a long-term moratorium on NATO expansion; or some combination of the foregoing and other measures.

Also, a resolution of the status of eastern Ukraine will have to be reached, with the people of that region having a voice in the outcome. Similarly, the status of Crimea will have to be addressed or the issue deferred.

The stakes are very high. Energetic, creative, and determined problem solving is imperative.

For civil society commentary, see:
No war in Ukraine, then no war anywhere, United for Peace and Justice
The Ukraine crisis: commentary, responses, and background, United for Peace and Justice
Appeal: Diplomacy instead of preparation for war, IPPNW Germany and IALANA Germany (in German)

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Sculpture depicting St. George slaying the dragon. The dragon is created from fragments of Soviet SS-20 and United States Pershing nuclear missiles. Credit: UN Photo/Milton Grant

By John Burroughs
NEW YORK, Nov 2 2020 (IPS)

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will become binding law for participating states on January 22, 2021. Entry into force was triggered on October 24, the date marking the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, when Honduras become the 50th state to ratify the TPNW, reaching the threshold set by the treaty.

This is a signal accomplishment on the part of the 122 states, none nuclear-armed, that negotiated and adopted the TPNW in 2017, along with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which provided expert advice, and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a civil society initiative that won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

Together, the negotiating states, the ICRC, and ICAN took responsibility for creating a path toward the global elimination of nuclear weapons, essentially because the world’s most powerful states – all nuclear armed – are failing to do so.

In an October 24 statement, UN Secretary-General António Guterres commented that the entry into force of the TPNW “is the culmination of a worldwide movement to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons. It represents a meaningful commitment towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons, which remains the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations.”

The core provisions of the TPNW prohibit development, testing, possession, and threat or use of nuclear weapons. Reflecting the rise of “humanitarian disarmament,” the treaty also provides for assistance to victims of testing and use of nuclear arms and for environmental remediation of areas impacted by testing and use.

Further, the preamble observes that the “catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons cannot be adequately addressed, transcend national borders, pose grave implications for human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security and the health of current and future generations, and have a disproportionate impact on women and girls, including as a result of ionizing radiation.”

The preamble notes as well “the waste of economic and human resources on programmes for the production, maintenance and modernization of nuclear weapons.”

The TPNW & the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

In assessing the potential significance of the TPNW, it is important to understand how it reinforces and builds upon existing international law, notably the obligations set forth in the 1970 NPT and those analyzed in a 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice.

The NPT has 191 states parties, making it one of the most widely subscribed to international agreements. Five states parties (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States) are acknowledged to possess nuclear weapons pending their elimination pursuant to Article VI of the treaty.

All other NPT members are obligated, subject to safeguards monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), not to acquire nuclear weapons.

Similarly, members of the TPNW are obligated not to acquire nuclear arms subject to IAEA safeguards, and the importance of the NPT to international peace and security is recognized in the preamble to the TPNW.

But the TPNW goes further than the NPT: Any member of the TPNW is barred from “inducing” a state to use or threaten nuclear weapons on its behalf. TPNW states parties are therefore barred from participating in alliance arrangements with nuclear-armed states in which nuclear weapons may be used on their behalf, or in any other way or any other circumstance requesting or cooperating in the use of nuclear weapons on their behalf.

In contrast, some 30 members of the NPT are in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or other alliances in which US nuclear weapons are explicitly part of defense postures. US nuclear weapons are even stationed on the territory of five NATO states, a practice specifically barred by the TPNW.

So far, no member of a nuclear alliance has signed or ratified the TPNW, nor have any of the nine nuclear-armed states (the five NPT nuclear weapon states plus India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan).

The TPNW & the International Court of Justice

In 1996, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered an Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons requested by the UN General Assembly.

Like the TPNW, the opinion resulted from a major collaborative effort between states – mostly from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a very large group of mostly Global South states – and civil society in the form of the World Court Project, a coalition of over 500 groups. Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy was a leader of the World Court Project.

