Global Non-Proliferation and Counter-Terrorism

Adopted in April 2004, UN Security Council Resolution 1540 obliges all states to take steps to prevent non-state actors, especially terrorist organizations and arms traffickers, from acquiring weapons of mass destruction and related materials. The United Nations placed itself firmly in the center of one of the world’s key international security challenges.

Global Non-Proliferation and Counter-Terrorism brings together renowned scholars and policymakers to examine a wide range of new policy-related questions arising from the resolution’s impact on the bio-scientific community, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the IAEA, trade and customs, and counter-proliferation initiatives such as the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). The impact of 1540 goes beyond setting new legal requirements. It focuses on enforcement not only nationally but also internationally, pressing all states to place their own houses in order. Among the key questions is how the resolution will change the existing network of non-proliferation regimes. Will it merely reinforce requirements of the existing non-proliferation treaties? Or will it offer a legal framework for counter-proliferation activities and other measures to enforce the non-proliferation network? This book provides an overview of the novel policy questions UNSCR 1540’s future implementation and enforcement will offer for years to come. Contributors include Jeffrey Almond, Thomas J. Biersteker (Brown University), Olivia Bosch (Chatham House), Gerald Epstein (CSIS), Chandré Gould (Center for Conflict Resolution, Cape Town )], Ron Manley (former OPCW Director of Verification) Sarah Meek (ISS), Siew Gay Ong (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore), Elizabeth Prescott (AAAS Congressional Fellow), Tariq Rauf (IAEA), Will Robinson (World Customs Organization), Roelof Jan Manschot (Eurojust), Peter van Ham (Netherlands Institute of International Relations), Ted Whiteside (NATO), and Angela Woodward (VERTIC).

Olivia Bosch is associate fellow in the International Security Program at Chatham House (Royal Institute for International Affairs), London, and former UN weapons inspector in Iraq. Peter van Ham is director of the Global Governance Program at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations "Clingendael," the Hague and Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.