Diplomacy through Sanctions and Incentives

Although nuclear dangers have increased among the nine states that currently possess nuclear weapons, the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other states so far has been relatively contained. States are adhering to the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The global nonproliferation regime has effectively combined the threat of sanctions for violations with incentives for compliance. The offer to ease sanctions has been an effective inducement in several cases of negotiated nonproliferation. What are the lessons of these experiences for taming nuclear dangers today?

David Cortright, visiting scholar, Reppy Institute and Emeritus, University of Notre Dame, will discuss the chapter “Incentivizing Nuclear Nonproliferation: Theory, Policy and Experience” by David Cortright and Thomas Biersteker for a forthcoming volume edited by Peter Wallensteen and Armend Bikaj of the Alva Myrdal Center for Nuclear Disarmament in Sweden.

About the Speaker
David Cortright is a visiting scholar with the Reppy Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies program and professor emeritus of the practice at the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. Previously, Cortright was the director of policy studies at the Keough School’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and director of the institute’s Peace Accords Matrix project, the largest existing collection of implementation data on intrastate peace agreements.

Cortright has written widely about nonviolent social change, nuclear disarmament, and the use of multilateral sanctions and incentives as tools of international peacemaking. He has provided research services to the foreign ministries of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, and has served as consultant or advisor to agencies of the United Nations, the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, the International Peace Academy, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Host
Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies