After Oslo: Humanitarian perspectives and the changing nuclear weapons discourse

This paper examines recent international policy discourse concerning new initiatives on nuclear disarmament that draw primarily from, or are influenced by, humanitarian concerns about the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. In particular, it analyses recent criticism from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)’s five nuclear-weapon states that these initiatives constitute distractions from a “practical step-by-step approach” towards nuclear weapons reductions.

Related Subject(s): Disarmament