The Nuclear Ban Treaty: What Would Follow?

George Perkovich

Abstract: Opponents and skeptics fear that the dynamics surrounding a nuclear ban treaty will distract attention and effort from the nonproliferation regime that has helped prevent nuclear war since 1945, and that has prevented the proliferation of nuclear weapons to more states and to terrorist organizations. International support for a nuclear prohibition treaty became nearly inevitable, and non-nuclear-weapon states are in the majority; most of them do not accept this lack of progress toward disarmament and are reluctant to be held hostage to the potentially nuclear war–triggering decision-making of leaders such as Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump. In addition, despite the legitimate concerns that prompted it, the ban treaty's simplicity and corresponding lack of rigorous verification and enforcement provisions are cause for concern. Therefore, nuclear-armed states could individually or with other actors take nuclear disarmament obligations more seriously by specifying—theoretically, for now—how they would design a verifiable, enforceable nuclear disarmament regime. The process of designing a prototype disarmament regime would address vital questions that the ban treaty avoids. And an international debate is needed on the conditions, if any, under which the first use of nuclear weapons could be necessary and legitimate.

Keywords: the Nuclear Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention