ABSTRACT
Richard Falk's scholarly contribution to the international law literature on arms control and nonproliferation has been tied for over half a century to his public advocacy for denuclearization. From the start of his career, one of Falk's abiding concerns has been the existential threat posed by nuclear arsenals. This chapter examines the trajectory of Falk's work as a scholar and public intellectual systematically advocating the moral imperative of disarmament and denuclearization. A domain of international lawmaking central to Falk's scholarship was that of nuclear nonproliferation. As Falk has long recognized, the fact that nuclear weapons have not been used in over seventy years has led to complacency. The global war on terror has essentially placed society on a permanent war footing and diversionary emphases on nonproliferation, counter-proliferation, and arms control have replaced calls for abolition and disarmament with a technocratic preoccupation with the regulation of nuclear weapons.
