Papers on non-proliferation and arms control presented at EISS conferences and workshops, newest first. 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z https://eiss-europa.com/feeds/themes/non-proliferation-and-arms-control.xml European Initiative for Security Studies https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-from-precision-to-existential-risk-hypersonic-weapons-and-the-erosion-of-the-con 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Mr Tahir Azad

Recent hypersonic weapon technology advances have changed military power, challenging conventional and nuclear warfare distinctions. Hypersonic glide vehicles and cruise missiles, promoted as precision, speed, and deterrence, are compressing decision-making timelines, circumventing missile-defence architectures, and blurring strategic stability-underpinning escalation thresholds. This paper examines how hypersonic weapons break the conventional–nuclear divide and introduce existential risk even without nuclear payloads. The paper has three main points. First, hypersonic weapons undermine warning and response systems, increasing pre-emptive action and launch-on-warning incentives. Second, their integration with advanced intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and emerging AI-enabled command-and-control systems increases misperception, automation bias, and accidental escalation, especially in fragile deterrence regions. Third, prestige politics, defense-industrial competition, and perceived vulnerability drive hypersonic development, similar to nuclear arms racing. The paper uses the Ukraine war, the May 2025 India–Pakistan confrontation, and the Iran–Israel escalation to demonstrate how missile defence saturation, drone integration, and precision-strike doctrines are accelerating offensive dominance. Hypothesising hypersonic weapons as a “conventionally armed strategic force” with WMD-like effects contributes to military innovation and strategic studies. The paper sheds light on how emerging technologies are changing global security environments and complicating arms-control and risk-reduction efforts by placing hypersonic weapons at the intersection of conventional military innovation and existential security risk.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-legitimating-the-bomb-us-efforts-to-manage-public-information-about-nuclear-weap 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Jennifer Erickson

The horrific physical, medical, and environmental effects of nuclear weapons underpin long-standing ideas about nuclear deterrence, as well as challenges to their legitimacy and legality. Yet while US planners anticipated the bomb’s immense physical destruction in Japan 1945, they paid little attention to its probable medical and environmental effects. Instead, it was news reports about radiation in the aftermath of the bombings that first raised public concerns and criticisms about the bomb’s health effects. I show that this criticism prompted US officials to manage publicly-available information about the bomb in order to shape its early reception as a powerful – yet still acceptable – weapon. US efforts took advantage of the unique circumstances around Hiroshima and Nagasaki to emphasize the bomb’s physical destruction but downplay radiation effects to domestic and international audiences. In doing so, they also sought to avoid association with chemical weapons, which had been banned in response to public pressure after World War I. I argue that this information management was central to US efforts to build early public acceptance of nuclear weapons. The findings provide insight into contemporary political debates around nuclear weapons, as well as broader questions about the legitimization of new weapons in international politics.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-upload-pending-tradeoffs-uncertainty-and-damage-limitation-in-a-multipolar-age 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Tyler Bowen

How does China’s nuclear modernization affect U.S. nuclear strategy? What are the crisis bargaining and crisis stability implications of the emerging nuclear balance between the United States and China? How might the nuclear balance evolve over time? This paper addresses these questions. I argue that by building more hardened targets, China is imposing a damage-limitation tradeoff on the United States. In addition, the deployment pattern of China’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos, the growth of its air defense and counterspace capabilities, the adaptations of its mobile ICBM force, and the development of countermeasures against U.S. ballistic missile defenses are imposing damage-limitation uncertainty. Achieving meaningful damage-limitation is possible, but it depends on making optimistic assumptions about variables whose value will be difficult to know prior to a counterforce operation and that are likely to grow worse over the course of a conventional war. Plus, even if the United States achieves meaningful damage-limitation, it would leave itself vulnerable to Russia’s nuclear forces. This state of the strategic nuclear balance between the United States and China should reduce the crisis bargaining benefits of pursuing a meaningful damage-limitation capability while preserving the potentially escalatory dynamics of such a pursuit. It will also generate an intense cross-domain nuclear arms race in which it will be difficult for the United States to escape a condition of damage-limitation uncertainty despite technological advancements in weapons accuracy and remote sensing of mobile nuclear platforms. More broadly, this research indicates that a state of mutually assured destruction (MAD) will be difficult to sustain, but a condition of damage-limitation uncertainty is potentially durable.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2025-changing-pathways-to-the-bomb 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z Eliza Gheorghe

Previous research on whether the nuclear nonproliferation regime (NPR) works has focused on whether it deters states from seeking nuclear weapons, with mixed results. We investigate an alternative mechanism: by suppressing the global market for nuclear technology, the NPR forces would-be proliferants to build sensitive nuclear facilities on their own and in secret. This should affect both what kind of facilities a state tries to build and how long it takes to complete them, because each state must essentially re-invent the technology for itself. We analyze a newly completed dataset of nuclear facilities and compare it to data on conventional power plants, which are not subject to any nonproliferation regime. We find that the NPR has dramatically increased the time required to build nuclear facilities, relative to what would have occurred in its absence. In aggregate, the regime has prevented thousands of nuclear-state-years, arguably proving that it is enormously effective.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2025-strategic-stability-without-arms-control 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z Jamie Withorne

Arms control has increasingly been pronounced “dead.” Indeed, recent empirics are grim. In 2023, Russia unilaterally suspended participation in New START, the last remaining bilateral arms control agreement since the Cold War. While the future of arms control is uncertain, Russia, China, and the United States have expressed nominal interest in maintaining strategic stability. However, strategic stability has largely only been considered in contexts with arms control, or as an outcome of technical military strategies and incentives. Is arms control necessary for strategic stability? I conduct a most-similar systems design analysis of the end of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) to distinguish confounding factors in strategic stability. By holding the end of arms control agreements constant, I measure variation in strategic stability and assess an understudied variable at play: political relationships. Examining the end of arms control agreements allows me to isolate the effects of political relationships on strategic stability in a post-Cold War context. Leveraging evidentiary tests, I identify important interaction effects and find arms control is sufficient but not necessary for strategic stability. Political relationships better explain strategic stability outcomes, suggesting strategic stability is possible without arms control. By critically evaluating the role of arms control in strategic stability, this article applies the concept of strategic stability to a case universe more representative of today’s international geopolitical environment: a world without formal arms control policies.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2025-the-soviet-union-russia-and-the-spread-of-the-bomb 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z Lydia Wachs

What explains the variation in the Soviet Union’s/Russia’s commitment to nuclear nonproliferation? While many scholars have examined the US role in the nonproliferation regime, relatively little scholarly research has systematically considered Moscow’s nonproliferation and nuclear assistance policy. By fusing insights from previous nonproliferation theories with literature about Moscow’s understanding of international relations, I develop a novel theoretical framework to explain the variation in Moscow’s commitment to curbing proliferation. It hypothesizes that Moscow’s varying nuclear assistance and safeguards policy toward different states—and thus the variation in its nonproliferation commitment—is best explained by policy-makers’ views and approaches toward differently aligned states: while officials in Moscow feared that adversaries and allies would develop nuclear weapons, they were less concerned about proliferation risks of non-aligned states. I test the theory’s propositions by using statistical analysis and an updated dataset on Soviet/Russian nuclear cooperation agreements signed between 1955 and 2020 as well as a new score of recipient states’ embeddedness in the nonproliferation regime. Against the backdrop of intensifying great power competition and an assertive Russia whose commitment to nonproliferation is not a foregone conclusion, this article enhances scholarly understanding of Moscow’s role in the nonproliferation regime and the nuclear order.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2025-the-universalization-of-the-treaty-on-the-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons-lessons 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z Agata Bidas

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) represents a critical step toward global nuclear disarmament, yet its universal adoption faces significant challenges, particularly due to resistance from nuclear-armed states. This paper examines the potential for expanding the TPNW’s adoption by drawing insights from the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), focusing on how customary international law can influence this process. Through a comparative legal analysis, the paper explores the historical evolution of the CWC and BWC, analyzing how these treaties transitioned from limited regional agreements to near-universal legal instruments. It assesses the role of treaty design, enforcement mechanisms, and state practice in fostering compliance and legitimacy. By examining legal precedents and state responses to these treaties, the paper evaluates whether the TPNW could follow a similar trajectory. Methodologically, this research relies on a doctrinal analysis of treaty text and state practice, complemented by a review of customary international law principles and relevant case studies. It compares enforcement, verification, and accountability provisions in the CWC and BWC with those in the TPNW to identify legal and institutional gaps that may hinder broader adoption. Additionally, the paper considers state discourse in international forums and legal scholarship to assess emerging norms surrounding nuclear disarmament. The central question of this research is: Can customary international law and evolving state practice contribute to the universalization of the TPNW? The paper proposes a legal framework based on lessons from the CWC and BWC, suggesting that strengthening customary norms around nuclear non-proliferation could enhance the TPNW’s legal influence and broaden its global acceptance. By integrating historical precedent with legal analysis, this research offers new insights into how the TPNW could gain wider recognition and legitimacy in the international legal order.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-public-support-for-arms-control-in-the-third-nuclear-age-new-evidence-from-nato 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Ondřej Rosendorf Michal Smetana Marek Vranka