The Court found that the threat or use of nuclear arms is “generally” contrary to international humanitarian law forbidding the infliction of indiscriminate harm and unnecessary suffering in warfare.

The Court declined to assess the legality of use of low-yield nuclear weapons in remote areas and of use of nuclear arms in reprisal against a nuclear attack or when a state’s survival is endangered.

While the Court’s opinion thus was not definitive, it is also fair to say that the thrust of its reasoning was toward illegality in all circumstances.

The opinion stimulated subsequent in-depth examination of the question, as well as initiatives implying or finding use of nuclear weapons to be categorically illegal, including a 2011 resolution of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and the 2011 civil society Vancouver Declaration.

The TPNW prohibits any threat or use of nuclear weapons by a state party. Further, its preamble recites rules and principles of international humanitarian law applicable, as it notes, to all states, and “considers” that “any” use of nuclear weapons violates that law.

The view taken in the TPNW thus goes beyond the ICJ’s finding of general illegality, ruling out use in all circumstances. At a minimum, then, the TPNW is an important contribution to the ongoing process of stigmatizing and delegitimizing nuclear weapons.

On its own initiative, the International Court of Justice also took on analysis of a question it was not asked, the nature of the nuclear disarmament obligation set forth in Article VI of the NPT and other international law.

In a unanimous conclusion cited in the TPNW preamble, the Court held that “there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion, negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

While the Court did not explicitly say so, its reasoning strongly implies that the obligation is universal, extending to those nuclear-armed states not party to the NPT.

In an annual resolution following up on the ICJ opinion first adopted in 1996 (51/45 M), the UN General Assembly called for all states to negotiate a comprehensive convention providing for elimination of nuclear weapons. The Chemical Weapons Convention and a civil society draft would have been starting points for such an agreement.

The Western nuclear weapon states and Russia showed no interest. The TPNW, championed by non-nuclear weapons states, was a response to this stalemate. It provides a framework, but not detailed provisions, for an elimination process.

The Reaction of the NPT Nuclear Weapon States

Except for China, the NPT nuclear weapon states continue to express firm opposition to the TPNW and to claim implausibly that it does not affect the development of international law going beyond obligations of parties to the TPNW.

The far better position would be to welcome the TPNW as grounded in the NPT and other international law and as a powerful statement of the humanitarian and legal principles that should guide the abolition of nuclear arms.

Most importantly, all nuclear-armed states must invigorate their currently weak efforts to comply with the disarmament obligation and join in creation of a world free of nuclear weapons.

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A Soviet inspector examines a BGM-109G Tomahawk ground-launched cruise missile prior to its destruction pursuant to INF Treaty, October 18, 1988, at Davis-Monthan US Air Force Base in Arizona. Credit: US Department of Defense

By Andrew Lichterman and John Burroughs
NEW YORK, Jan 2 2019 (IPS)

A hard-earned lesson of the Cold War is that arms control reduces the risk of nuclear war by limiting dangerous deployments and, even more important, by creating channels of communication and understanding. But President Donald Trump and his National Security Advisor John Bolton appear to have forgotten, or never learned, that lesson.

In late October, Trump announced an intent to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo subsequently stated that the US will suspend implementation of the treaty in early February. While US signals have been mixed, initiation of withdrawal at that point or soon thereafter appears likely.

Agreed to in 1987 by the United States and the Soviet Union, the INF Treaty prohibits the two countries from deploying both nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges between 310 and 3420 miles.

The main reason cited for withdrawal is that Russia has tested and deployed ground-launched cruise missiles the treaty prohibits. Russia denies that the missiles violate the treaty and has made its own accusations, foremost that US ballistic missile defense launchers installed in Eastern Europe could be used to house treaty-prohibited cruise missiles.

