Nuclear Ethics and Global Security: Reforming the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime

该项目与“安全背景下的道德与权利”呼吁非常契合，该呼吁围绕合法性、管辖权、临时性和保护等关键主题，并借鉴了安全研究、国际关系和哲学，属于参与该呼吁的两个资助机构——ESRC和AHRC的职权范围。该项目将在核与全球安全伦理方面进行创新，以指导关于加强核不扩散制度的思考，使其更好地实现防止核武器扩散和使用的根本宗旨。该政权面临压力，因为一些国家利用或被认为利用了1968年《不扩散核武器条约》（NPT）第四条规定的民用核能权利来发展秘密的核武器计划。与此同时，《不扩散核武器条约》所谓的“大交易”——即核武器国家在第六条中承诺裁军，以换取无核武器国家放弃获得核武器的主权权利——陷入困境，因为无核武器国家认为无核武器国家没有履行其承诺。从长远来看，这种信任赤字可能会破坏该条约，但还有其他可能性可以恢复对该条约的信任。美国和俄罗斯寻求一个没有核武器的世界的联合声明提出了这样一种前景，即在几十年内，各国政府可能不得不面对管理一个拥有更少甚至零核武器的世界的战略不确定性的挑战。但是，无论未来核裁军的轨迹如何，各国在国家间关系中重新引入核武库的可能性始终存在，因为如何制造核武器的知识是无法消除的。这种与核知识和技术共存的挑战构成了我们的主要研究问题：“在一个核世界中，现有的以国家为基础的国际秩序能在多大程度上有利于保护个人和全球安全？”该项目将首先描绘出支撑这种以国家为中心的“国际”核秩序的隐含伦理，这将有助于诊断其缺陷和弱点。然后，它将发展和结合世界性的道德思想和国际关系理论，批判性地反思如何发展不扩散制度，以更好地保护人类免受核战争的威胁。该研究将探讨未来全球核秩序的以下替代愿景的规范和伦理潜力：一个核世界政府；一个由更强大的国际机构组成的网络，对核武器政策、裂变材料、核能和安全进行强有力的监督；或者是一种以主权为基础的秩序，在这种秩序中，裁军仍然停滞不前，核武器继续扩散。是否需要修改或搁置核不扩散机制的关键原则，如国家对铀浓缩和核能的权利，或制定核武器政策的自由？如何才能在不破坏条约共识的情况下实现这一点？作为我们的主要研究方法，我们将把政治理论和道德哲学的方法——本体、道义和结果主义推理——与政策研究结合起来，利用对战略政策和核治理中的关键外交官、官员和利益相关者的采访，以及文献综述和开源数据分析。该项目将产生若干产出，包括简报、一本以实践者和专家群体为重点的书以及在各研究学科的评审期刊上发表文章。这些将成为我们影响力战略的一部分，旨在为英国、欧洲和全球政策的形成做出贡献，以加强核不扩散制度，使其能够应对不断变化的核世界的挑战。

This project has a close fit to the 'Ethics and Rights in a Security Context' call around key themes of legitimacy, jurisdiction, temporality, and protection, and draws on Security Studies, International Relations and Philosophy, falling into the remit of two of the funding agencies involved in this call, the ESRC and AHRC.This project will develop innovations in nuclear and global security ethics to guide thinking on the strengthening of the nuclear non-proliferation regime so that it can better meet its fundamental purpose of preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons. The regime is under pressure because some states have used, or are perceived as using, the right to civilian nuclear energy in Article IV of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to develop covert nuclear weapon programs. At the same time, the NPT's so-called 'grand bargain' in which the Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) pledged in Article VI to disarm in return for the Non-Nuclear Weapon States (NNWS) giving up their sovereign right to acquire nuclear weapons is in trouble, because the NNWS consider the NWS to have not lived up to their promises.This trust deficit threatens to unravel the treaty in the longer term, but there are other possibilities that could restore trust in the treaty. The joint declarations by the United States and Russia to seek a world without nuclear weapons raise the prospect that, within a few decades, governments may have to face the challenge of managing the strategic uncertainties of a world with fewer, or even zero, nuclear weapons. But whatever trajectory nuclear disarmament may take in the future, there will always be the possibility of states reintroducing nuclear arsenals into interstate relations since the knowledge of how to build nuclear weapons cannot be eradicated. This challenge of living with nuclear knowledge and technology frames our primary research question: 'How far can an existing state-based international order be hospitable to the protection of individual and global security in a nuclear world?' The project will first map the implicit ethics underpinning this state-centric 'international' nuclear order, which will help to diagnose its flaws and weaknesses. It will then develop and combine cosmopolitan streams of moral thinking and International Relations theory to critically reflect upon how the non-proliferation regime can evolve so as to better protect humanity from the threat of nuclear war.The research will explore the normative and ethical potential of the following alternative visions of future global nuclear order: a nuclear world government; a network of more powerful international agencies that have strong oversight of nuclear weapons policy, fissile materials, and nuclear energy and safety; or a sovereign based order in which disarmament remains stalled and there is continuing proliferation. Will key tenets of the non-proliferation regime, such as national rights to uranium enrichment and nuclear energy, or the freedom to set nuclear weapons policy, need to be modified or set aside, and how can this occur without fracturing the treaty's consensus?As our principle research methods we will combine the methodologies of political theory and moral philosophy - ontic, deontic, and consequentialist reasoning - with policy research, utilising interviews with key diplomats, officials and stakeholders in strategic policy and nuclear governance, as well as literature review and open-source data analysis.The project will produce a number of outputs, including briefing papers, a book focused towards practitioner and expert communities, and articles in refereed journals across the disciplines of the research. These will form part of our impact strategy that seeks to contribute to the shaping of a UK, European and global policy that serves to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime and enable it to meet the challenges of an evolving nuclear world.