Nuclear Weapons, International Law and State Crime in the Current Political Crisis

• In Event: Revisiting Crimes of the American Nuclear State in the Era of Trump and Kim

Abstract

Recent events have brought the critical issue of Crimes of the American Nuclear State back into focus. In July of 2017 122 countries at the UN (but none of the current nuclear states) voted to approve the text of a proposed international treaty entitled "Draft Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons." In October, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) for the decisive role that organization played in the adoption of the Nuclear Ban Treaty. As these momentous events unfolded, Donald Trump threatened to totally destroy North Korea (presumably with nuclear weapons) and withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an accord in which Iran agreed to not develop nuclear weapons. These threats occurred as the US moved forward with a plan to "modernize" its own nuclear arsenal. This paper analyzes these recent evens against the backdrop of previous theory and research on the violations of international law by the American nuclear state.

Author

• Ronald Kramer, Western Michigan University