On December 21, the United States opposed a Russia-sponsored UN General Assembly resolution calling for preservation of the treaty and for the two countries to consult on compliance with its obligations. The Russian representative said that US withdrawal “is the start of a full-fledged arms race.”

The US representative conveyed that the only way to save the treaty is for Russia to stop violating it. On behalf of the European Union, which opposed the resolution as a diversion, an Austrian diplomat said that erosion of the treaty will have critical consequences for Europe and beyond, dialogue between the US and Russia remains essential, and Russia should demonstrate compliance.

A representative of China, which supported the resolution, said the treaty is important for global stability, and cast doubt on prospects for making it multilateral. The General Assembly rejected the resolution by a vote of 46 against to 43 in favor, with 78 abstentions.

The INF Treaty allows either party to withdraw on six-month’s notice “if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests.” The treaty also includes a bilateral mechanism for resolving disputes over compliance. The Trump administration has firmly asserted that Russia has violated the treaty, and NATO states have backed that assertion.

But the administration has not made the case that the missiles in question pose a threat that significantly affects the military balance between Russia and the very large and capable forces of the United States and its NATO allies, much less constitute an “extraordinary” development jeopardizing US “supreme interests.”

On December 14, a Russian official stated that Russia is open to mutual inspections regarding claimed violations.

President Trump has also indicated that withdrawal is premised in part on a buildup of intermediate-range missiles by China, which is not a party to the treaty. Here too no case has been made that these missiles, which are based in China’s national territory, are best answered in kind by US deployment of intermediate-range missiles.

Nor has it been demonstrated that peace and stability in that region or the world will be enhanced by repudiating the treaty rather than seeking more comprehensive arms control measures aimed at braking an emerging multipolar arms race. Further, in either Europe or Asia, US ground-based intermediate-range missiles would have to be deployed in other countries.

This likely would spark opposition from their populations—a factor that three decades ago contributed to the negotiation of the INF Treaty itself.

In sum, the INF Treaty should not be abandoned lightly. It remains a key element of the arms control framework limiting nuclear weapons and arms racing. Often forward deployed and intermingled with other forces, the missiles the treaty prohibits are among the weapons most likely to lead to miscalculation or misadventure in a crisis.

And the danger of crisis miscalculation, of a disastrous misunderstanding of an adversary’s mindset, is real. At the time the INF Treaty was being negotiated, some US strategists viewed their nuclear-armed missiles in Europe as useful for convincing “demonstration” shots to show a commitment to defend Europe with nuclear weapons with less risk of escalation to a catastrophic nuclear war.

A 1987 Washington Post article summarized NATO thinking: “A final advantage of the INF weapons is that NATO planners believe that they could use a single Pershing II or cruise missile, rather than another nuclear weapon, with somewhat less risk of triggering an all-out nuclear war.”

But we now know that Soviet military leaders, strongly influenced by the World War II national trauma of a homeland devastated and millions dead, saw things quite differently. In an article published in Survival only last year, Alexei Arbatov, a Russian arms negotiator and parliamentarian, notes that in 1983 Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, head of the Soviet General Staff, made clear that the Soviet Union would not allow itself to be taken by surprise, as it had been in 1941. Ogarkov stated, “We will start the offensive if we are obliged to do it, and as soon as we discover the first evidence of the beginning of nuclear attack by NATO.” And in so doing, he said, “We will deliver dozens and, if need be, a hundred nuclear strikes to break through NATO’s deep defense echelon.”

Arbatov recounted this little-known history to support a subtle but critical point about arms control. Even when prospects for arms control progress seem dim, constant efforts to negotiate create channels of communication that are invaluable in a crisis. They also build institutions devoted to understanding not only the capabilities of an adversary but also their intentions, their fundamental interests and their deepest fears.

But a long hiatus in serious arms control efforts and a climate of deepening hostility have eroded the diplomatic and military-to-military contacts between Russia and the United States. And in the triumphalism of the long post-Cold War period, U.S. arms control institutions such as the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency were downgraded or allowed to atrophy.

