EVOLUTION OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM: A POLITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE RUSSO-UKRAINIAN WAR

Abstract

The article analyzes and considers the issue of the evolution of nuclear terrorism, namely, a political analysis of the international normative and legal framework through the prism of the Russo-Ukrainian war. The study and analysis of the international security system (resolutions, treaties, agreements, international legal acts, etc.) of prevention, responsibility and punishment for nuclear terrorism allowed the author to thoroughly note the following: first, states began to cooperate against nuclear terrorism and these steps formed the current structure of the nuclear security regime, which was expected to develop over time, as did the international nuclear non-proliferation regime; secondly, in contrast to the components of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, most of the analyzed international response measures to nuclear terrorism, and the author wants to draw special attention to this, are voluntary and offer non-binding recommendations; thirdly, the mechanisms of control and monitoring of compliance are insufficient or not at all, which, as a result, leads to the vulnerability of the nuclear security regime, especially in the context of nuclear terrorism; fourthly, the international security architecture for the problem of nuclear terrorism does not envisage a state as a terrorist. That is, measures to prevent the manifestations and responsibility for acts of nuclear terrorism apply to terrorist groups and organizations. The state in these measures is noted as an object of prejudice to the problem or a source of the problem, and not as an object that is itself the source of the problem. The author also notes that the term “terrorist state” has more political than legal significance. Since there is no definition of it in international law, and it is rather difficult to find such a concept in national law. The author draws attention to the fact that the problem of nuclear terrorism for the world community with the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine has become a new objective reality, since it is not a group or organization that acts as a terrorist, but a state that is also a permanent member of the UN Security Council. The author emphasizes that the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine erases the difference between – terrorism, state terrorism, war crimes – since its actions are not secret, conspiratorial or marginal. The author believes that the Russian Federation, with its policy of nuclear blackmail, has violated the geopolitical levers that held the global security system. International institutions created after the Second World War (the UN, the UN Security Council, etc.) today turned out to be completely paralyzed. In the author’s opinion, which is supported by the analysis of research and the positions of world actors, international institutions in their current state have exhausted themselves. A completely new architecture of the world security system should be developed and proposed, which would correspond to the challenges and threats of the new world order. The author is convinced that the new architecture of world security must necessarily take into account all the threats of the evolution of nuclear terrorism as one of the destabilizing factors of disruption of the world balance.