The Russian Federation should possess nuclear forces that are capable of guaranteeing the infliction of the desired extent of damage against any aggressor state or coalition of states in any conditions and circumstances.... The Russian Federation considers the possibility of employing military force to ensure its national security based on the following principles: use of all available forces and assets, including nuclear, in the event of need to repulse armed aggression, if all other measures of resolving the crisis situation have been exhausted and have proven ineffective; ....
- National Security Concept, signed by Acting President Vladimir Putin, January 10, 2000
THE STRATEGIC DEFENCE REVIEW... REAFFIRMED THE [BRITISH] GOVERNMENT'S COMMITMENT TO NUCLEAR DETERRENCE (emphasis added). It confirmed that the Trident submarine-launched weapons system will remain the United Kingdom's sole nuclear deterrent in both the strategic and sub-strategic roles.... we ha[ve] in place a continuing planned production programme necessary to retain and exercise the manufacturing skills that will be needed to maintain the Trident warheads safely in SERVICE FOR THE NEXT 20-30 YEARS (emphasis added). This vital role and the RETENTION OF THE CAPABILITY TO DESIGN A NEW WEAPON IF REQUIRED (emphasis added) was assured by the Review. However, this will need to be done without recourse to underground nuclear testing, following the United Kingdom's ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
- 1998 Hunting-BRAE Annual Report for the Atomic Weapons Establishment
The provisions of Article 8 [war crimes] of the Statute [of the International Criminal Court], and in particular those of paragraph 2(b), exclusively concern conventional weapons and are incapable of regulating or prohibiting the possible use of nuclear weapons and do not affect other rules of international law that apply to other weapons which are necessary in the exercise of France's inherent right of self defense, unless the nuclear weapons or other weapons fall, in the future, under a general prohibition and are included as an annex to the Statute by way of an amendment adopted under the provisions of Articles 121 and 123.( - Annexe 3, Declaration Interpretative de la France, Rapport Fait au Nom de la Commission des Affaires (trang(res sur le Project de Loi (no. 2065), autorisant la ratification de la Convention portant Statut de la Cour p(nale internationale, 8 f(vrier 1999, No. 2141 (unofficial translation). The bill authorizing ratification of the ICC Statute was passed by the National Assembly. France has yet to ratify the ICC Statute.
APPENDIX
Clinton Statement on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (Portions Relating to Disarmament) White House Press Office March 6, 2000
Thirty years ago -- March 5, 1970 -- the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) entered into force. The countries that negotiated the NPT had clear and important goals. They wanted a safer, more secure world in which states not possessing nuclear weapons would foreswear their acquisition, and in which states with nuclear weapons would work toward eliminating them. They wanted an effective verification system to confirm these commitments. And they wanted to ensure that countries could use the atom peacefully to improve the lives of their people without spurring nuclear weapons proliferation.
* * *
The NPT also calls for Parties to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." Remarkable progress in nuclear disarmament has occurred since the end of the Cold War. Under the START process, the United States and Russia have committed to reduce deployed strategic nuclear warheads by approximately two-thirds from Cold War levels. We have agreed to a START III framework that would cut these arsenals by 80 percent from those peaks, and we will intensify our efforts to work with Russia to bring this agreement into effect.
Already, the United States has eliminated some 59 percent of our overall nuclear weapons, and many U.S. facilities once dedicated to the production of nuclear weapons have been shut down, deactivated, or converted to other uses. Our nuclear weapons are no longer targeted against any country; our Army, Marine Corps, and surface and air Navy no longer deploy nuclear weapons; and our bomber force no longer stands on alert.
NATO has reduced the number of nuclear warheads dedicated to its sub-strategic forces in Europe by 85 percent, and NATO's dual capable aircraft, the Alliance's only nuclear forces, are no longer maintained on alert status, and their readiness levels have been reduced from minutes to weeks.
The United States and Russia are cooperating to ensure no further production of weapons-usable material, the safe storage of existing quantities of such material, and internationally supervised elimination of surplus stocks of nuclear materials.
We will continue the U.S. moratorium on nuclear testing and work to establish a universal ban through the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The Conference on Disarmament should take the next essential step for global nuclear disarmament by negotiating a fissile material cutoff treaty now, without conditions.
The United States is committed to the ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons. Achieving this goal will be neither easy nor rapid. Accordingly, the United States rededicates itself to work tirelessly and expeditiously to create conditions that will make possible even deeper reductions in nuclear weapons, and ultimately their elimination.
*This paper was prepared by Peter Weiss, LCNP president, and John Burroughs, LCNP executive director, with contributions from Andrew Lichterman and Jacqueline Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, Oakland, California. It draws on a forthcoming book by Charles Moxley, Nuclear Weapons and International Law in the Post Cold War World (Austin & Winfield, Lanham, Maryland). ( Original: Les dispositions de l'article 8 du Statut, en particulier celles du paragraphe 2 b), concernent exclusivement les armements classiques et ne sauraient ni r(glementer ni interdire l'emploi (ventuel de l'arme nucleaire ni porter pr(judice aux autres r(gles du droit international applicables a d'autres armes, n(cessaires a l'exercice par la France de son droit natural de l(gitime d(fense, ( moins que l'arme nucl(aire ou ces autres armes ne fassent l'objet dans l'avenir d'une interdiction g(n(rale et ne soient inscrites dans une annexe au Statut, par voie d'amendement adopt( selon les dispositions des articles 121 et 123.