Eighty years on from Hiroshima, Pg 9.

Key Highlights:

• No explicit international law bans the use of nuclear weapons; NPT and CTBT do not prohibit their use.
• ICJ’s 1996 advisory opinion suggested nuclear weapons' use would generally violate international law but gave no definitive legal verdict.
• The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons lacks signatures from any nuclear-weapon state.
• Russian nuclear threats in the Ukraine context challenge the taboo surrounding nuclear weapon use.
• PM Modi rejected nuclear blackmail, reinforcing India’s no first use and responsible posture.
• Hibakusha testimony and the Fukuryu Maru incident raised global awareness of radiation impact.
• Nihon Hidankyo awarded Nobel Peace Prize (2024) for nuclear disarmament activism post-Europe tensions.
• The article warns against complacency and strategic miscalculations regarding nuclear use.

Detailed Insights:

• Legal Ambiguity: While the NPT urges disarmament and the CTBT bans testing, no global treaty explicitly prohibits the use of nuclear weapons, creating a legal grey zone.
• Symbolic Treaties: The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017) aims for a nuclear-free world, but its limited adoption weakens enforcement.
• Moral and Humanitarian Arguments: Accounts by Hibakusha (A-bomb survivors) and incidents like Fukuryu Maru (1954 radiation exposure) have shifted global opinion against nuclear weapons.
• India’s Position: India maintains a credible minimum deterrent and no-first-use policy, opposing any form of nuclear coercion.
• Recent Escalations: Russia's implied threats, amidst the Ukraine conflict, erode the informal norm of nuclear restraint built post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• Disarmament Advocacy: The Nobel Prize to Nihon Hidankyo reiterates the global civil society's push for abolition amidst growing strategic uncertainty.
• Strategic Risk: The piece cautions against underestimating risks of miscalculation, citing an American thermonuclear test that first revealed the dangers of fallout.

Concepts Involved:

• Nuclear Fallout: Residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, returning as hazardous dust or ash.
• Thermonuclear Weapon: A nuclear weapon using fusion of isotopes (like deuterium and tritium), far more destructive than fission bombs.
• No-First-Use (NFU): A nuclear doctrine where a state commits to not using nuclear weapons unless first attacked by one.