The Atomic Bomb

The Invention to End all Inventions

by David Mackenzie of the Scottish Scrap Trident Coalition

There’s a hopeful story around, though within the UK it is yet little more than a whisper. At the end of March the UN will begin negotiations for a global ban on nuclear weapons. In October last year 123 nations voted for this, with 38 opposing and 16 abstaining. It is likely that by July of this year there will be a treaty in place, along the lines of the bans on landmines and chemical weapons. It’s the biggest thing in nuclear disarmament for decades.

There’s the obvious question – how can such treaty law be effective if some key players, in this case the nuclear-armed states refuse to be signatories? In fact the case of the International Criminal Court shows that at least a measure of progress can be made by a treaty to which powerful states refuse to acknowledge. The US has yet to ratify the Rome Statute which set up the ICC, yet that court has indicted 39 war criminals since its inception in 2002.