With tensions growing among nuclear-armed countries in potential flashpoints from Ukraine to the South China Sea, it is long past time to rebuild the capacity of the US government to negotiate intelligently with its nuclear-armed adversaries.

The best course would be to use the dispute over the INF Treaty as a moment to renew, rather than discard, the negotiating frameworks and institutions that played a significant role in avoiding catastrophe during the Cold War.

However, Trump and Bolton have expressed general hostility to any international obligation that might limit US use of force or military capabilities. Both see negotiations as a zero-sum game to be won or lost. Neither seems capable of imagining international agreements that benefit all parties and make the world a safer place.

So Congress must act, to preserve enough of a fragile status quo to leave space for future diplomacy. As former senator Russell Feingold has explained, there is a legitimate question as to whether it is constitutional for a president to withdraw from a Senate-ratified treaty over Congressional opposition.

However, such core foreign policy controversies seldom are finally resolved by the courts. Congress in any case has the practical power to prevent the administration from taking action contrary to the INF Treaty. Most important, it can refuse to fund weapons testing, production, or deployment that would violate the treaty.

Senator Jeff Merkley and six colleagues already have introduced the Prevention of Arms Race Act of 2018 (S.3667). It characterizes withdrawal from the INF Treaty without consultation with Congress as “a serious breach of Congress’s proper constitutional role as a co-equal branch of government,” and erects barriers to spending on missiles that would violate the treaty.

Despite intense antagonism during the Cold War, the US and Russia were able to negotiate agreements like the INF Treaty to address the riskiest elements of their nuclear confrontation. The time to start building a climate for negotiations is now. Waiting for a crisis may be too late.

Excerpt:

Security Council meeting: Maintenance of international peace and security. Nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Andrew Lichterman and John Burroughs
NEW YORK, Sep 25 2017 (IPS)

President Trump’s threat of total destruction of North Korea is utterly unacceptable. Also deplorable is the response of North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho on 23 September at the United Nations.

He said that North Korean nuclear forces are “a war deterrent for putting an end to nuclear threat of the U.S. and for preventing its military invasion,” referred to “our rockets’ visit to the entire U.S. mainland,” and called Trump “mentally deranged”.

Instead of exchanging threats and insults, the two governments should agree on a non-aggression pact as a step toward finally concluding a peace treaty formally ending the 1950s Korean War and permanently denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

The U.S. and North Korean threats are wrong as a matter of morality and common sense. They are also contrary to bedrock requirements of international law. Both countries, by engaging in a cycle of threats and military posturing, violate prohibitions on the threat of force to resolve disputes and on threats to use force outside the bounds of the law of armed conflict.

Trump’s threats carry more weight because the armed forces of the United States, backed by an immense nuclear arsenal, could accomplish the destruction of North Korea in short order.

A threat of total destruction negates the fundamental principle that the right to choose methods and means of warfare is not unlimited:
• Under the law of armed conflict, military operations must be necessary for and proportionate to the achievement of legitimate military objectives, and must not be indiscriminate or cause unnecessary suffering. Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions prohibits threatening an adversary that there will be no survivors or conducting hostilities on that basis. The Nuremberg Tribunal found the Nazi concept of “total war” to be unlawful because it runs contrary to all the rules of warfare and the moral principles underlying them, creating a climate in which “rules, regulations, assurances, and treaties all alike are of no moment” and “everything is made subordinate to the overmastering dictates of war.”
• Conducting a war with the intention of destroying an entire country would contravene the Genocide Convention, which prohibits killing “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group ….”
• Limits on the conduct of warfare apply to both aggressor and defender states. Thus Trump’s statement that total destruction would be inflicted in defense of the United States and its allies is no justification. Moreover, the U.S. doctrine permitting preventive war, carried out in the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq, means that Trump’s reference to “defense” does not necessarily rule out U.S. military action in the absence of a North Korean attack or imminent attack.
• While the United States likely would not use nuclear weapons first in the Korean setting, it remains true that Trump’s references to “fire and fury” and “total destruction” raise the specter of U.S. nuclear use. North Korea has explicitly warned of use of its nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons cannot be used in compliance with the law of armed conflict, as the recently adopted Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons recognizes. Threats of use of nuclear weapons are likewise unlawful. The illegal character of the threat or use of nuclear weapons is especially egregious where the express intent is to “totally destroy” an adversary, a purpose that from the outset rules out limiting use of force to the proportionate and necessary.

