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Research guide Disarmament

Disarmament | Research Guide International Law

Disarmament is the act of reducing, limiting, or abolishing weapons. The main focus nowadays is on three categories of weapons: weapons of an indiscriminate effect, such as cluster munitions and landmines, biological and chemical weapons and the (non-) proliferation of nuclear weapons. General and complete disarmament was defined by the United Nations General Assembly as the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction, coupled with the “balanced reduction of armed forces and conventional armaments, based on the principle of undiminished security of the parties with a view to promoting or enhancing stability at a lower military level, taking into account the need of all States to protect their security”.

Check our Research Guide on Disarmament

Library blog The case BVerfG v EUCoJ

Guest blog by Jaap Hoeksma.

The clash between the BundesVerfassungsGericht (BVerfG) and the European Court of Justice (EUCoJ), which erupted at the height of the corona crisis in the first week of May 2020, may be interpreted as a collision between two visions on the principles and functioning of international law.

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The initiative of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to organize an international peace conference at the dawn of the 20th century came at exactly the right moment. During the First Hague Peace Conference of 1899, 26 countries came together to speak about disarmament and about the possibility of international jurisdiction, which led to the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. In 1907 a second peace conference was organized in The Hague. Find out more about the Tsar’s initiative and his relationship with the Peace Palace.

Scheldt River: Controversy, Cooperation, International Law | Library Special

The Scheldt is a transboundary river which originates in France and runs through Belgium and The Netherlands. The Scheldt Estuary is shared between Belgium and the Netherlands. The Dutch section of the estuary is called the Western Scheldt, and is of vital importance as navigation channel to the port of Antwerp. Since the separation of Belgium from the Netherlands in 1839, the free navigation of the Scheldt and the maintenance and improvement of the navigation channel have been a bone of contention and legal controversy.