Background image via Wikipedia, Crown Copyright 2021, licensed under United Kingdom Open Government Licence version 1.0 (OGL v1.0).

See all articles

Fission in Troubled Waters : Australia and the Indo-Pacific Arms Race

Völkerrechtliche Tagesthemen: Spotlight (Episode 19)

09.12.2021

AUKUS has been called one of the greatest tectonic shifts in geopolitics since the Suez-Crisis and the fall of the Berlin wall. But is that true? Dr. Moritz von Rochow (Teaching and Research Assistant at the Walther-Schücking-Institute for International Law, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel) asseses why it is about more than just Australia buying submarines and France being in a huff about playing gooseberry. Selling nuclear propulsion techniques to a non-nuclear state, leaving the International Atomic Energy Agency outside, is without precedent in International Law. States like Iran now stand on the sidelines, longing for their equal share of nuclear power, having been suddenly provided with a dangerous legal loophole. It goes without saying that all this is happening right on China’s doorstep and is thus capable “to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

 

Author
Moritz von Rochow
View profile
Print article

Leave a Reply

We very much welcome your engagement with posts via the comment function but you do so as a guest on our platform. Please note that comments are not published instantly but are reviewed by the Editorial Team to help keep our blog a safe place of constructive engagement for everybody. We expect comments to engage with the arguments of the corresponding blog post and to be free of ad hominem remarks. We reserve the right to withhold the publication of abusive or defamatory comments or comments that constitute hate speech, as well as spam and comments without connection to the respective post.

Submit your Contribution
We welcome contributions on all topics relating to international law and international legal thought. Please take our Directions for Authors and/or Guidelines for Reviews into account.You can send us your text, or get in touch with a preliminary inquiry at:
Subscribe to the Blog
Subscribe to stay informed via e-mail about new posts published on Völkerrechtsblog and enter your e-mail address below.