ABSTRACT
Disarmament and arms control, in the final analysis, cannot be pursued for their own sake, but their objective must be peace, understood in a comprehensive and consistent sense. The nuclear weapon states have taken advantage of the reduced concerns about the risk of nuclear war after the end of Cold War to abdicate even that nominal commitment to nuclear disarmament that had been produced by public opinion. On a request from the United Nations General Assembly in 1994, the World Court in July 1996 rendered advisory opinion on nuclear weapon. The nuclear test ban treaty has been a centrepiece in recent years’ arms control agenda, next only to the permanent extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The proposal for a fissile material cut-off treaty has been another centrepiece on the post-Cold War arms control agenda which also highlights the limitations of arms control and the critical need for disarmament.
