Abstract
The first decade of the 21st century saw the international community take new legal measures to prevent weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from falling into the hands of nonstate actors. Together with the discovery of the Abdul Qadeer Khan nuclear proliferation network in 2004, the September 11 attacks in 2001 represented a wake-up call. These events triggered a search for viable options to expeditiously remedy the most glaring gaps in existing international practices, which were not originally intended to meet the terrorist threat.
This search culminated on April 28, 2004, when the UN Security Council unanimously enacted Resolution 1540, a binding legal instrument to deal with new threats that traditional WMD policies could not adequately address. The rationale behind the resolution was to complement and reinforce existing treaties rather than replace them. Indeed, its text explicitly states that none of its obligations alter or conflict with the rights and obligations of parties under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, or the Biological Weapons Convention or alter the responsibilities of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.[1] Seen in the context of previously established regimes, Resolution 1540 was meant to spur states to carry out their responsibilities under these accords, enlist nongovernmental stakeholders in the fight against WMD proliferation, and widen that fight to include nonstate groups.
In remarks last year, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “welcome[d] stronger international measures to prevent terrorist groups” and other nonstate actors “from gaining access to the most lethal weapons and materials” and said that “[b]olstering [the] rule of law in this field is essential.”[2]
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