Join the Carnegie Nuclear Policy Program for a talk on the legality of nuclear weapons, nuclear war and nuclear deterrence featuring George Perkovich and Newell Highsmith.

The legality of nuclear weapons, nuclear war and nuclear deterrence have been much debated over the years and a 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice did little to settle the issue. What if the ICJ were to take up the issue again? Would the result be any different, especially in light of the negotiation of the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons? Please join the Nuclear Policy Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for a discussion of these issues. The speaker will be Newell Highsmith, who supervised the Arms Control and Nonproliferation section of the Legal Office at the Department of State from 2001 to 2017. He will summarize the main lines of argument and conclusions from a new monograph on the subject, produced by the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

George Perkovich, a Carnegie vice president for studies and co-editor of Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate will respond to Highsmith’s presentation and facilitate subsequent discussion with the audience.

Register for the event here.

Newell Highsmith

Newell Highsmith served for 30 years as an attorney at the U.S. Department of State, with primary responsibility for legal issues related to arms control and the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missiles.

George Perkovich

George Perkovich is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Chair and vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, overseeing the Technology and International Affairs Program and Nuclear Policy Program.