Overview

This two-volume book provides a comprehensive analysis of the lawfulness of the use of nuclear weapons, based on existing international law, established facts as to nuclear weapons and their effects, and nuclear weapons policies and plans of the United States. Based on detailed analysis of the facts and law, Professor Moxley shows that the United States' arguments that uses of nuclear weapons, including low-yield nuclear weapons, could be lawful do not withstand analysis. Moxley opens by examining established rules of international law governing the use of nuclear weapons, first analyzing this body of law based on the United States' own statements of the matter and then extending the analysis to include requirements of international law that the United States overlooks in its assessment of the lawfulness of potential nuclear weapons uses. He then develops in detail the known facts as to nuclear weapons and their consequences and U.S. policies and plans concerning such matters. He describes the risks of deterrence and the existential nature of the effects of nuclear war on human life and civilization. He proceeds to pull it all together, applying the law to the facts and demonstrating that known nuclear weapons effects cannot comply with such legal requirements as those of distinction, proportionality, necessity, precaution, the corollary requirement of controllability, and the law of reprisal. Moxley shows that, when the United States goes to apply international law to potential nuclear weapons uses, it distorts the law as it has itself articulated it, overlooks law in such areas as causation, risk analysis, mens rea, and per se rules, and disregards known risks as to nuclear weapons effects, including radioactive fallout, nuclear winter, electromagnetic pulses, and potential escalation. He then shows that the policy of deterrence is unlawful because the use of such weapons would be unlawful. Moxley urges that the United States and other nuclear weapons States take heed of the requirements of international law as to nuclear weapons threat and use. He argues that law can be a positive force in society's addressing existential risks posed by nuclear weapons and the policy of nuclear deterrence.

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9780761871330

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Reviews

"As Chief Legal Officer of Lehman Brothers during the financial crisis and General Counsel of AIG in the aftermath, I've seen how elemental forces can lurch out of control--and how, with creative legal approaches and wise and innovative policy, risks can be steered towards more positive outcomes. Charles Moxley, in this monumental tome, addresses an even more momentous matrix of risk and offers a potential way out---the harnessing of law to help lead the world towards defense policies that restore some measure of limit to man's destructiveness in war, recognizing the unlawfulness as well as folly of nuclear weapons. The billions going into nuclear weapons annually, the heightened rhetoric trivializing the potential use of these weapons, the wishful thinking that nuclear weapons uses could be limited to low-yield tactical weapons in remote areas, the proliferating numbers of these weapons, the hair trigger alert levels of our and Russia's weapons, the existential potential repercussions, the repetition of broadscale heads-in-the-sand, unable to see the obvious, closed eye optimism---such systemic failures of restraint and cognition that Moxley so painstakingly details hearken back to systematic failures on a societal scale that led to the financial crisis. We ignore warning signs at our peril. In securities parlance, a ""fat finger"" means a mistaken pushing of a button by a trader, resulting in a huge unintended trade. In the military's command and control system, a fat figure could have repercussions far beyond the financial and be irreversible, yet, with the United States' and other states' policies of deterrence and high alert levels, such an unintended use and potential nuclear responses and escalation are only moments away. Moxley's message of the need to restructure our defense policies in recognition of these risks compels our attention. Moxley's central point--that law offers us an important way to address risks of nuclear weapons--is a fundamental one. Law is more than a body of rules; it is the glue that holds a society together, the norms that are shared, in effect the codification of the culture. Moxley's reminder is timely as to its importance to nuclear weapons and our defense policies. --Tom Russo, General Counsel, AIG, 2010-2016; Chief Legal Officer, Lehman Brothers, 1993-2008 Charles Moxley's Nuclear Weapons and International Law combines rigorous legal scholarship with the acumen of a seasoned practitioner, offering an authoritative critique of nuclear deterrence and a persuasive, urgent argument for the disarmament imperative under international law. --Hon. Mary Smith, President, American Bar Association 2023-2024 Professor Moxley has written a thoughtful, well researched and clearly stated exposition of a fundamental issue of the twenty-first century, the confrontation of a policy of nuclear deterrence and use of instruments of mass destruction with the rule of law as presently understood and acceptable standards of safety. --Lawrence E. Walsh, Independent Counsel, Iran/Contra, 1986-1994, President, American Bar Association, 1975-1976 Charles Moxley has an extraordinary legal mind, able to grasp and synthesize the most complex of factual and legal situations. A leading arbitrator and mediator of complex high-stakes disputes in New York, Moxley is fair-minded and objective. His years-long effort to pull together the facts and law as to risks posed by nuclear weapons commands the attention of everyone who believes in the capacity of law to be a catalyst for overcoming threats to human life and civilization. --Hon. Ariel E. Belen, Justice, New York Supreme Court (Ret.) Charles Moxley has given us an incredibly thorough study of international law, its nature, its strengths, its weaknesses, and the need to find adequate ways to make it enforceable if the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons and consequent disaster are to be avoided. --Alan Cranston, U.S. Senator, 1969-1993 Charles Moxley is a brilliant lawyer and his treatise on nuclear weapons and international law could not be more important and timely. His distinguished career as a practitioner, professor, and arbitrator makes him uniquely well qualified to analyze complex and sensitive factual and legal issues in a manner that is both objective and fair minded. He is a well-known and respected authority in the legal world. I have the highest regard for Moxley's scholarship and his insightful and critical thinking. --Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin, United States District Judge (Ret.), Southern District of New York Charles Moxley's thesis that nuclear weapons violate international law may be this century's most important advance towards a peaceable world order. His book should make you worry, make you think and above all, impel you to make his case against nuclear weapons your case. --Jerome J. Shestack, Past President, American Bar Association No greater threat to human life and wellbeing exists than nuclear weapons. In this compelling and comprehensive study of existential risks posed by nuclear weapons and requirements of international law, Charles Moxley gives us reason to hope that, as with the abolition of slavery, advancement of rights of women, and so many other areas, law can help provide a way forward towards genuine human security. --Jonathan Granoff, President, Global Security Institute, Senior Advisor and U.N. Representative, World Summits of Nobel Peace Laureates Professor Moxley's book is a broad-ranging treatment of a complex subject that will contribute to the debate. The combination of international law, nuclear weapons policy, and technical analysis makes interesting reading. --Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State, Carter Administration"

