NATO keeps calling itself a nuclear alliance, but what would that mean in a world where nuclear weapons were clearly illegal? PAX has just produced “Dealing with a ban“, a short briefing paper examining the legal and political implications for NATO members when a nuclear weapons ban treaty becomes reality.
This 8 page paper takes the idea of a treaty prohibiting the development, production, testing, acquisition, stockpiling, transfer, deployment, threat of use, or use of nuclear weapons, as well as assistance, financing, encouragement, or inducement of these prohibited acts as the point of departure. Broadly, the paper looks at what the non nuclear armed members of NATO would be responsible for legally and politically if making, getting, having and using nuclear weapons were explicitly illegal in a ban treaty.
