Nuclear obligations: Nuremberg law, nuclear weapons, and protest

Thesis/Dissertation · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:7267497

Burroughs, J R

Nuclear weapons use and deployment and nonviolent anti-nuclear protests are evaluated. Use of nuclear weapons would constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined in both the Nuremberg Charter and Allied Control Council Law No. 10 and applied by the International Military Tribunal and other Nuremberg courts. Strategic and atomic bombing during World War 2 did not set a precedent for use of nuclear weapons. The consequentialist argument for World War 2 bombing fails and the bombing has also been repudiated by codification of the law of war in Protocol 1 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The legality of deploying nuclear weapons as instruments of geopolitical policy is questionable when measured against the Nuremberg proscription of planning and preparation of aggressive war, war crimes, and crimes against humanity and the United Nations Charter's proscription of aggressive threat of force. While states' practice of deploying the weapons and the arms-control treaties that regulate but do not prohibit mere possession provide some support for legality, those treaties recognize the imperative of preventing nuclear war, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty commits nuclear-armed states to good-faith negotiation of nuclear disarmament.

• Research Organization: California Univ., Berkeley, CA (United States)
• OSTI ID: 7267497
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION
ARMS CONTROL
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
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NUCLEAR WEAPONS
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