Department of Politics and International Relations
- Politics and International Relations
- About our research
- Current research projects
- Irreversibility and Nuclear Disarmament
Irreversibility and Nuclear Disarmament
Project overview
All of the nuclear-armed states have committed to achieving a world without nuclear weapons because of the risk of catastrophic nuclear violence. There are many challenges to realising a world without nuclear weapons, one of which is the prospect of nuclear re-armament. The challenge of maximising the irreversibility of a nuclear disarmament process has long been acknowledged in global nuclear diplomacy centred on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). However, what ‘irreversibility’ actually means in theory and practice has not been explored. To address this, the UK and Norway have invested in research and dialogue on this issue since 2021 that builds on the two countries' work on nuclear disarmament verification over the past two decades.
The purpose of the work is to develop knowledge and understanding of irreversibility in nuclear disarmament to support and enable diplomatic processes that lead towards a nuclear weapons-free world. The project systematically investigates irreversibility and nuclear disarmament in practice by developing a conceptual framework for irreversible nuclear disarmament as the ‘unmaking’ of a nuclear weapons complex rooted in empirical case studies.
Professor Nick Ritchie in the Department of Politics and International Relations has led two projects on ‘irreversible nuclear disarmament’ with partners at King’s College London and the UK NGO VERTIC from 2022-24. The outputs from these projects and those of partners are available here.
Partners