During the Cold War, Western public opinion was an important factor in shaping the trajectory of nuclear arms control talks between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, we know little about the extent of public support for arms control in today’s era of renewed great power competition. To address this gap, we conducted a series of surveys and survey experiments in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Poland. Our results show a high rate of approval of new arms control talks between the United States and its strategic competitors, Russia and China, among the citizens of all five NATO countries. Using data from a new elite survey of UK parliamentarians, we also found a sizeable gap between the views of the UK public and their political representatives. Finally, we demonstrate that public views can be strongly shaped by elite cues from experts and politicians, with arguments about the risk of non-compliance significantly reducing the support for new arms control negotiations. Our findings contribute to the scholarly literature on public attitudes toward nuclear weapons as well as to the policy debates on the feasibility and desirability of strategic arms control in the “third nuclear age.”

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-technocratic-view-of-nuclear-sharing 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Michal Onderco

As a result of the pro-disarmament discourse stemming from the Humanitarian Turn in nuclear disarmament, there has been a growing salience of domestic voices in European countries which contribute to NATO's nuclear mission. At least prior to the Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many of these voices advocated for strong steps towards nuclear disarmament. But how do the technocrats, who often shape the policy, view the public view; and how do they engage with it? Drawing on unique study of technocratic responses to nuclear sharing contestation in all five host nations in Europe, I advance a technocratic theory of nuclear sharing, which takes democratic responsiveness seriously. Drawing on the work in the field of political and democratic theory, I develop a model of technocratic response to political contestation; which I then test against existing empirical record.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-temporal-disparities-in-intergenerational-justice-a-comparative-analysis-of-nucl 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Franziska Stärk

Nuclear weapons and climate change put future generations in the wrong by externalizing potential long-term harm and constraining their freedom of choice through extended policy trajectories. Focused on nuclear weapons, this article conducts a comparative analysis of intergenerational justice concerns in both contexts. The principal argument emphasizes the distinct temporality of these challenges, revealing three crucial temporal disparities. First, the externalization of intergenerational harm follows different timelines. Climate-related risks intensify across successive generations, while the risk of future generations navigating the aftermath of nuclear war accumulates over the long term, becoming more likely over extended periods compared to shorter ones. Second, the sustainability of present generations' incentives to prioritize immediate benefits over future generations’ well-being varies. The appeal of fossil fuels is expected to wane over time in the climate context, whereas perceived benefits of nuclear deterrence are likely to endure. Third, while the visual salience of the intergenerational implications of nuclear weapons is diminishing, the gradual impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly evident. Comparing how intergenerational injustice unfolds through continued reliance on nuclear deterrence and climate change not only highlights the oversight of intergenerational justice in nuclear ethics debates, but also carves out the distinct nature of intergenerational justice concerns in the context of nuclear weapons. Derived from this comparative analysis, a more nuanced understanding of intergenerational injustice in nuclear weapons facilitates a critical examination of mitigation and rectification strategies.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-the-re-emergence-of-nuclear-weapons-free-zones-in-an-era-of-heightened-conflict 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Janani Mohan

