TECHNOLOGY AND LAW

PHASE 1 - NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND ETHICS

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• HISTORY
• The only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict occurred in 1945 with the American atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• On August 6, 1945, a Uranium gun-type device (code name "Little Boy") was detonated over the
Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, a Plutonium implosion-type device (code
name "Fat Man") was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki.
• Together, these two bombings resulted in the deaths of approximately 2,00,000 people and contributed
to the surrender of Japan, which occurred without any further use of nuclear weapons in the conflict.
• After World War II, nuclear weapons were also developed by the Soviet Union (1949), the United
Kingdom (1952), France (1960), and the People's Republic of China (1964), which contributed to the
state of conflict and extreme tension that became known as the Cold War. In 1974, India, and in 1998,
Pakistan, two countries that were openly hostile toward each other, developed nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons have been detonated on over 2,000 occasions for testing purposes and
demonstrations.
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• Post Cold War
• After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the resultant end of the Cold War, the threat of a
major nuclear war between the two nuclear superpowers was generally thought to have declined.
• Since then, concern over nuclear weapons has shifted to the prevention of localized nuclear conflicts
resulting from nuclear proliferation, and the threat of nuclear terrorism.
• Targeted Assassination of Russian dissident Aleksandr Litvinenko with the use of polonium-210 in a
teapot in 2006 – Decided in Carter v. Russia (20914/07) by the ECHR.
• However, the threat of nuclear war is considered to have resurged after the 2022 Russian invasion of
Ukraine, particularly with regard to Russian threats to use nuclear weapons during the invasion.
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• Consequentialist ethics regarding Nuclear Technology

• The fact that there has not been war between nuclear-armed states has to do with the credible fear of
mutually assured destruction. International relations theorist Kenneth Waltz even suggested that, ‘with
more nuclear states the world will have a promising future’. For some people in favour of a
prohibition, continued dependence on these weapons is not only evil but also detrimental to
international peace and stability.
• Even with the best of intentions amongst nuclear-armed states, there are always risks of accidents and
inadvertent escalations that may trigger nuclear exchanges. The possibility that nuclear-armed states
may go ‘rogue’, collapse, or fail to prevent their arsenal from falling into the hands of terrorists, can
scarcely be ignored.
• For all its bumps and scary moments, the nuclear world has so far held itself together. For, how can one
be sure if fewer nuclear warheads would have generated peace and stability, or whether a future world
free of nuclear weapons is also a secure one?
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• Just War
• The just war theory is a tradition deeply rooted in Catholicism and Western philosophy. Nevertheless, it
is also useful when debating the ethics of war in a more secular, global setting. This theory employs
criteria such as the nonavailability of less harmful options, proportionality, a reasonable prospect of
success, just cause, right intention, and legitimate authority.
• Just war thinkers try to reconcile the idea that, despite war’s evil, alternatives to war may sometimes be
even more evil than war. Thus, while this doctrine is sometimes said to glorify war, it takes a strong
anti-war presumption as its point of departure. Nor should just war be seen as synonymous with
pacifism.
• Nuclear weapons ‘explode the theory of just war. They are the first of mankind’s technological
innovations that are simply not encompassable within the familiar moral world.’