Nuclear Ban Treaty: a dire insight to renounce Nuclear war?

Abstract

The illegal transfer of nuclear weapons and its potential use remains a serious trans-national risk against global peace. The 2017 Nuclear Ban Treaty (NBT) or the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) has made a dedicated effort over creating awareness against the inhuman effects of the nuclear weapon use. However, this NBT fails to share the legal scope of the humanitarian aspect and rather dwells on the political debate that has been borrowed from existing treaties, including nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Since the humanitarian aspect debate is currently an emerging trend, the NBT may not exclusively undermine the scope of NPT, it might be able to compliment it. The scope of NPT may, however, be seized by the proponents of NBT during the NPT Review Conference in 2020. In order to avoid redundancy, the relevance of the NBT can be increased by inviting the Nuclear Weapon States in informal meetings to debate new measures that are yet to be defined or are unaddressed in the treaty. The signatory states of the NBT may also consider reviving the voluntary measures for initiating unilateral or bilateral commitment or further arranging the international conferences on the issue of humanitarian aspects for seeking common grounds for all of the states’ interests.