Short History of LCNP*

Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy was founded in 1981. At the initiative of Elliott Meyrowitz, working with Saul Mendlovitz and Richard Falk, an organizational meeting for what became LCNP was held in early 1981, attended also by later Board members Robert Boehm and John Fried, among others. Also that year, Falk, Meyrowitz, and Jack Sanderson published a Princeton Center for International Studies paper, “Nuclear Weapons and International Law,” which argued for the illegality of use of nuclear arms. The paper gave impetus to the establishment of LCNP.

In late 1981, LCNP was incorporated, and Peter Weiss and Martin Popper were Co-Presidents. Popper died in 1989. Weiss served as President for more than three decades, and was a driving force in the work of LCNP and the subsequently established International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), for which he also was President.

During its first decade, LCNP developed and publicized the international law critique of nuclear weapons. In another major activity, LCNP was part of a coalition that engaged in a multi-faceted and ultimately successful struggle, including litigation, against homeporting of a nuclear-armed battleship in New York Harbor. LCNP took a role in other litigation as well, for example serving as co-counsel in an unsuccessful 1983 case, Greenham Women Against Cruise Missiles v. Reagan, which sought to bar deployment of nuclear-armed cruise missiles. Another significant project was to provide legal guidance to cities adopting local nuclear free zones. LCNP published a handbook, authored by Board member Mark Cogan, addressing legal issues and containing model legislation.

Elliott Meyrowitz was the first Executive Director of LCNP, until late 1982. During that period, LCNP published a statement, “The Illegality of Nuclear Weapons,” and worked with the Brooklyn Journal of Law to hold the first law school conference in the United States on the legal status of nuclear weapons, in September 1982. LCNP also co-organized a two-day symposium on the morality and legality of nuclear weapons, held June 7, 1982, in New York City. As the New York Times reported, in addition to legal analysts the event featured policy experts and victims of nuclear weapons production, testing and use. LCNP-affiliated speakers included Robert Drinan, Sean MacBride, Burns Weston, Popper, and Fried. During the 1980s Meyrowitz published several articles on law and nuclear weapons, including “The Opinions of Legal Scholars on the Legal Status of Nuclear Weapons,” Stanford Journal of International Law (1988). His book, Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: The Relevance of International Law, was released in 1990 by Transnational Publishers.

Among others who served as LCNP staff during the 1980s was Daniel Arbess, Executive Director from 1984 to 1986. Prior to joining LCNP he had written “The International Law of Armed Conflict in Light of Contemporary Deterrence Strategies: Empty Promises or Meaningful Restraints,” McGill Law Journal (1984). He organized several events, including a roundtable on “Moving Beyond Deterrence” featured in the June 1985 issue of Harper’s Magazine. He also wrote or contributed to a number of articles, opinion pieces, and books relating to international law and nuclear weapons, when at LCNP and later at the “Avoiding Nuclear War” project at the Harvard Kennedy School. One was a 1985 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Disarmament role for the United Nations?”, co-authored with LCNP advisor William Epstein, former director of disarmament at the UN secretariat.

In 1987, while Alex Miller was Executive Director, LCNP organized a major conference in New York City on nuclear weapons and international law with the participation of Soviet lawyers. In 1988, LCNP spearheaded the formation of IALANA, for which LCNP is the UN office. From fall 1988 to 1990, while Carl David Birman was Executive Director, LCNP’s activities included support of local nuclear free zones and nuclear weapons protests. Regarding protests, from the 1980s forward, LCNP-affiliated lawyers, notably Board member Francis Boyle, have submitted expert declarations and sometimes testified regarding international law bearing on defense of persons prosecuted for actions opposing nuclear weapons.

From 1992 to 1999, Alyn Ware was Executive Director. During that time LCNP engaged in a range of activities, among them co-founding the Middle Powers Initiative, which works with non-nuclear weapon states to pursue nuclear disarmament in the context of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons. Two major projects with significant international repercussions were resort to the International Court of Justice regarding nuclear weapons and the drafting of a nuclear weapons abolition treaty. Ware’s energy and organizing skills helped propel those projects, as was recognized by a 2009 Right Livelihood Award.

First, LCNP was instrumental in the establishment of the World Court Project that led to the historic 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. LCNP intensively lobbied governments in capitals and at the United Nations to support the 1994 General Assembly resolution requesting the opinion, and subsequently to make written and oral arguments to the Court. President Peter Weiss co-authored a model brief that many governments drew upon, and headed the LCNP/IALANA legal team at the two weeks of hearings before the Court in 1995. The team included LCNP Board member Anabel Dwyer, primary author of the 1991 Michigan Nuremberg Campaign petition/brief. The Court held that threat and use of nuclear weapons are generally illegal under international law, and that an obligation exists to conclude negotiations on the elimination of nuclear weapons under strict and effective international control. Weiss assessed the opinion in “The World Court tackles the fate of the earth: an introduction to the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons,” Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems (1997). LCNP followed up on the opinion by building support for an annual General Assembly resolution, first adopted in 1996 (A/RES/51/45M), calling for implementation of the disarmament obligation articulated by the Court through negotiation of a nuclear weapons convention.

