Remarks and Questions by Thilo Marauhn

Extract

It is my pleasure to be with you on this occasion, if only virtually. This year's annual meeting has as an overall theme: “Personalizing International Law.” For this year's closing plenary, we thought of a truly important topic: “International Law Needs People: Humanitarian Arms Control and the Peace Movement.” Nuclear war, whether big or small, would have disastrous consequences for humankind. Nuclear arms control is crucial—not least in light of the humanitarian consequences. Following the failure of nuclear weapon states to implement Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), NGOs and governments of non-nuclear weapon states pushed for the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Given the role of civil society, of individuals, in this process, and given current circumstances, we want to discuss whether there is both a need and an opportunity to enhance international law and increase lawmaking and implementation by leveraging these actors. We will do so against the background of two distinct developments which I will highlight in opening the panel: