Armament, arms control, and disarmament syllabus

Abstract

This course will bear on modern and contemporary arms control and disarmament starting with The Hague Conference in 1899 and efforts of non-governmental groups such as the Women’s International League for Peace pushing for arms control at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. It will briefly take up arms limitations in the inter-war period and the adoption of the first legal instruments on bacteriological and chemical weapons. The historical 2 review will particularly bear, however, on limiting, controlling, and reducing the weapons for waging war in the Cold War period. The role of the United Nations, through the Conference on Disarmament, will be taken up. After the historical review, the course will essentially deal with the period that started with the end of the Cold War where the focus shifted from arms control and disarmament to non-proliferation. It will also address the control of small arms and land mines. The application of the regime set-up by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will receive particular attention. Proliferation analysiswill be undertaken. Issues of export and delivery control and of monitoring and verification regimes will be examined. The conformity of counter-proliferation policies with international law will be discussed. The actual or potential emergence of non-state actors that could use weapons of mass destruction would be discussed. The course will offer a theoretical framework to analyze armament and proliferation dynamics. It will particularly discuss contemporary nuclear weapons issues such as the abolition perspective and non-proliferation in the Middle East.