Second, LCNP facilitated the drafting of the 1997 Model Nuclear Weapons Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Testing, Production, Stockpiling, Transfer, Use and Threat of Nuclear Weapons, and on their Elimination. The principal drafters were Merav Datan, LCNP Research Director; Juergen Scheffran of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP); and Ware. This became an official UN document, updated in 2007, and was referenced by the UN Secretary-General in a 2008 disarmament proposal. It was also published with commentary in Security and Survival (1999) and Securing our Survival (2007), by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, IALANA, and INESAP. LCNP’s work on the model convention manifested the conviction, held since the founding of LCNP and held today, that limitation and management of nuclear weapons, however desirable a particular risk-reduction measure may be, is not an approach adequate to the problem; nuclear weapons must be abolished globally. While the nuclear-armed states, in particular the Western nuclear weapon states and Russia, have yet to take on board the negotiation of a global nuclear abolition treaty, the model convention did help inspire the process that led to non-nuclear weapon states’ negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

John Burroughs was Executive Director from 1999 to 2020. Burroughs had been the LCNP/IALANA non-governmental legal coordinator at the 1995 hearings before the ICJ, and wrote a book for IALANA, The Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: A Guide to the Historic Opinion of the International Court of Justice (Lit Verlag, 1997). In 2016, he authored Looking Back: The 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice in Arms Control Today. Burroughs persevered in upholding international law and multilateralism during a period when they were often under siege. He is currently Senior Analyst for LCNP. Ariana Smith, a recent graduate of CUNY Law who had researched the legal status of threat for LCNP while a law student, became Executive Director in September 2020. Ariana departed in August 2023 to pursue an opportunity with the United Nations.

In 2013, Peter Weiss retired as LCNP President. An event, Law’s Imperative: A World Free of Nuclear Weapons Forum and Reception, honored his contributions to nuclear disarmament and the international rule of law. He continues to advance LCNP’s work as President Emeritus and member of the Board. Guy Quinlan became President. He is a retired lawyer deeply engaged in civic affairs, including as Chair of the Nuclear Disarmament Task Force, All Souls Unitarian Church, New York City.

As had been the case in the 1990s, in the first two decades of this century LCNP engaged vigorously with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review process and with the UN Security Council and other UN bodies on nuclear weapons-related issues. LCNP consistently fought for compliance with UN Charter obligations as to use of force and the peaceful resolution of disputes. LCNP was deeply engaged in opposition to the US/UK 2003 invasion of Iraq; has long advocated for a peaceful resolution of the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program; and opposed the escalation of tensions and threats between the United States and North Korea in 2017. In another effort to uphold international law, LCNP represented members of the House of Representatives in an unsuccessful 2003 court challenge to the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

LCNP also contributed to the 2017 negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, through papers, civil society statements, and Burroughs’ expert commentary on panels sponsored by the President of the negotiating conference.

Together with Swiss Lawyers for Nuclear Disarmament, in the mid-2010s LCNP made two submissions to the UN Human Rights Committee during its preparation of a new general comment on the right to life set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The comment released in 2018 took a strong position on nuclear weapons, among other things finding that threat or use of nuclear arms is incompatible with respect for the right to life. Since then, LCNP and other groups have made submissions on nuclear weapons and the right to life to the UN Human Rights Committee concerning its review of Russia, North Korea, and France, and to the UN Human Rights Council concerning the United States. LCNP also produced a 2021 publication, Human Rights Versus Nuclear Weapons: New Dimensions, collecting pieces based on presentations made at two LCNP-organized events in 2018 and 2019.

LCNP also organized and co-organized numerous events and conferences, notably a May 2008 conference on Good Faith, International Law, and Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, held in Geneva, at which former President of the International Court of Justice Mohammed Bedjaoui delivered the Keynote Address; an October 2008 conference on Nuclear Abolition, Climate Protection, and Our Cities’ Future co-organized with Western States Legal Foundation and convened by the mayor of Des Moines and Mayors for Peace in 2008; a 2011 conference entitled Humanitarian Law, Human Security: The Emerging Paradigm for Non-Use and Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, hosted by The Simons Foundation in Vancouver, Canada, which produced a declaration; and a virtual conference, Nuclear Weapons and International Law 2020, hosted by the International Section of the New York State Bar Association and co-organized by LCNP, with Board member Charles Moxley taking the lead, and Jonathan Granoff, President of Global Security Institute and an LCNP Board member.

LCNP was a key supporter of the Marshall Islands’ nuclear disarmament cases in the International Court of Justice (2014-2016), and in their individual capacities Burroughs and LCNP advisor Roger Clark served on the Marshall Islands’ legal team. While the cases were dismissed on a procedural ground by very narrow margins, they underlined the continuing applicability of nuclear disarmament obligations, and the legal briefs filed by the Marshall Islands are a resource for advocacy and possible litigation.

With President Guy Quinlan taking the lead, LCNP sent numerous letters to administration officials and members of Congress on multiple issues relating to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and participated in several meetings with Congressional staff.

Finally, as to publications, LCNP with other groups produced two books, Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties, Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy and LCNP (Apex Press, 2003), and Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security? U.S. Weapons of Terror, the Global Proliferation Crisis, and Paths to Peace, LCNP, Western States Legal Foundation, and Reaching Critical Will/WILPF (2007). Additionally, Board members, advisors, and staff have continued to publish opinion pieces, papers, and articles, for example Nuclear Weapons and Compliance with International Humanitarian Law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Moxley, Burroughs and Granoff, Fordham International Law Journal (2011); Taking the Law Seriously: The Imperative Need for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, Peter Weiss, Fordham International Law Journal (2011); and Elizabeth Shafer, The Legal Imperative of Good Faith Negotiation on the Nuclear Disarmament Obligation of NPT Article VI (2014).

*This is not a comprehensive account of LCNP’s many activities since its founding and does not attempt to name all the many people, Board members, advisors, staff, and others, who contributed to LCNP’s work.