U.S. and North Korean threats of war are also unlawful because military action of any kind is not justified. The UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force except in self-defense against an armed attack or subject to UN Security Council authorization:
• Article 51 of the UN Charter permits the use of force as a matter of self-defense only in response to an armed attack. No armed attack by either side has occurred or is imminent.
• The Security Council is addressing the matter and has not authorized use of force. Its resolution 2375 of 11 September 2017 imposing further sanctions on North Korea was adopted pursuant to UN Charter Article 41, which provides for measures not involving the use of force. There is no indication whatever in that and preceding resolutions of an authorization of use of force. Moreover, the resolution emphasizes the need for a peaceful resolution of the dispute with North Korea. That approach is mandated by the UN Charter, whose Article 2(3) requires all members to “settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.”

It is urgent that diplomatic overtures replace threats. In the nuclear age, the first principle of diplomacy should be that adversaries talk to each other to the maximum possible extent, and in moments of crisis directly and unconditionally. We learned during the Cold War that even when the prospects for any tangible progress seem dim, negotiations between nuclear-armed adversaries have other positive results. They allow the military and political leaderships of the adversaries to better understand each other’s intentions, and their fears, and build broader channels of communication.

Accordingly, the United States should declare itself ready and willing to engage in direct talks with North Korea, and a commitment to denuclearization should not be a precondition for such talks. To facilitate negotiations, the United States and South Korea should immediately cease large-scale military exercises in the region, providing North Korea with an opportunity to reciprocate by freezing its nuclear-related testing activities.

The immediate aim of negotiations should be a non-aggression pact, as a step toward a comprehensive peace treaty bringing permanent closure to the Korean War and providing for a nuclear-weapon-free Korean peninsula.

Success in denuclearizing the Korean peninsula will be much more likely if the United States, Russia, China and other nuclear-armed states also engage, as they are obligated to do, in negotiations for a world free of nuclear weapons.

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Credit: UN Photo

By John Burroughs
NEW YORK, Apr 3 2017 (IPS)

Is a paradigm shift now underway on nuclear weapons at the United Nations? That was the question posed as about 130 nations gathered this past week to begin negotiations on a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons, leading to their total elimination. The treaty would prohibit development, possession and use of nuclear weapons, but would not contain detailed provisions relating to verified dismantlement of nuclear arsenals and governance of a world free of nuclear arms.

This is the first multilateral negotiation on nuclear weapons since the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) was adopted in 1996. It is also the first ever such negotiation relating to the global elimination of nuclear arms, despite the fact that the first UN General Assembly resolution, in 1946, called for the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.

The hope of the nations leading the negotiations, including Costa Rica, whose ambassador, Elayne Whyte, is president of the negotiating conference, is that the second session, to be held from June 15 to July 7, will succeed in adopting a treaty. The idea is to strike while the iron is hot.

What makes the initiative at first hard to grasp is that it involves countries whose acquisition of nuclear weapons is already barred by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and by regional nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties.

The nuclear-armed states (United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel) are not participating, nor are almost all states in military alliances with the United States. The aim, nonetheless, is to set a global standard stigmatizing nuclear arms and laying the foundation for their universal and permanent elimination.

