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ABSTRACT
The aim of this article is to assess the strength of the normative claim of banning nuclear weapons, expressed by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The first part shows that, in the Finnemore/Sikkink norm lifecycle, it is likely to be stuck at the first stage (emergence), as it does not meet the conditions for reaching the tipping point and therefore cascading (a critical mass of states; a mass of critical states; the intrinsic characteristics of the norm; how it fits in the existing normative framework). The second part shows that, in the three-part pattern of disarmament campaigns identified by Hanson, it is likely to be stuck at stage two, stigmatising and delegitimising nuclear weapons, but unable to eliminate them for three reasons (the exceptionality of nuclear weapons; the international security environment; and peer pressure). Overall, it will likely stay a forever-emerging norm.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Tiphaine de Champchesnel, Ariel Levite, George Perkovich, Bruno Tertrais, Boris Toucas, Paul Zajac, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this article.
Disclosure statement
The author is the director of IRSEM, an external body of the General Directorate for International Relations and Strategy (DGRIS) of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces. Just like most higher education and research institutions in France, IRSEM is state-funded. However, as an external research institute mostly composed of PhD researchers and academics drawn from the universities and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), IRSEM is strongly committed to academic freedom. It is scientifically and editorially independent of the Ministry. IRSEM staff do not submit their academic work for pre-approval to the Ministry before publication. As the IRSEM disclaimer states, the views expressed by its staff are ‘the authors’ alone and in no way constitute an official position of the Ministry of the Armed Forces’. This article was written in a personal capacity. The author received no funding from the Ministry to support the research, writing or publication of the article.
Notes
1 The progress of these ratifications can be followed on the UN Treaty Collection’s website.
2 See Joint Statement by China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom and United States at the UNGA 73, first committee, thematic debate (nuclear weapons), New York, 22 October 2018; North Atlantic Council Statement on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, 20 September 2017; ‘Nuclear Ban Treaty Doesn’t Contribute to Customary International Law: India,’ The Wire, 18 July 2017.
3 Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2019, 6.
4 As clearly stated in the TPNW itself (notably in the preamble and Art. 4) and in ICAN’s objectives (icanw.org).
5 Nick Ritchie, ‘Valuing and Devaluing Nuclear Weapons’, Contemporary Security Policy 34/1 (2013), 146. See also Mitsuru Kurosawa, ‘Stigmatizing and Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons’, Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament 1/1 (2018), 32–48.
6 Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2019, 7.
7 Ibid., 220–251 (my emphasis).
8 Heather Williams, ‘A nuclear babel: narratives around the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons’, Nonproliferation Review (2018), 2.
9 Peter Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security (NY: Columbia UP, 1996) 5. See also Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics and Political Change’, International Organization 52/4 (1998), 891.
10 Ann Florini, ‘The Evolution of International Norms’, International Studies Quarterly 40/3 (1996), 364.
11 Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics’, 891.
12 Jeffrey W. Legro, ‘Which Norms Matter? Revisiting the “Failure” of Internationalism’, International Organization 51/1 (1997), 33.
13 Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics’, 895.
14 Ibid., 898.
15 Austria, Ireland, and New Zealand are financing the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor, jointly with the government of Norway, which is not a signatory state.
16 Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics’, 901.
17 Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2019, 10.
18 Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2019, 34–35.
19 See for instance Lewis A. Dunn, ‘The strategic elimination of nuclear weapons: an alternative global agenda for nuclear disarmament’, Nonproliferation Review 24/5-6 (2017), 414.
20 Swiss Confederation, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Report of the Working Group to analyse the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, 30 June 2018.
21 Lars-Erik Lundin, Inquiry into the consequences of a Swedish accession to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, report for the Swedish Parliament, 18 January 2019.
22 ‘Sweden declines to sign UN nuclear ban treaty’, The Local (Sweden), 12 July 2019.
23 Diplomatic source.
24 With the exceptions of Austria, the Holy See, and New Zealand.
25 ‘An effort by the states formerly classified as “uncivilized” at turning the norms of humanitarian law against its creators’ (Kjølv Egeland, ‘Banning the Bomb: Inconsequential Posturing or Meaningful Stigmatization?’, Global Governance 24/1 (2018), 16).
26 669million people out of 7,8 billion (UN Population Division).
27 A total of 4,473,151 out of 85,790,820 billion US dollars (World Bank estimates).
28 Gregory Treverton, and Seth Jones, Measuring National Power, RAND, National Security Research Division, 2005.
29 Simon Reich, Global Norms, American Sponsorship and the Emerging Patterns of World Politics (NY: Palgrave Macmillan 2010), 24.
30 Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics’, 901.
31 Ibid., 901.
32 Beatrice Fihn, ‘The Logic of Banning Nuclear Weapons’, Survival 59/1 (2017), 47–48.
33 Andrew Cooper, John English and Ramesh Thakur (eds.), Enhancing Global Governance: Towards a New Diplomacy? (Tokyo: UN UP 2002).
