Welcome to LCNP
Founded in 1981, the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy is a non-profit educational association of lawyers and legal scholars that engages in research and advocacy in support of the global elimination of nuclear weapons and a more just and peaceful world through respect for domestic and international law. LCNP serves as the UN office of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms.
Peter Weiss (center) and John Burroughs (right) at the 1995 ICJ Hearings. Phon van den Biesen of IALANA is on the left.
Essential Readings
Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, International Court of Justice, 1996
Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, 1997 (updated 2007)
Human Rights Versus Nuclear Weapons: New Dimensions, LCNP, January 2021
Nuclear Weapons & International Law: The Renewed Imperative in Light of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Virtual Conference
November 8, 2023
Video Recording with panel segments
Transcript with panel segments
Agenda, Speaker Bios, Related Materials
This conference addressed the continuing and heightened dangers of nuclear war accentuated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and threats to use nuclear weapons. It featured knowledgeable speakers with a wide range of experience in government, the military, NGOs, academia, and think tanks, including several LCNP-affiliated persons.
Read more here.
Dr. John Burroughs, LCNP Senior Analyst, presenting arguments before the International Court of Justice in 2016
“Anyone who has a nuclear weapon as an instrument of foreign policy is ready to break all three categories of law: those of man, god, and nature. The formation of a committee such as yours was a categorical imperative.”
KURT VONNEGUT
From a letter to LCNP President Peter Weiss, September 1997
