ABSTRACT
In this chapter, students will learn about three contemporary challenges to the international regime for the disarmament and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons as well as efforts to overcome them. The first challenge is posed by states within the existing non-proliferation regime. The second set of challenges comes from states outside the present non-proliferation regime. The third and, perhaps, most formidable challenge comes from non-state actors. These challenges have generated at least three different approaches: first, efforts to strengthen the traditional multilateral institutional approach anchored in treaty-based regimes; second, to establish non-treaty-based multilateral approaches initiated within the UN system; and, third, to build a set of ad hoc, non-institutional, non-conventional approaches to address the immediate challenges of proliferation. These approaches, in turn, have led to several significant consequences for addressing nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in the future.
