Stanford University

International Law

Nuclear Power Without Nuclear Proliferation?

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The global nuclear order is changing. Concerns about climate change, the volatility of oil prices, and the security of energy supplies have contributed to a widespread and still-growing interest in the future use of nuclear power. Thirty states operate one or more nuclear power plants today, and according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), some 50 others have requested technical assistance from the agency to explore the possibility of developing their own nuclear energy programs. This surge of interest in nuclear energy - labeled by some proponents as ‘the renaissance in nuclear power' - is occurring simultaneously with mounting concerns about the healthy of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, the regulatory framework that constrains and governs the world's civil and military- related nuclear affairs. The question then arises: is it possible to have nuclear power without nuclear proliferation? The answer is not clear, for the technical, economic, and political factors that will determine whether future generations will have more nuclear power without more nuclear proliferation are exceedingly complex and interrelated. Dr. Sagan will outline the current state of nuclear power and nuclear proliferation, before examining the weaknesses and promise of existing research on the subject. He argues that a key aspect of ensuring a safe nuclear future will be the strengthening of the NPT through "shared responsibility" for disarmament.

Scott Sagan is a professor of political science and co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as a special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. He has also served as a consultant to the office of the Secretary of Defense and at the Sandia National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989), The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993), and with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (W.W. Norton, 2002). He is the co-editor of Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James L. Wirtz, Planning the Unthinkable (Cornell University Press, 2000) and the editor of Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford University Press, 2009). His most recent publications include "The Case for No First Use," Survival (June 2009) and "Good Faith and Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations" in George Perkovich and James A. Acton (eds.) Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (Carnegie Endowment, 2009).

Allen S. Weiner is senior lecturer in law and co-director of the Stanford Program in International Law at Stanford Law School. He is also the co-director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. His expertise is in the field of public international law and the foreign relations law of the United States. He is a seasoned international lawyer with experience in such wide-ranging fields as national security law, the law of war, international dispute resolution, and international criminal law. His current scholarship focuses on international law and the response to the contemporary security threats of international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. For more than a decade he practiced international law in the U.S. Department of State, serving as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser and as legal counselor at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague. In those capacities, he advised government policy-makers, negotiated international agreements, and represented the United States in litigation before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal and the International Court of Justice. He teaches courses in public international law, international conflict resolution, and international security matters at Stanford Law School. He received a BA from Harvard College and a JD from Stanford Law School.

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CISAC Conference Room

Scott D. Sagan

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E202
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 725-2715 (650) 723-0089
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The Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science
The Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education  
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
rsd25_073_1160a_1.jpg PhD

Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and a senior fellow based at FSI's Center for International Security and Cooperation, where he previously served as the social science co-director. He also serves as co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Security Studies. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon.

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989); The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993); and, with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (W.W. Norton, 2012). He is the co-editor of Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn; and co-editor of The Fragile Balance of Terror (Cornell University Press, 2022) with Vipin Narang. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of Daedalus: Ethics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).

Recent publications include “Creeds and Contestation: How US Nuclear and Legal Doctrine Influence Each Other,” with Janina Dill, in a special issue of Security Studies (December 2025); “Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel”, with Janina Dill and Benjamin A. Valentino in Security Studies (February 2022); “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine” with Allen S. Weiner in International Security (Spring 2021); “Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power?” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Fall 2020); and “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants” and “On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane” with Benjamin A. Valentino in Ethics & International Affairs (Winter 2019).

In 2022, Sagan was awarded Thérèse Delpech Memorial Award from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at their International Nuclear Policy Conference. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency" in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons and the causes of nuclear proliferation. The award, which is granted triennially, recognizes “research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that advances understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.” In 2013, Sagan received the International Studies Association's International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also won four teaching awards: Stanford’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; Stanford's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching; the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award; and the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009.     

Former co-director, Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Scott D. Sagan Co-Director of CISAC and Professor of Political Science Speaker
Allen S. Weiner Senior Lecturer in Law; Co-Director, Stanford Program in International Law; Co-Director, Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation; CDDRL and CISAC Faculty Member; Forum on Contemporary Europe Research Affiliate Speaker
Seminars

Visit by Sir Jonathan Phillips

The Forum on Contemporary Europe designed and sponsored this meeting as part of its series on global conflict, and peace and reconciliation.  This session was conducted as a high level, by-invitation discussion to bring together policy leaders and FCE Research Affiliates aimed to consider the potential benefit of Stanford research on conflict and negotiation for the continuing process of peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.  The meeting included the UK Permanent Secretary for Northern Ireland, with Stanford faculty and FSI/FCE Research Affiliates including

  • Helen Stacy, Principal Investigator, Project on Human Rights
  • Allen Weiner, Co-Director, Stanford Center for International Conflict Negotiation,
  • Byron Bland, Co-Director, Stanford Center for International Conflict Negotiation, and
  • Roland Hsu, Assistant Director, Stanford Forum on Contemporary Europe. 

Also participating were Robin Newman, UK Vice Consul Political, Press and Public Affairs, and Andy Pike, UK Consul for Northern Ireland in Washington, D.C.  Also invited were a select group of post-graduate scholars currently engaged in research with policy implications on human rights, global justice, and international law.

