“I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” – The Bhagavad Gita – quoted by Robert Oppenheimer as he witnessed the first nuclear explosion.
On the 24th of October, 2020 Honduras became the 50th state to ratify the United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and therefore 90 days later, on the 22nd January 2021, the Treaty shall come into force. Nuclear weapons shall become illegal. Contrary to previous Treaties like the Non-Proliferation Treaty it does not contain provision for signatories who are currently nuclear-armed to continue to maintain those arms beyond a time-limited transition and disarming period.
This is potentially as momentous a day as the day these weapons were first detonated in the 1940s and this treaty will have a significant impact on Scotland especially as independence looms and Scotland will have to deal with its own contribution to the proliferation of these soon-to-be-illegal weapons. However, as with all things international law, the effectiveness of this Treaty will ultimately come down to the willingness and ability for the world to enforce it – something that may be hard to do until and unless nuclear states are compelled to sign up to it themselves.
The Common Green 