Posturing for Prevention: Extended Claim on the Use of Force Against the Threats of Nuclear Terrorism

Abstract

The threat of terrorism, nuclear weapons program by hostile states, and the possibility that these threats could aggregate and converge into more devastating threat of nuclear terrorism has been challenging the international norm on the use of force. The characteristics of these threats dictate that they are not the kinds of threat that can be waited upon to manifest because the stage of their imminence would render a state unable to defend itself by using force as the last resort. To prevent the distinct threats from becoming prevalent throughout the globe and growing into a greater threat, the permissible parameters for the use of force must include the conditions of when and how force can be used effectively in combating these threats. These permissible conditions increasingly depend on placing a greater premium on states' responsibility toward violence that streams outside their territories and strengthening enforcement mechanisms toward state responsibility and accountability so that, if breached to cause disproportionate violence in civilian lives, a claim on force could be extended to prevent their present capabilities from inflicting greater harm in the future based on their intent of causing violence demonstrated in their past acts of aggression. The legitimacy of using force to prevent the threats of modern security environment rests on the extent of increasing and enforcing state responsibility and demonstrating that states that inflicted violence and violated international norms in the past and associated with terrorist activities and pursue nuclear weapons technology for hostile purposes in the present are highly likely to perpetuate recurrent attacks in the future. The permissible preventive use of force that would be contingent upon states' breach of responsibility to cause recurrent aggression depends on the process of reinterpreting the pre-existing international norm on the use of force and enforcing state responsibility over the governance of its internal domestic affairs toward stricter adherence toward maintaining international peace and security.