The Nuclear Ban Treaty: A Transformational Reframing of the Global Nuclear Order

The contributors to this book describe, discuss, and evaluate the normative reframing brought about by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (the Ban Treaty), taking you on a journey through its genesis and negotiation history to the shape of the emerging global nuclear order.

Adopted by the United Nations on 7 July 2017, the Ban Treaty came into effect on 22 January 2021. For advocates and supporters, weapons that were always immoral are now also illegal. To critics, it represents a profound threat to the stability of the existing global nuclear order with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty as the normative anchor. As the most significant leap in nuclear disarmament in fifty years and a rare case study of successful state-civil society partnership in multilateral diplomacy, the Ban Treaty challenges the established order. The book’s contributors are leading experts on the Ban Treaty, including senior scholars, policymakers and civil society activists.

A vital guide to the Ban Treaty for students of nuclear disarmament, arms control and diplomacy as well as for policymakers in those fields.

Ramesh Thakur is Emeritus Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University; Senior Research Fellow, Toda Peace Institute; and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. His last post was Director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament at the ANU. He was formerly Senior Vice Rector of the United Nations University (and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations). Educated in India and Canada, he has held fulltime academic appointments in Fiji, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia and been a consultant to the Australian, New Zealand and Norwegian governments on arms control, disarmament and international security issues. He was a Commissioner and one of the principal authors of The Responsibility to Protect and Principal Writer of Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s second reform report; and Co-Convenor of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. His books include Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play 2015 (CNND); Nuclear Weapons and International Security: Selected Essays (Routledge); andThe United Nations, Peace and Security: From Collective Security to the Responsibility to Protect, 2nd Ed.(Cambridge University Press).