In recent years there has been a growing chorus of calls for a world free from nuclear weapons. The Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference scheduled for this May will be a crucial test of the international community's ability to unite toward this goal.
Two keys to realizing a breakthrough will be creating institutional frameworks for pledges of nonuse of nuclear weapons and establishing clear norms for their prohibition.
We should work, based on the existing NPT system, to expand the frameworks defining a legal obligation not to use nuclear weapons, in this way laying the institutional foundations for reducing their role in national security, while establishing international norms for their eventual prohibition. This can challenge the thinking that justifies nuclear weapons — the willingness to eliminate others for the sake of one's own objectives — clearing the way for their abolition.