Assessing the Lawfulness and Threat of Nuclear Weapons Use Through the Lens of International Law
Faculty News
Prof. Charles J. Moxley Jr.’s New Book Assesses the Legality of Nuclear Weapons Use Under International Law
JANUARY 11, 2024
The second edition of Prof. Charles J. Moxley’s book–– Nuclear Weapons And International Law: Existential Risks of Nuclear War and Deterrence through a Legal Lens–– releases on February 15, 2024.
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and threat to use nuclear weapons, the risk of nuclear weapons has risen in our consciousness in a way harkening back to the Cold War, even as our desensitization to such risks remains deeply entrenched. While concern about nuclear weapons has been addressed periodically as a matter of policy, the role of law as a potential way to address such concerns has not been much focused on, notwithstanding successes of law in addressing risks posed by chemical, biological and other types of indiscriminate weapons.
Focus on the potential role of law in this area is now provided by the upcoming book, Nuclear Weapons and International Law: Existential Risks of Nuclear War and Deterrence through a Legal Lens, by Fordham Professor (Adj.) Charles J. Moxley, Jr.
Professor Moxley’s two-volume book provides an in-depth analysis of the lawfulness of the use of nuclear weapons, based on existing international law, established facts as to nuclear weapons and their effects, and nuclear weapons policies and plans of the United States. In this much expanded second edition of his 2000 book, Nuclear Weapons and International Law in the Post Cold War World, Professor Moxley, based on detailed analysis of the facts and law, argues that the United States’ position that uses of nuclear weapons, including low-yield nuclear weapons, could be lawful, do not withstand analysis.
The book opens by examining established rules of international law governing the use of nuclear weapons, first analyzing this body of law based on the United States’ own statements of the matter and then extending the analysis to include requirements of international law that the United States overlooks in its assessment of the lawfulness of potential nuclear weapons uses. Professor Moxley then develops in detail the known facts as to nuclear weapons and their consequences and U.S. policies and plans concerning such matters.
He proceeds to pull it all together, applying the law to the facts and demonstrating that, in his view, known nuclear weapons effects cannot comply with the international law rules of distinction, proportionality, necessity, precaution, the corollary requirement of controllability, and the law of reprisal.
Fordham Dean Emeritus John Feerick, in his Foreword to the book, says, “The second edition of Moxley’s treatise, like the first edition, is amazing in its scope and breadth. It is a primer for a robust discussion of the potential of law to enable us to address the threats and use of nuclear weapons.”
“Professor Moxley’s broad and comprehensive application of international law to known facts as to nuclear weapons provides an inspirational agenda for our consideration as to how to truly make international law the firewall against the destruction of human civilization.”
- Former Secretary of Defense William PerryAbout Professor Moxley
A graduate of Fordham College, with a Masters in Russian Area Studies from Fordham and a law degree from Columbia Law School, Professor Moxley has focused on the area of nuclear weapons and international law for over 30 years. A long-time litigator who started his career at Davis Polk & Wardwell and then served as partner or counsel in several New York litigation firms before starting his own firm, MoxleyADR LLC, Professor Moxley brings to his analysis of the lawfulness of the threat and use of nuclear weapons the seriousness of legal approach that he developed over the years as a litigator in federal and other courts around the country in securities, antitrust, and high stakes commercial cases and as an arbitrator in such cases.
Professor Moxley has taught nuclear weapons law at Fordham for over twenty years and has been a leader in initiatives in the area by Fordham. He was Faculty Lead on conferences on nuclear weapons and international law co-sponsored by Fordham’s Center on National Security in 2000 and 2023. The proceedings of the 2000 conference were published by the Fordham International Law Journal.
Following the 2020 conference, Professor Moxley was instrumental, with Fordham Dean Emeritus John Feerick, in Fordham University’s joining the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, a consortium of various universities and other institutions seeking to foster peacebuilding.
Throughout his work in the field, Professor Moxley has focused on the potential of law to provide a way to address risks posed by nuclear weapons. He argues that with nuclear weapons as in so many other areas of grave concern throughout our history, law has the potential, at times more than policy, of advancing positive social justice and human welfare.