The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the question of nuclear meaning

ABSTRACT

Examining the implications of the prohibition logic behind the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) foregrounds the ambiguity of the meaning of nuclear weapons, their history and place in our world. In this way, the TPNW exposes not only the political fault lines of the current global nuclear order, but also some core theoretical concerns about nuclear weapons, global politics, and modernity. The call by the treaty’s supporters to change the meaning of nuclear weapons provides an impetus to think further and critically about what these weapons mean.

KEYWORDS:

• Nuclear weapons; disarmament
• nuclear ban
• Humanitarian Initiative
• nuclear exceptionalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. There is no space in this short essay to go into the multiple ways in which these questions have been addressed across disciplines. This piece simply focuses on the particular answers assumed under the logic of prohibition in the nuclear ban process and their implications.

2. Both of these questions deserve further attention in longer form and forthcoming work will address them.

3. From author interview at the United Nations in New York, June 2017.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura Considine

Dr Laura Considine is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Leeds. She received her PhD in International Politics from Aberystwyth University in 2014. She was a Junior Fellow at the Kluge Center at the United States Library of Congress in Washington DC in 2011. She has published in Millennium: Journal of International Studies and the European Journal of International Relations. Her current work focuses on conceptualising nuclear weapons in international politics, the history of nuclear arms control, and nuclear disarmament.