The strength of Nuclear-Weapons-Free-Zones (NWFZs) is put to the test as global strategic stability falters from conflict between Nuclear Weapons States (NWS). Currently, five NWFZs are legitimized by treaties that span large regions including Africa and South America (Goldblat, 1997; Green, 2009). This prominence is explained by the historic utilization of NWFZs as a diplomatic tool for countries championing nuclear disarmament—for example, many Middle Eastern countries push for an NWFZ to pressure Israel to destroy its alleged nuclear arsenal (Bahgat, 2007). However, as tensions heighten between NWS in crises such as Ukraine and North Korea, a new conceptual framework for understanding the importance of NWFZs stems from the differentiation between “stationing” and “proliferating” nuclear weapons in Non-Nuclear Weapons States (NNWS). As norms surrounding stationing nuclear weapons within NNWS weaken, NWFZs will play a more prominent role in keeping certain areas of the world nuclear-free. Understanding this role could prove vital to both long-term disarmament and nonproliferation goals. The paper will explore the conceptual importance of NWFZs in an attempt to modernize relevant frameworks developed in the late-1990s and early-2000s. The paper considers the historical value of NWFZs and argues that a re-emergence of the diplomatic power of NWFZs will occur due to heightened and more direct conflict between NWS over the next decade.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-the-inadmissibility-of-nuclear-threats-norm-or-empty-promise 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Maren Vieluf

In 1996, the International Court of Justice was unable to “conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake”. This highly nuanced legal (non-)condemnation of nuclear threats came after decades of the Cold War, which was characterised by nuclear threats, but also decades of efforts to stigmatise nuclear weapons in general and nuclear threats in particular. The latter culminated, for example, in Article 1(d) of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which prohibits signatories from threatening to use nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, over the past decade, we've seen a normalisation of escalatory nuclear rhetoric through the rise of populism and authoritarian emboldenment. A universal norm against nuclear threats has yet to manifest, and nuclear armed states have been the persistent objectors. In November 2002, however, the G20 Bali Declaration of November declared the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons “inadmissible”. What is striking about this declaration is that there was no disagreement on this language, even though the group includes six nuclear armed states, their allies and partner countries that base (part of) their security strategies on nuclear deterrence. The credible threat to use nuclear weapons is integral for nuclear deterrence as practised by nine nuclear armed states. It's also noteworthy that one member (Russia) has recently been heavily and widely criticised for its thinly veiled nuclear threats in the context of its war of aggression against Ukraine. Does this indicate a strengthening norm against nuclear threats? And what implications does this have for deterrence and progress towards nuclear disarmament? This paper aims to examine the emergence and strength of the norm against nuclear threats through historical discourse analysis and process tracing.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-effects-of-open-source-satellite-imagery-on-nuclear-verification 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Alexander Bollfrass Stephen Herzog

High-resolution commercial satellite imagery has become increasingly available in recent years. This has enabled researchers to uncover headline-grabbing facts about states’ nuclear programs, those once reserved for the intelligence agencies of nation-states. Yet, scholars still lack a clear understanding of how open source satellite data may influence the dynamics of nuclear politics. We explore how the democratization of satellite outputs may reshape nuclear crisis management and verification of arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. Our paper identifies key gaps in the international relations literature and lays out five theoretical mechanisms underlying such developments. Overall, we find that commercial satellite data can both complement and supplement national technical means. Historical cases reveal that the comparatively less sensitive nature of open sources can position these data at the forefront of crisis bargaining and treaty compliance discussions. The net effect, however, need not promote nuclear cooperation. States must now grapple with the risks inherent in deepfake satellite imagery and the wider accessibility of military targeting information.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-how-russia-s-war-on-ukraine-has-an-impact-on-the-eu-s-nuclear-disarmament-policy 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Aderito Vicente

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, on February 24, 2022, led to a war between the two former republics of the Soviet Union. Moscow’s aggression marked a critical juncture and a deeply disturbing challenge to the current nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime, but it also raised concerns about security in Europe, leading some European Union (EU) member states to reconsider their commitment to disarmament. At large, Russia's War on Ukraine has made it more difficult for the EU to advance its nuclear disarmament agenda by raising security concerns, reducing trust in Russia, increasing support for NATO, and reducing the EU's ability to project soft power and act as a global leader in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. This paper focuses on evaluating the impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine on the EU's foreign policy in the field of nuclear disarmament. First, I analyze how this war weakened the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliteration of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) regime. Second, I analyse the factors that had an impact on the EU's foreign policy-making in the field of nuclear disarmament. My argument relies on the fact that the policy decision of each EU member state is affected by security concerns, which include a deteriorating security environment and external threat perception as conditioning factors. Third, I use these factors to identify the following effects that were produced by the war: reduced trust in Russia, increased support for NATO, and reduced EU's soft power on the international stage. Fourth, and ultimately, considering these conditioning factors and effects, I examine why Russia's War on Ukraine undermines the EU’s foreign policy in the field of nuclear disarmamen.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-populist-publics-and-nuclear-weapons-does-populism-predict-higher-nuclear-use-wi 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Tom Etienne Michal Onderco Sandra Destradi Andre Krouwel

