Development and Testing
Stuart Casey-Maslen, Tobias Vestner · 2019
This chapter summarises the relevant treaty obligations, describing which research activities amount to prohibited development under international law and the role of specific prohibitions on testing within that broader concept. It discusses the disarmament treaties that prohibit testing of nuclear weapons both because of the harmful effects of such testing and with a view to preventing their further proliferation. The formulation in global disarmament treaty is an undertaking by states parties never under any circumstances ‘to develop’ the respective weapon that is being prohibited. For instance, in the context of the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention, ‘“develop” is, by virtue of its purpose, the preparation of the production of chemical weapons as distinct from permitted research’. Global disarmament treaties typically prohibit the development of the weapon that is the subject of the treaty prohibition. A generic prohibition on the testing of all weapons was first included in the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.