Nuclear Disarmament after New START
The purpose of this paper is to examine and propose concrete nuclear disarmament measures which should be taken following the entry into force of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) on February 5, 2011. This treaty is the first concrete outcome from the famous Prague address by President Barak Obama in April 2009 and there still remain many items which should be pursued and implemented. I will take up the issues of the further reduction of strategic nuclear weapons, the reduction of non-strategic nuclear weapons, the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), and the consideration of a nuclear weapons convention. I will examine the circumstances surrounding each issue, and make proposals for their realization.
China's Perspective on a Nuclear-Free World
A new wave of interest in the complete elimination of nuclear weapons is washing over international security institutions. Although the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world is as old as the nuclear age, it seems more serious and urgent now, especially after President Barack Obama’s remarks in Prague, where he renewed the U.S. commitment to a nuclear-free world and laid out a road map to achieve this goal. In a UN resolution in September 2009, the original five nuclear-weapons states further committed to:
The Role of State Consent in the Customary Process
ed from a number of relevant rules which are consent-based. This particular way of envisaging the expression "general principles of law" as embodied in Article 38 of the ICJ Statute was advanced by Professor Schwarzenberger. Yet when he applies this to specific principles, such as the principle of legal sovereignty, he describes, among the underlying rules, the rule that "without its consent, a subject of international law is bound by applicable rules of universal or general international customary law". Other rules that might be regarded as having been created without reference to the State's consent are those which can be called "secondary rules", that is, superior "rules" which regulate the creation of international rules, their modification and their application. One such rule is the pacta sunt servanda rule. Again the consensualists might agree with the existence of such rules and argue that this does not make any difference to their claim so far as one of those rules prescribes that consent is a necessary part of the customary process. But that is an assertion which has to be proved by the investigation of whether States themselves recognise the existence of such a rule. D. Premise 4: States Recognise Their Consent or Will as a Law-