The initiative grew out of three conferences on the humanitarian impact of nuclear explosions organized by the governments of Norway, Austria, and Mexico, in 2013 and 2014. The straightforward message is that the consequences of use of nuclear weapons are morally unacceptable and also incompatible with international humanitarian law barring the use of weapons causing unnecessary suffering and indiscriminate harm.

Therefore, nuclear weapons should be explicitly prohibited by treaty, as have other weapons including biological weapons, chemical weapons, landmines, and cluster munitions. The initiative also builds upon the regional nuclear weapon free zone treaties, to which most of the negotiating states belong.

The Trump Administration has carried forward the Obama Administration’s policy of opposing the negotiations. An alarming related development is that Christopher Ford, a former US Special Representative for Nonproliferation now serving on the National Security Council, has stated that the administration is reviewing “whether or not the goal of a world without nuclear weapons is in fact a realistic objective, especially in the near to medium term.” Ford, a lawyer, knows very well that the United States is legally bound by Article VI of the NPT to pursue in good faith negotiations on effective measures relating to nuclear disarmament.

A common objection made by U.S. allies is that a nuclear ban treaty will undermine the NPT. Participating states reply: How? We are negotiating an effective measure relating to nuclear disarmament as Article VI requires of all NPT states parties.

The first week of negotiations revealed a broad convergence in favor of a relatively simple prohibition treaty. Only a few countries advocated negotiation in this forum of a comprehensive convention addressing all aspects of nuclear disarmament. Many other countries see negotiation of a comprehensive convention as a step to be taken later, when at least some nuclear-armed states are ready to participate.

There remain significant issues to be resolved concerning the provisions of a prohibition treaty, including issues relating to threat of use of nuclear arms and to testing. My organization, the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), advocates for inclusion of a prohibition of threat of use.

In our view, that would confirm and specify existing international law and, as Chile and South Africa also said, help to delegitimize nuclear deterrence. An opposing view is that the illegality of threat of use would be implicit in the prohibitions of possession and use and is already adequately covered by the UN Charter.

IALANA also calls for the treaty to prohibit design and testing of nuclear weapons, capturing a whole suite of activities from computer simulations to explosive testing. The treaty will help set the template for future disarmament agreements, and therefore should be reasonably comprehensive.

Many governments support the inclusion of a prohibition of at least testing. Some governments maintain, however, that it is captured by the prohibition of development and note that explosive testing is banned by the yet to enter into force CTBT.

A knotty issue is how to handle possible later participation in the treaty by nuclear-armed states. The basic options are to require that they denuclearize prior to joining the treaty, or to provide that they may join the treaty if they have accepted a time-bound obligation verifiably to eliminate their arsenal. Participation by nuclear-armed states in a ban treaty in the near term is entirely theoretical, and may not happen even when they do decide to eliminate their arsenals. Still, negotiators want to make it clear that all states are welcome and encouraged to join the treaty.

The initiative and the negotiations have been marked by close cooperation between governments and civil society, notably the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and with the International Committee of the Red Cross. Civil society was given ample opportunity to comment throughout the first week.

Such cooperation has never before occurred in the nuclear sphere. Also noteworthy is that the negotiations are taking place in a UN process over the opposition of the permanent five members of the Security Council, perhaps a harbinger of democratization of the United Nations.

Diplomats and civil society organizations involved in the negotiations are clearly energized, even passionate, and determined to work constructively. If all goes well, members of a ban treaty, working together with civil society, will become a potent collective actor that will transform nuclear and international affairs for the better.

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By John Burroughs
NEW YORK, Nov 8 2011 (IPS)

Since 2008, eloquent affirmations of the desirability and necessity of achieving a world without nuclear weapons have poured out from many quarters, not least from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US President Barack Obama. Yet the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva has displayed an impressive immunity to the marked shift in rhetoric, remaining mired in deadlock. Operating under an absolute rule of consensus, the UN-affiliated body has conducted no negotiations whatsoever since it produced the text of the agreement banning all nuclear test explosions in 1996.

