Essential Readings

Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion of 8 July 1996

Dissenting Opinion of Judge Christopher Weeramantry (subsequently President of IALANA, the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms)

Looking Back: The 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, John Burroughs, Arms Control Today, July/August 2016

Model Nuclear Weapons Convention (original 1997, updated 2007) Model Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Testing, Production, Stockpiling, Transfer, Use and Threat of Use of Nuclear Weapons and on Their Elimination

Securing Our Survival: The Case for A Nuclear Weapons Convention, IALANA, International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 2d edition, 2007

Judge Mohammed Bedjaoui, Keynote Address, Conference on Good Faith, International Law, and Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Geneva, May 1, 2008

The Legal Imperative of Good Faith Negotiation on the Nuclear Disarmament Obligation of NPT Article VI, Elizabeth Shafer, April 2, 2014

Good Faith Negotiations Leading to the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons: Request for an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice, IALANA and International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, May 2009

General Comment No. 36, para. 66, United Nations Human Rights Committee, CCPR/C/GC/36, October 30, 2018

Human Rights Versus Nuclear Weapons: New Dimensions, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP), January 2021. Contributors: Roger Clark, Ariana Smith, Peter Weiss, Daniel Rietiker, Bonnie Docherty, and Andrew Lichterman

Weapons of Mass Destruction and Human Rights, Peter Weiss and John Burroughs, Disarmament Forum, July 2004

Vancouver Declaration: Law's Imperative for the Urgent Achievement of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World, February 11, 2011

Lawyers’ Letter on the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, June 2017

IALANA Statement Regarding the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on the Occasion of its Opening for Signature on 20 September 2017

Statement of IALANA on the Dismissal of the Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Disarmament Cases by the International Court of Justice, December 2016

Ending U.S. Reliance on Nuclear Weapons and Achieving Their Global Elimination: Wise Policy and Required by Law, LCNP, March 2008

Nuclear Weapons and Compliance with International Humanitarian Law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Charles J. Moxley, Jr., John Burroughs and Jonathan Granoff, Fordham International Law Journal (2011)

Taking the Law Seriously: The Imperative Need for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, Peter Weiss, Fordham International Law Journal (2011)

Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties, Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy and LCNP, Apex Press, 2003. Download the book here.

Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security? U.S. Weapons of Terror, the Global Proliferation Crisis, and Paths to Peace - An Assessment of the Final Report of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission and Its Implications for U.S. Policy, LCNP, Western States Legal Foundation, and Reaching Critical Will/WILPF, 2007 online edition

The (Il)legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: A Guide to the Historic Opinion of the International Court of Justice, John Burroughs, 1997