A new legal opinion launched on the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons has found that the UK’s plans to expand its nuclear weapons programme by purchasing nuclear-capable F-35A fighter jets from the US is in breach of its disarmament commitments under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

UK in breach of commitments under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

The purchase means that the UK, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, will have two delivery systems for nuclear weapons and a renewed nuclear mission for the Royal Air Force (RAF) since it retired its sovereign air-launched nuclear weapons. The UK will deploy the F-35s under NATO’s nuclear Dual Capable Aircraft mission. They will be able to deliver both conventional and the nuclear B61-12 guided nuclear bomb. These are currently deployed to NATO bases across Europe including at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) commissioned the joint opinion from international law experts professor Christine Chinkin and Dr Louise Arimatsu. They lay out a case that Britain’s purchase of these nuclear-capable jets puts Britain in clear breach of its obligations under article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Article VI of the NPT states that:

[e]ach of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

Therefore, Chinkin and Arimatsu argued in the opinion that:

[t]he decision of the UK to purchase F-35a fighter jets rather than any other model is precisely because the aircraft can ‘deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons’ and thereby enable the RAF to reacquire ‘a nuclear role for the first time since 1998.’ Reinstating a nuclear role for the RAF represents a reversal of the UK’s long-term commitment to nuclear disarmament, including under the NPT.

Nuclear-capable F35s: UK ‘escalating nuclear dangers’

Despite the far-reaching consequences of this nuclear expansion, the government has failed to facilitate any debate or vote on the decision.

CND general secretary Sophie Bolt said:

Today is the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The British government should be marking it with ambitious steps to further the cause of disarmament. Instead, we see yet another breach of international law by Starmer. The government has acted outrageously by pushing through this dangerous nuclear expansion. In its own words this is the ‘biggest strengthening of the UK’s nuclear posture in a generation’. Britain is yet again escalating nuclear dangers in the world. It has done this without any parliamentary debate or scrutiny. And now this decision has been shown to be in breach of its own disarmament obligations.

At a time of increasing global tensions and the rising threat of nuclear weapons being used in war, the British government should be doing everything possible to reduce this threat, not accelerate it. That means abiding by its commitment to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, not breaching it.

It is not just CND that has been questioning the legal basis of this nuclear expansion. MPs and peers have been doing the same. We hope that this legal opinion will help galvanise greater scrutiny and challenge of this government. This is an important part of our public campaign to halt Britain’s nuclear expansion and deadly warmongering.

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