Patience with this lack of productivity has run out. Throughout October, at UN headquarters in New York, UN member states meeting in the First Committee of the General Assembly engaged in a heated and substantive debate on how to get multilateral disarmament moving again. They then approved two resolutions that the General Assembly will formally adopt in early December. The resolutions signal that if the stalemate in the Conference on Disarmament continues, next year, as the body ultimately responsible for pursuing one of the United Nations’ central aims, the General Assembly is prepared to act.

One course of action would be for the General Assembly to establish a process not subject to the rule of consensus outside the Conference on Disarmament until the latter can deliver results. This was proposed in the First Committee by Austria, Mexico, and Norway, and gained substantial but not majority support. Working groups would address nuclear disarmament and the achievement of a world without nuclear weapons; guarantees of non-use of nuclear weapons against countries not possessing them; negotiation of a treaty to ban production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons, a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty (FMCT); and prevention of the weaponisation of space.

All of those topics are on the agenda of the Conference on Disarmament, but it has been disabled by the ability of just one government to stop work by the 65-member group. The majority of member states, many from the Global South, prioritise negotiations on total nuclear disarmament. This is refused by the nuclear-armed permanent five members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States). To keep arms control in motion, in the late 1990s the majority reluctantly accepted the position of the Western nuclear powers: negotiations on an FMCT and discussions on other items. Nonetheless, work has not begun.

To buy time to build up its nuclear stockpile, since 2009 Pakistan has blocked negotiations on an FMCT. In the mid-2000s, it was the United States stopping talks, when the Bush administration took the baseless position that an FMCT could not be verified. And before then, China and Russia insisted on- and the United States opposed- simultaneous commencement of negotiations on the prevention of space weaponisation.

The history of successfully-negotiated multilateral nuclear treaties also demonstrates the need to avoid the trap of consensus. In the case of the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, banning tests in the atmosphere, and the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, not all countries then possessing nuclear weapons participated in the negotiations or were initial parties. But they later joined in. And the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was adopted by the General Assembly, not the Conference on Disarmament, over the strong opposition of India.

Beginning in 2009, the Permanent Five for the first time ever are holding occasional meetings on transparency and verification. This is a welcome development. However, it also underlines the possibility that future nuclear disarmament negotiations would be carried out by states possessing nuclear weapons, rather than in a UN setting. That would be unwise, because it would result in less stringent agreements that lack the legitimacy and effectiveness that only global buy-in could produce. To be used, though, UN-based processes need to be workable as the Conference on Disarmament, paralysed by the rule of consensus, has not been for 15 years.

In addition to flexibility regarding consensus, an approach encompassing more than one multilateral measure at a time is needed. That is another merit of the Austria, Mexico, and Norway proposal. The United States and its allies are adamant that a nuclear weapons-free world must be achieved through a step-by-step approach. But saying that no other multilateral agreement can be pursued until negotiations on an FMCT are completed is a formula for putting off indefinitely decisive action to end the age of nuclear weapons.

An FMCT will likely take years to negotiate and even longer to enter into force. Moreover, as currently envisaged by the permanent five, it would simply end future production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons. Since the older nuclear powers -the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, and France- already have huge stocks of weapons-grade materials, such a cut-off will have little or no practical effect on their military capabilities.

So the step-by-step policy must be discarded and a policy of working on disarmament measures in an integrated and parallel fashion put in its place. Governments should simultaneously negotiate, or at least prepare to negotiate, a fissile materials agreement, non-use obligations, and an agreement on the global elimination of nuclear weapons or combine them all into one negotiation.

If the Conference on Disarmament cannot find a way to resume work in the coming year, the General Assembly should take responsibility and create new pathways to disarmament. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) John Burroughs is Executive Director of the New York-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and co-editor and contributor, Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security: U.S. Weapons of Terror, the Global Proliferation Crisis, and Paths to Peace (2007).

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