TREATY ON THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS: INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM

In contemporary international law the number of treaties that are not only of interest and significance to the entire international community but also provide the foundations for global legal order and security is limited. Among them – the UN Charter of 1945 and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1968. The fundamental nature of the provisions established by these agreements brings about both a guarantee of the stable functioning of the universal international legal regulator and the highest standards for any changes to these foundations, especially their replacements. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force in 2021 and intended to replace the Treaty of 1968, raises numerous questions about its potential to be considered a «proper replacement». This article analyzes the Treaty of 2017 from various perspectives: its potential contribution to international security, its effectiveness in preventing a hypothetical nuclear conflict, its relationship with the provisions of the Treaty of 1968, and the grounds of the law of treaties. Such an approach allows to identify the weaknesses of the proposed regime and, most importantly, to understand the true intentions of
the developers of the Treaty of 2017 and the reality of their aspiration for genuine global nuclear disarmament.