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Paper lanterns for the repose of the atomic bombing victims in Hiroshima. Photo: AP

Is it time for supra-state nuclear control?

Robert Patman says globalisation has made it possible to revisit an old idea for a supra-state authority that controls all nuclear production

Almost from the moment the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the menacing shadow of the nuclear age has inspired visions of a world free of nuclear weapons.

In June 1946, the US delegate to the UN Atomic Energy Commission, Bernard Baruch, tabled a bold plan for the international control of atomic energy.

The key to the Baruch Plan was the establishment of an international institution that would have control over all nuclear production in the world and the right of access to state territories for the purposes of verification and inspection. It was a far-sighted and generous initiative, considering that America still had, at that time, an unbroken nuclear monopoly. But the Soviet Union rejected it on the grounds that its own sovereignty would be compromised.

The plan collapsed and the nearly half a century of cold war that followed was dominated, above all, by the threat and fear of nuclear destruction.

The end of the cold war, however, has changed the nuclear equation. On the one hand, the prospect of a global nuclear war had receded. On the other, the assumption that we live in a compartmentalised world where sovereign states hold exclusive power has been shown to be erroneous, and concerns about nuclear proliferation have risen.

Established nuclear powers have seen their ranks swelled by India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. It is also feared that Iran will soon join them. As the nuclear club expands, the security of weapons and technology has diminished. In particular, there is a growing possibility in a world characterised by various civil conflicts that nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of terrorist groups.

Conscious of the current dangers, the Obama administration has made nuclear disarmament a centrepiece of American defence policy. The New Start treaty of 2010 limited the US and Russia to 1,550 strategic warheads.

But the Obama administration believes such steps are linked to a broader, long-term strategy to abolish nuclear weapons in the 21st century. The abolitionists maintain that the massive, indiscriminate destructive power of nuclear weapons makes them morally repugnant; and that the idea of a "nuclear deterrent" is no longer relevant in today's world where there is no cold-war-style balance of power and intra-state conflict is a major security trend.

Yet the case for nuclear abolition has been strongly contested. It is said that nuclear weapons are a "necessary evil" because they inhibit war by restraining aggression through fear of certain destruction; and nuclear weapons technology is a reality that cannot be "disinvented".

Nevertheless, the long-running debate over nuclear weapons is being given a new twist by the unfolding post-cold-war environment. Today, the diffuse process of globalisation has accelerated to the point where the barriers of national sovereignty that once stood in the way of the Baruch Plan have substantially eroded.

The proliferation of nuclear weapons can no longer be controlled by states alone. It is high time, therefore, to revisit the plan as a possible way of exerting international control over the nuclear threat.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Above the fray
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