34 Egeland, ‘Banning the Bomb’, 18.
35 Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2019, 10.
36 Richard Price, ‘Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines’, International Organization 52/3 (1998), 618.
37 Nout van Woudenberg, ‘The Long and Winding Road Towards an Instrument on Cluster Munitions’, Journal of Conflict & Security Law 12/3 (2008), 448.
38 Elisa D. Harris, ‘Towards a comprehensive strategy for halting chemical and biological weapons proliferation’, Arms Control 12/2 (1991), 129–160.
39 Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics’, 901.
40 Jean-Baptiste Jeangene Vilmer, ‘The Responsibility Not to Veto: A Genealogy’, Global Governance 24 (2018), 331–349.
41 Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics’, 901.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid., 906–7.
44 Legro, ‘Which Norms Matter?’ 34.
45 Newell Highsmith and Stewart Mallory, ‘The Nuclear Ban Treaty: A Legal Analysis’, Survival 60/1 (2018), 129–152.
46 Tony Robinson, ‘Beatrice Fihn, ICAN: Either you’re OK with mass murdering civilians with nuclear weapons or you’re not. Why would we build bridges to that?’ (interview), Pressenza, 7 September 2017.
47 Highsmith and Stewart, ‘The Nuclear Ban Treaty’, 136–137.
48 James E. Doyle, ‘Eyes on the Prize: A Strategy for Enhancing Global Security’, in George Perkovich and James M. Acton (eds.), Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment 2009), 230.
49 Williams, ‘A nuclear babel’.
50 Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics’, 908.
51 Price, ‘Reversing the Gun Sights’, 622.
52 Davis Gibbons and K. Lieber, ‘How durable is the nuclear weapons taboo?’, Journal of Strategic Studies 42/1 (2018), 32.
53 Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics’, 908.
54 Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2019, 56.
55 Gro Nystuen, Kjølv Egeland and Torbjørn Graff Hugo, The TPNW: Setting the record straight, Norwegian Academy of International Law, October 2018, 1.
56 Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2019, 4.
57 Heather Williams, ‘Why a Nuclear Weapons Ban is Unethical (For Now)’, The RUSI Journal 161/2 (2016), 44.
58 Ramesh Thakur, ‘The Nuclear Ban Treaty: Recasting a Normative Framework for Disarmament’, The Washington Quarterly 40/4 (2018), 72.
59 Emmanuelle Maître, A Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons: Diversion or Breakthrough?, FRS, note n°08/2017, 16 March 2017, 9.
60 Adam Mount and Richard Nephew, ‘A nuclear weapons ban should first do not harm to the NPT’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Analysis, 7 March 2017.
61 Highsmith and Stewart, ‘The Nuclear Ban Treaty’, 141.
62 My emphasis.
63 Mount and Nephew, ‘A nuclear weapons ban should first do not harm to the NPT’.
64 Joint Statement by China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom and United States at the UNGA 73, first committee, thematic debate (nuclear weapons), New York, 22 October 2018; NATO, North Atlantic Council Statement on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, press release, 20 September 2017.
65 Michael Rühle, ‘The Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty: Reasons for Skepticism’, NATO Review, 19 May 2017.
66 Tiphaine de Champchesnel, Towards the prohibition of nuclear arms?, The Nobel Peace Prize and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, IRSEM Research Paper n°49, 2017, 8.
67 Several participants to the launch of this report at the Vienna Centre for Disarmament and Non Proliferation (VCDNP), 18 February 2020, according to a diplomatic source present at the event.
68 Thomas E. Shea, Verifying Nuclear Disarmament (London: Routledge 2018).
69 Interviews with several ambassadors from TPNW supporters states in December 2019 (diplomatic source).
70 Brad Roberts, Ban the Bomb? Or Bomb the Ban? Next Steps on the Ban Treaty, European Leadership Network, Global Security Policy Brief, 2018, p. 5.
71 Marianne Hanson, ‘Normalizing zero nuclear weapons: The humanitarian road to the Prohibition Treaty’, Contemporary Security Policy 39/3 (2018), 464.
72 Daryl Press, Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino, ‘Atomic Aversion: Experimental Evidence on Taboos, Traditions, and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons’, American Political Science Review 107/1 (2013), 188.
73 Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino, ‘Revisiting Hiroshima in Iran: What Americans Really Think About Using Nuclear Weapons and Killing Noncombatants’, International Security 42/1 (2017), 45.
74 Joe Cirincione, ‘The UN makes history on a nuclear weapons ban. Does the US care?’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2 November 2016.
75 Andrez Grice, ‘Trident: Majority of Britons back keeping nuclear weapons programme, poll shows’, The Independent, 24 January 2016.
