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Volume 1, Issue 5, Part 3 - November 2012

Part 1 of this issue underscores the critical themes of Human Security and Education. Both themes are inextricably linked to the World Academy of Art & Science’s overarching mission. The articles in the first part explore the role of human security as a unifying frame of reference and effective force for addressing a wide range of high priority social objectives. The articles covered in the education section serve as a clarion call for a paradigm shift in education

Myth, Hiroshima and Fear: How we Overestimated the Usefulness of the Bomb

We rely on nuclear deterrence out of habit and because doctrines and ideas developed during the Cold War got locked in place by fear. But now we  have emerged from the Cold War ... Read more

How Reliance on Nuclear Weapons Erodes and Distorts International Law and Global Order

One rule of non-possession for all will be far more conducive than our present world of nuclear haves and have-nots to the development of ... Read more

Re-examining the 1996 ICJ Advisory Opinion: Concerning the Legality of Nuclear Weapons

There can be no reasonable situation where threat of use of nuclear weapons would be justified for self-defence. But such a threat exists in the very possession of nuclear weapons themselves ... Read more

India’s Disarmament Initiative 1988: Continuing Relevance, Valid Pointers for an NWFW

Cooperative security, in place of the current competitive security, is needed to meet not only the requirement of nuclear disarmament but also the many ...Read more

Nuclear Threats and Security

The core of the nuclear weapons problem is the challenge of evolving effective institutions for global governance. The solution to this and other serious challenges can only be resolved by humanity as a whole ...Read more

An Arctic Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone – Needed Now

Governance requires new national and multinational agreements; now is the time to gain acceptance for a future nuclear-weapon-free Arctic ...Read more

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Sovereignty and Nuclear Weapons

Winston P. Nagan & Garry
Jacobs

The current international security framework is based on an incomplete, anachronistic conception of sovereignty shaped largely by historical circumstance rather than principles of universal justice. Evolution of the global community over the past half century necessitates a reformulation of the concept to justly represent the rights of individual citizens and the global community as a whole ... Read More

World Peace Through Law: Rethinking an Old Theory

James T. Ranney

The author sets about re-thinking the old concept of "World Peace Through Law", meaning replacing the use of international force with the global rule of law. He traces the history of the WPTL concept back to the British legal philosopher Jeremy Bentham, whose 1789 'Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace' proposed "a plan of general and permanent pacification for all Europe ... Read More

Federalism and Global Governance

John Scales Avery

It is becoming increasingly clear that the concept of the absolutely sovereign nation-state is a dangerous anachronism in a world of thermonuclear weapons, instantaneous communication, and economic interdependence. Probably our best hope for the future lies in developing the United Nations into a World Federation. The strengthened United Nations should have a legislature with the power to make laws that are binding on individuals ... Read More

Myth, Hiroshima and Fear: How We Overestimated the Usefulness of the Bomb

Ward Wilson

Recent evidence from World War II and the Cold War shows that nuclear weapons are far less useful as military and political tools than has been believed. Far from giving a madman the power to conquer the world, nuclear weapons are clumsy, dangerous technology with very few real uses - even if you have a monopoly ... Read More

How Reliance on Nuclear Weapons Erodes and Distorts International Law and Global Order

John Burroughs

Deployment of nuclear forces as an international security mechanism for prevention of major war is far removed from the world envisaged by the United Nations Charter in which threat or use of force is the exception, not the rule. Reliance on nuclear weapons has also distorted the development of major instruments of international humanitarian law and international criminal law ... Read More

Re-examining the 1996 ICJ Advisory Opinion: Concerning the Legality of Nuclear Weapons

Jasjit Singh

The primary objections raised against total elimination of nuclear weapons are built around a few arguments mostly of non-technical nature. Nuclear weapons and the strategies for their use have resulted in the establishment of a vicious circle within which the international community is trapped. The argument that the world will be unsafe without nuclear weapons is only meant to further the narrow self-interest of the nuclear weapon states and their allies ... Read More

India's Disarmament Initiative 1988: Continuing Relevance, Valid Pointers for an NWFW

Manpreet Sethi

The run up to the NPT Review Conference in 2010 brought nuclear disarmament into focus. Transitory though this trend turned out to be, it nevertheless became a trigger for India to re-examine its own position on disarmament. In order to take a considered view on the subject ... Read More

Nuclear Threats and Security

Garry Jacobs & Winston
Nagan

This article presents highlights and insights from the International Conference on "Nuclear Threats and Security" organized by the World Academy of Art and Science in association with the European Leadership Network and the Dag Hammarskjöld University College of International Relations and Diplomacy and sponsored by NATO at the Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik on September 14-16, 2012 ... Read More

An Arctic Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone - Needed Now

Adele Buckley

Climate change and nuclear weapons, the two great security threats of the 21st century, are uniquely influential in the Arctic. Although the current risk of conflict is low, the global future is potentially turbulent. There is a 'new' Arctic because of meltdown induced by climate change. ... Read More