Banning the Bomb

Foreword

Siddharth Mallavarapu has written a brilliant book on a subject of crucial interest to the global peace movement—the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. The book is written in elegant prose. It captures with acumen the theoretical contestations relating to the politics of norm creation through analyzing the events leading up to the seeking of the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and the subsequent opinion of the Court in the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons case.

Mallavarapu frames his arguments in the matrix of the general debate between structural realists, with their emphasis on power, and constructivists, with their stress on the ...