An examination of the history of nuclear arms control law to make the case for a new generation of treaties between the three superpowers.
Speaker: Professor Daniel H Joyner, University of Alabama
Chair: Professor Marco Roscini
Location: LG.14, Portland Hall
4-12 Little Titchfield Street
London
W1W 7BY
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union created a web of bilateral treaties that were designed to stop the dangerous nuclear arms race, and facilitate a reciprocally coordinated implementation of agreed limits on the number of strategic nuclear weapons and delivery systems deployed by the two countries.
However, over the past two decades these treaties have gradually disappeared through termination and withdrawal, until now there is only one bilateral nuclear arms control treaty left between the United States and Russia. The New START treaty is itself scheduled to terminate in February 2026. If that happens, there will be no nuclear arms control treaty in effect between the US and Russia for the first time since 1972.
Professor Joyner will examine this history and use it to contextualise the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), a disarmament treaty that was adopted by the United Nations in 2017. He will argue that while well meaning, the TPNW will likely play only a minor diplomatic role in the future of nuclear weapons regulation in international law, and that what is needed is an urgent renaissance of attention to creating a new generation of carefully negotiated nuclear arms control treaties among the United States, Russia, and China.
This new treaty regime will need to be adapted to the current tripolar nuclear reality, as well as to the full range of nuclear weapons in arsenals, and to related emerging conventional technologies including hypersonic delivery vehicles and artificial intelligence.