The aim of this study is to elucidate how populist beliefs among the German and Dutch publics relate to their attitudes towards nuclear sharing and use. Extant work on the link between populism and nuclear attitudes has primarily focused on nuclear weapons states, as opposed to nuclear sharing states; and primarily on leaders rather than publics. Combining this work with the existing work on populism and foreign policy leads to the emergence of two competing hypotheses. On the one hand, populist voters exhibit higher hawkishness compared to other citizens and may therefore be more inclined to support nuclear sharing and use. On the other hand, the people-centric and sovereigntist dimensions of populism may lead to decreased support for nuclear sharing. In addition, the anti-elitist dimension of populism may feed into the untransparent and undemocratic nature of the nuclear sharing arrangements, further bolstering opposition towards them. We leverage an original dataset resulting from a survey on German and Dutch respondents fielded in June 2022 to provide evidence for these dynamics. Moreover, relying on an earlier wave of the two-wave panel design (in September 2020), we shed light on whether populist beliefs correlate with an increased willingness to use nuclear weapons since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine. To our knowledge, this study is the first to report on the link between populism and nuclear mass attitudes in non-nuclear weapons states, while retaining high policy relevance given the nature of the two nations at hand. Given the study’s design, it is not possible to temporally predict nuclear attitudes with populist beliefs, which future research might consider studying.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-proliferation-related-legislation-in-the-eu-is-there-a-need-for-further-converge 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Barry de Vries

While arms control is often regarded as an issue that requires international rules, the day-to-day application of arms control is still the field of national legislation. It is therefore necessary that there is national implementation of the international rules for the effectiveness of any international arms control agreement. It is only through the development of an international network of anti-proliferation legislation that there can be effective regulation of the proliferation of materials. In this context it is noteworthy that both the chemical and biological weapons conventions include an obligation to implement national measures prohibiting and preventing the proliferation of biological and chemical weapons. This has been strenghtened by other international efforts, such as Security Council Resolution 1540 and the Australia group. The EU has sought to be active in this field by incorporating EU-wide export controls and having EU sanctions against individuals suspected of proliferation activities. However, in many regards the national legislation of the member states of the EU are still quite divergent when it concerns proliferation activities, which raises the question of whether continued convergence in this field is necessary. This submission will look at this by discussing the current activities of the EU in this field and contrasting this with the existing legislation in the 27 member states. It will show the gaps that exist within the EU regulation as well as in the national legislation concerning proliferation activities for biological and chemical weapons. It will then discuss why a more comprehensive and coherent framework of prohibitions should be strived for in the EU and which steps can be taken to close these gaps.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2022-ideology-and-risk-the-neuroscience-of-nuclear-reversal 2022-06-30T12:00:00Z 2022-06-30T12:00:00Z Rupal N. Mehta Noelle Troutman

Presented at EISS 2022. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2022-the-lesser-evil-experimental-evidence-on-nuclear-and-chemical-weapon-taboos 2022-06-30T12:00:00Z 2022-06-30T12:00:00Z Michal Smetana Marek Vranka Ondrej Rosendorf

Presented at EISS 2022. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2022-the-possible-impact-of-sole-purpose-policy-on-the-nato-alliance 2022-06-30T12:00:00Z 2022-06-30T12:00:00Z Aylin Matlé

Presented at EISS 2022. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2022-the-us-rebalancing-from-europe-to-the-indo-pacific-risks-for-deterrence-failure 2022-06-30T12:00:00Z 2022-06-30T12:00:00Z Paul van Hooft

Presented at EISS 2022. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2021-american-strategies-of-retrenchment-versus-inhibition 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z Paul van Hooft

Presented at EISS 2021. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2021-managing-assurance-and-deterrence-demands-in-heterogeneous-alliances-the-case-of 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z Tobias Bunde

