| Summary/Abstract |
Starting around a decade or so ago, the law of armed conflict (LOAC) acquired new prominence in the development of US nuclear strategy. This was stimulated in part by a series of major intergovernmental conferences on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, which led to a consensus among a group of nations that the use of nuclear weapons would result in catastrophic and unacceptable human suffering and was therefore incompatible with the LOAC.1 This argument has been a key rationale for efforts to prohibit nuclear weapons, including the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which as of early 2022 had 86 signatories and 59 states parties.
|