The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence

The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence provides the intellectual tools needed to understand and respond to the growing dangers posed by the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons. It demonstrates how both the use and threatened use of nuclear weapons is illegal under international law and accordingly, criminal. This book offers a succinct and detailed guide to understanding US policy from first use in Hiroshima/Nagasaki through the SALT I, SALT II, ABM and START efforts at arms control, to Star Wars, National Missile Defense and beyond. Boyle clarifies the relevant international law, from the Hague Conventions through the Nuremberg Principles to the 1996 World Court Advisory Opinion. He also draws attention to U.S. contraventions of its own domestic guidelines for the pursuit of war established in the 1956 U.S. Army Field Manual on The Law of Land Warfare. As its War on Terrorism hurtles into uncharted watersin North Korea and elsewhere, challenging accepted norms of international law and setting a pattern for peremptory state behavior, could the US or some other nuclear state cross the nuclear threshold? “[An} enormously valuable book. Any supporter of nuclear weapons would find it very difficult to refute its arguments.” —Frank Jackson Vice-Chair, World Disarmament Campaign UK and Editor, World Disarm! “Boyle’s damning post-9 / 11 legal analysis of U.S. nuclear war policy and the so- called “war on terrorism” is the best single book for nuclear resisters to study if they intend to defend their own direct action under international law.” —The Nuclear Resister Sept. 2002 “Boyle’s stirring little book traces the fault lines that may divide our society as U.S. troops and weapons are deployed illegally: those who support the legal system versus those who blindly issue and obey orders at their own peril.” —The Federal Lawyer, March/April 2003 a publication of the Federal Bar Association, Washington, DC