76 DICOD (French Ministry of Defence Communication Direction), La Défense dans l’opinion des Français 2017, 10 and 18.
77 Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2019, 5.
78 As it was acknowledged by the authors of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2019 at the launch of this report at the Vienna Centre for Disarmament and Non Proliferation (VCDNP), 18 February 2020, according to a diplomatic source present at the event.
79 Human Rights Watch, Questions and Answers on the New US Landmine Policy, 27 February 2020.
80 Michael Onderco, ‘Why nuclear weapon ban treaty is unlikely to fulfill its promise’, Global Affairs, 6 December 2017.
81 Fihn, ‘The Logic of Banning Nuclear Weapons’, 45.
82 Hanson, ‘Normalizing zero nuclear weapons’, 466.
83 French Foreign Affairs Minister, ‘Adoption of a treaty banning nuclear weapons' (my emphasis).
84 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, December 2017, p. 30.
85 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (NY: Basic Books, 1977), 251–268.
86 ICJ, Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion on 8 July 1996, para. 97.
87 Jack Barkenbus, ‘Devaluing Nuclear Weapons’, Science, Technology, & Human Values 14/4 (1989), 425–440; Patrick Garrity, ‘The depreciation of nuclear weapons in international politics: Possibilities, limits, uncertainties’, Journal of Strategic Studies 14/4 (1991), 463–514.
88 Kristin Ven Bruusgaard, ‘The Myth of Russia’s Lowered Nuclear Threshold’, War on the Rocks, 22 September 2017.
89 Kristin Ven Bruusgaard, ‘Russian Strategic Deterrence’, Survival 58/4 (2016), 7–26.
90 Nan Li, ‘China’s Evolving Nuclear Strategy: Will China Drop ‘No First Use?’, China Brief (Jamestown Foundation) 18/1, 12 January 2018.
91 Statement by Ambassador Antonio Guerreiro, Permanent Representative of Brazil to the Conference on Disarmament, NPT Preparatory Committee, Vienna, 2 May 2012.
92 Ambassador Jeffrey Eberhardt at the Thematic seminar on pillar I (disarmament) of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in preparation for the 2020 NPT Review Conference, Geneva, 29–30 January 2020 (diplomatic source).
93 Roberts, Ban the Bomb? 2.
94 Matthew Harries, ‘The Real Problem With a Nuclear Ban Treaty’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 15 March 2017.
95 Harald Müller and Carmen Wunderlich, ‘Nuclear Disarmament without the Nuclear-Weapon States: The Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty’, Daedalus 149/2 (2020), 180.
96 Ibid.
97 Anne Towns and Bahar Rumelili, ‘Taking the pressure: Unpacking the relation between norms, social hierarchies, and social pressures on states’, European Journal of International Relations 23/4 (2017), 757.
98 Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino, ‘The nuclear weapons ban treaty: Opportunities lost’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Analysis, 16 July 2017.
99 Barack Obama, Remarks, Prague, Czech Republic, 5 April 2009, White House Office of the Press Secretary.
100 See also Ritchie, ‘Valuing and Devaluing Nuclear Weapons’, 153–154.
101 Tom Sauer and Mathias Reveraert, ‘The potential stigmatizing effect of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons’, The Nonproliferation Review (2018), 18.
102 I am grateful to one of the journal’s anonymous reviewer for making this point.
103 Ritchie, ‘Valuing and Devaluing Nuclear Weapons’, 157.
104 Amandeep Gill, Taking the Path to Delegitimization to Nuclear Disarmament (Washington DC: Center for a New American Century, 2009), 5.
105 Ethan Nadelmann, ‘Global prohibition regimes: the evolution of norms in international society’, International Organization 44/4 (1990), 484.
106 Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2019, 31–33.
107 Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics’, 903.
108 Ibid.
109 Elster, quoted by Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics’, 903.
110 With around 70,300 warheads then, and around 13,890 in 2019 (Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2019, 8).
111 Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2019, 18.
112 Jon Wolfsthal, ‘More Than Paper: How Nuclear Ban-Treaty Advocates Can Really Advance Disarmament’, War on the Rocks, 4 October 2017.
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Jean-Baptiste Jeangene Vilmer
Dr. Jean-Baptiste Jeangene Vilmer is the director of the Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM), French Ministry of Defense, and an Adjunct Professor at the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA), Sciences Po. Trained in three disciplines— philosophy (Bachelor, Master, Ph.D.), law (Bachelor, LL.M., post-doctorate) and in political science (Ph.D.)—, he has held positions at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Policy Planning Staff (2013-2016); the Faculty of Law at McGill University, Canada (2011-2013); and the department of War Studies of King’s College London (2010-2011). He published 20 books and a number of articles, including in International Affairs, Global Governance, The Washington Quarterly, and Ethics and International Affairs, as well as book chapters with Routledge and Georgetown University Press. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not represent those of any institution to which he is or was affiliated.