Presented at EISS 2021. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2021-nato-as-a-nuclear-alliance 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z Andrew C. Carroll

Presented at EISS 2021. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2021-plans-are-worthless-but-planning-is-everything 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z Nina Silove

Presented at EISS 2021. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2021-what-do-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-dual-use-goods 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z Ana Sánchez Cobaleda

The definition of any issue subject to regulation appears to be one of the first steps necessary to achieve an efficient regulatory framework. In international law, however, it is not unusual to find concepts that still lack a universally accepted definition. This is precisely the case of the notion this contribution deals with: dual-use goods. Although this notion has a considerably extended international regulation in the frame of the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) – due to its relevance from both the commercial and development angle as well as the security perspective -, the lack of consensus when defining it entails some of the challenges which will be set out in this paper. In the absence of a legally complete and homogeneous definition, which is intrinsically difficult to achieve at present, we should not disregard the fact that the different approaches contained in the treaties and agreements regulating the non-proliferation of WMDs have managed to be accepted by a considerable majority of States that agree on the way of identifying this type of items. For this reason, this paper analyses how legally binding and soft-law sources of the current WMD non-proliferation regime (international treaties, export control regime guidelines, and UNSC Resolutions), approach dual-use goods and technologies. The analysis also classifies the different rules and regulations currently in force based on the criterion they employ to define the potential uses of these strategic items: peaceful vs. non-peaceful dichotomy, civil vs. military dichotomy and the intentionality criterion. The paper thus contributes to outline the legal borders within which the concept of “dual-use goods” is currently framed, it analyses how the existence of multiple criteria to define such items affects their international control and it makes possible to understand the evolution that this notion may undergo in the near future; an evolution capable of calling into question the standards of legal certainty that the international regime of dual-use items provides in this regard.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2019-implications-of-the-current-frictions-within-the-alliance-and-the-further-build 2019-06-13T12:00:00Z 2019-06-13T12:00:00Z Tom Sauer

Presented at EISS 2019. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2019-the-politics-of-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-the-carter-administration-the-infce-progr 2019-06-13T12:00:00Z 2019-06-13T12:00:00Z Giordana Pulcini

Presented at EISS 2019. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2019-the-violation-that-strengthens-the-norm-india-s-1974-nuclear-explosion-and-the-g 2019-06-13T12:00:00Z 2019-06-13T12:00:00Z Joseph O'Mahoney

Presented at EISS 2019. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2019-uninsured-allies-when-do-states-divest-from-nuclear-latency 2019-06-13T12:00:00Z 2019-06-13T12:00:00Z Ulrich Kuehn Tristan A. Volpe

Presented at EISS 2019. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-breathing-new-life-into-npt-likely-impact-of-the-ban-treaty-on-the-npt-review-pr 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z Michal Onderco

Presented at EISS 2018. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-how-to-think-about-nuclear-crises 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z Mark Bell

Presented at EISS 2018. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-nuclear-alliances-strategies-of-extended-nuclear-deterrence-and-the-pursuit-of-h 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z Eliza Gheorghe

Presented at EISS 2018. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-schrodinger-s-panda-quantum-technology-in-china 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z Raymond Wang

Presented at EISS 2018. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-the-2017-treaty-on-the-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons-moral-idealism-or-transfor 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z Margarita Petrova

Presented at EISS 2018. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2017-banning-nuclear-weapons-the-dilemma-for-the-nato-non-nuclear-weapon-states 2017-06-15T12:00:00Z 2017-06-15T12:00:00Z Prof. Tom Sauer

Presented at EISS 2017. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2017-global-nuclear-order-hegemony-and-resistance 2017-06-15T12:00:00Z 2017-06-15T12:00:00Z Dr. Nick Ritchie

Presented at EISS 2017. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2017-scholarly-responsibility-non-proliferation-and-deterrence-the-effects-of-self-ce 2017-06-15T12:00:00Z 2017-06-15T12:00:00Z Dr. Benoit Pelopidas

Presented at EISS 2017. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2017-why-a-nuclear-weapons-ban-treaty-is-a-bad-idea 2017-06-15T12:00:00Z 2017-06-15T12:00:00Z Dr. Michal Onderco

Presented at EISS 2017. No abstract on file yet.