Charles Moxley has an extraordinary legal mind, able to grasp and synthesize the most complex of factual and legal situations. A leading arbitrator and mediator of complex high-stakes disputes in New York, Moxley is fair-minded and objective. His years-long effort to pull together the facts and law as to risks posed by nuclear weapons commands the attention of everyone who believes in the capacity of law to be a catalyst for overcoming threats to human life and civilization. --Hon. Ariel E. Belen, Justice, New York Supreme Court (Ret.) Charles Moxley has given us an incredibly thorough study of international law, its nature, its strengths, its weaknesses, and the need to find adequate ways to make it enforceable if the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons and consequent disaster are to be avoided. --Alan Cranston, U.S. Senator, 1969-1993 Charles Moxley is a brilliant lawyer and his treatise on nuclear weapons and international law could not be more important and timely. His distinguished career as a practitioner, professor, and arbitrator makes him uniquely well qualified to analyze complex and sensitive factual and legal issues in a manner that is both objective and fair minded. He is a well-known and respected authority in the legal world. I have the highest regard for Moxley's scholarship and his insightful and critical thinking. --Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin, United States District Judge (Ret.), Southern District of New York Charles Moxley's thesis that nuclear weapons violate international law may be this century's most important advance towards a peaceable world order. His book should make you worry, make you think and above all, impel you to make his case against nuclear weapons your case. --Jerome J. Shestack, Past President, American Bar Association Charles Moxley's Nuclear Weapons and International Law combines rigorous legal scholarship with the acumen of a seasoned practitioner, offering an authoritative critique of nuclear deterrence and a persuasive, urgent argument for the disarmament imperative under international law. --Mary Smith, J.D. No greater threat to human life and wellbeing exists than nuclear weapons. In this compelling and comprehensive study of existential risks posed by nuclear weapons and requirements of international law, Charles Moxley gives us reason to hope that, as with the abolition of slavery, advancement of rights of women, and so many other areas, law can help provide a way forward towards genuine human security. --Jonathan Granoff, President, Global Security Institute, Senior Advisor and U.N. Representative, World Summits of Nobel Peace Laureates Professor Moxley has written a thoughtful, well researched and clearly stated exposition of a fundamental issue of the twenty-first century, the confrontation of a policy of nuclear deterrence and use of instruments of mass destruction with the rule of law as presently understood and acceptable standards of safety. --Lawrence E. Walsh Professor Moxley's book is a broad-ranging treatment of a complex subject that will contribute to the debate. The combination of international law, nuclear weapons policy, and technical analysis makes interesting reading. --Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State, Carter Administration

Author Information

Charles J. Moxley, Jr. teaches nuclear weapons law at Fordham Law School and has written about international law restraints on the threat and use of nuclear weapons for over twenty years, starting with his 2000 book, Nuclear Weapons and International Law in the Post Cold War World, of which this book is the second edition.

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