Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament Peace and Security in Northeast Asia
A Practical Approach to North Korea for the Next US President
Policy Brief No.96 - October, 2020 • By Joseph Yun and Frank Aum2
After three years of an erratic approach to North Korea, the Trump administration has made little progress in reducing the nuclear threat and enhancing peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. The Kim Jong Un regime not only maintains its stockpile of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, but these capabilities have grown both quantitatively and qualitatively. The next US president will have to address this grave situation. This Policy Brief examines what might work and outlines four steps on a practical path to building a new framework for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. This article was first published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: https://thebulletin.org/2020/10/a-practical-approach-to-north-korea-for-the-next-us-president/
Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament
Emerging Technologies Challenge International Humanitarian Law: Mapping the Issues
Policy Brief No.95 - October, 2020 • By Kimiaki Kawai
The shared understanding of the rules and the premise of International Humanitarian Law is challenged by the accelerated development of new military technologies. Is the existing IHL framework robust enough to protect civilians, combatants and the environment in the face of new military technologies? The judicial remedy of IHL is oriented to the past in the sense that its main task is to resolve cases that have already occurred. Therefore, it also tends to ex post relief, as is typical for paying “compensation” for damages. The challenge posed is to address the questions about what may happen in a risk society today. This paper addresses the question of how existing and emerging technologies impact IHL rules in order to consider how legal challenges posed will be responded to in the future.
Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament
On Creating the TPNW Verification System
Policy Brief No.92 - September, 2020 • By Thomas E. Shea
This Policy Brief explores the anticipated role of the TPNW verification system in the emerging international nuclear disarmament regime, which will determine whether or not the Treaty will be successful in addressing the risks posed by nuclear weapons and in achieving progress on nuclear disarmament. It argues in favour of creating a new verification authority responsible only to the TPNW Parties to address the elimination of the existing arsenals, complementing the verification missions assigned to the International Atomic Energy Agency (the IAEA) in the text of the Treaty. The author presents a possible framework, methods and techniques to meet the three verification requirements noted.
Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament Peace and Security in Northeast Asia
The Nuclear Chain Binding China, India and Pakistan in a Tight Embrace
Policy Brief No.91 - September, 2020 • By Ramesh Thakur
The Cold War-era weapons governance structures are no longer fit for purpose in contemporary equations where nuclear dyads have morphed into nuclear chains. In an increasingly polycentric global order, the dyadic nuclear arms control structure can neither regulate nor constrain the choices of other nuclear-armed states. Yet growing risks point to the urgent need to institutionalise a nuclear restraint regime fit for purpose in the Asia–Pacific. In this Policy Brief, Ramesh Thakur explores the merits of adapting the Open Skies Treaty and the Incidents at Sea Agreement from the North Atlantic to the Asia–Pacific, and, in the reverse direction, of universalising a no-first-use of nuclear weapons policy from China and India to all nine nuclear-armed states.
Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament
Complexities of Achieving Strategic Stability in Southern Asia: An Indian Perspective
Policy Brief No.90 - September, 2020 • By Manpreet Sethi
Establishing strategic stability in a multipolar and complex contemporary nuclear landscape is riddled with complexities. This paper seeks to identify some of the features peculiar to Southern Asia that complicate attainment of strategic stability between China, India and Pakistan. Thereafter, it offers some tentative measures towards strategic stability. While the task appears daunting given the state of relations, it is critical to give some thought to this conundrum and explore options. Not doing so could only exacerbate instability and heighten chances of deterrence breakdown – a risk that the region can ill afford.