A New Approach to Nuclear Disarmament: Learning from International Humanitarian Law Success

Achieving an end-state of "zero" has emerged as an important policy goal for a number of 21st Century challenges. The most prominent example is the "Global Zero" campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons. Few issues are more appropriate subjects of humanitarian concern and international humanitarian law than the choice, possession, use and misuse of weapons. A body of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and Disarmament Treaty Law has been built up over the last century to control and prohibit a range of weapons and weapons use. IHL and the social norms and values on which it is based, are the tools by which humanity has protected itself from misuse of its technical capacities for destruction and demonstrated its capacity for wisdom. Recent successes in disarmament through the merging of international humanitarian law and disarmament treaty law could be built upon to push for a radical, practical approach to nuclear disarmament, putting people and human frailty at the centre of the debate and being focused on achieving a safer world, free from nuclear weapons.