The Nonproliferation Regime as a Legal Framework

Abstract:

The broad objective of this project is to delineate the issues that keep the nonproliferation regime from achieving the status of a legal framework. This issue is highly multifaceted, and we have no illusion of being able to resolve it completely. What we do hope to achieve is a greater understanding of the fundamental issues and a contribution to national consensus by developing novel perspectives for communicating those issues to the public. Some of the issues that need to be communicated include: i) the differences between the world views encompassed in institutionalism and in realism, and the resulting fundamental existential question regarding international regimes; ii) the tension between international law and national sovereignty that stems from these divergent world views; iii) the ad hoc nature of the nonproliferation regime, as compared to the abstract view of a legal framework; iv) the desirability of the nonproliferation regime achieving status as an internationally accepted legal framework, as it depends on one’s world view; and v) what precedent tells us might be acceptable, and what probably would not be acceptable, to a substantial majority of the international public in terms of ceding national sovereignty toward an internationally enforced nuclear nonproliferation regime.