The meeting addressed multiple engagement and intervention strategies, including using the office of the Permanent Secretary with his deep knowledge of historically contested issues and parties, as well as appealing to international mediation from offices including the European Court of Justice and Court of Human Rights.  Participants also discussed possible lessons to be drawn from this peace process for long-standing conflicts in settings such as Darfur, Sri Lanka, and Sub-Saharan and Southern Africa.

The Forum on Contemporary Europe expresses its appreciation for the Office of the UK Consul General in San Francisco co-sponsorship for this event.

Forum on Contemporary Europe

Sir Jonathan Phillips UK Permanent Secretary for Northern Ireland Speaker
Panel Discussions

Defining the Crime of Aggression

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Beth Van Schaack is Associate Professor of Law with Santa Clara University School of Law, where she teaches and writes in the areas of human rights, transitional justice, international criminal law, public international law, international humanitarian law, and civil procedure. 

Prof. Van Schaack joined the law faculty from private practice at Morrison & Foerster LLP where her practice focused on international law, commercial law, criminal defense, and human rights. Prior to entering private practice, Prof. Van Schaack was Acting Executive Director and Staff Attorney with The Center for Justice & Accountability, a non-profit law firm in San Francisco dedicated to the representation of victims of torture and other grave human rights abuses. She was also a law clerk with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.  

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Beth Van Schaack Visiting Scholar Speaker CDDRL
Seminars

Human Trafficking

In 2011, the Program on Human Rights (PHR) launched its research initiative on human trafficking to address the main challenges and generate new knowledge on this issue of international concern. Working in collaboration with Stanford faculty and students, this project builds on research underway across the university to create a forum on human trafficking. The goal is to produce collaborative research and policy recommendations to better address the multiple dimensions of human trafficking.

Honorable Survivor: Mao's China, McCarthy's America and the Persecution of John S. Service

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HONORABLE SURVIVOR cover 3x4sm
Lynne Joiner, author of Honorable Survivor: Mao's China, McCarthy's America and the Persecution of John S. Service will discuss and read from her new book, available October 7, 2009.

John Stewart Service (3 August 1909 - 3 February 1999) was an American diplomat who served in the Foreign Service in China prior to and during World War II. Considered one of the State Department's "China Hands," he was an important member of the Dixie Mission to Yan'an. Service correctly predicted that the Communists would defeat the Nationalists in a civil war, but he and other diplomats were blamed for the "loss" of China in the domestic political turmoil following the 1949 Communist triumph in China. In the immediate postwar years, Service was indicted in the Amerasia Affair in 1945, of which a Grand Jury cleared him of wrongdoing.  In 1950 U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy launched an attack against Service, which led to investigations of the reports Service wrote while stationed in China. Secretary of State Dean Acheson fired Service, but in 1957 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered his reinstatement in a unanimous decision.

Notable reviews:

"Sometimes a writer can use one person's story to illuminate an entire piece of history, and that is what Lynne Joiner does in her engrossing and readable book. . . . This is both a solid addition to scholarship of the Cold War era and the moving, very personal story of the life of one man: brilliant, flawed, long suffering, and honorable indeed."

-Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa 

"Joiner ably tells the tragic story of a good American laid low by the basest kind of character assassination masquerading as anti-Communism. All one can say is: 'Read this book and weep!"

-Orville Schell, Director of the Center for US-China Relations, Asia Society.

"Jack Service's experiences in wartime China and postwar America are an exciting tale with important resonances for current foreign policy challenges in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Iran as well as U.S.-China relations. I can't wait to see the movie."

-Susan L. Shirk, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State (1997-2000); currently Director, University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, U.C.-San Diego

‘This maelstrom of political intrigue, with Service at the center, is presented in well-documented and engaging detail. It is critical reading for anyone concerned with China policy and an instance of Congress and the FBI subverting justice."

-Richard H. Solomon, former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Relations; currently President of the U.S. Institute of Peace 

"Honorable Survivor is the gripping tale of one man's extraordinary life in wartime China and the Kafkaesque era of McCarthyism in America. Lynne Joiner does a masterful job of using new materials to illuminate how personal decisions, great historical forces, and the actions of vindictive and overzealous officials shaped developments in China, the United States, and U.S.-China relations in ways that have yet to be fully resolved."

-Thomas Fingar, former U.S. Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis; currently lecturer at Stanford University 

"Jack Service did not lose China.  On the contrary, he was a hero of the times. . . . This well-written and thoroughly researched book . . . helps us understand the machinations and failures of U.S.-China policy, on both the American and Chinese sides."

-Victor Hao Li, former President, East-West Center, Honolulu, and former Shelton Professor of International Law, Stanford Law School

Lynne Joiner is an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist, news anchor, and documentary filmmaker. Her work has included assignments for CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, NPR, Christian Science Monitor Radio, Newsweek, and Los Angeles Times Magazine. She lives in San Francisco, California.

Philippines Conference Room

Lynne Joiner Media Consultant Speaker Shanghi International TV Channel
Seminars

Judicial Politics in Taiwan

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Chin-Shou Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Graduate Institute of Political Economy at the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. He has interviewed more than one hundred Taiwanese prosecutors and judges. He recently published an article on judicial independence reform in the Taiwanese Political Science Review. He is currently working on a book titled Revolt from the Bottom: Judicial Independence Reform in Taiwan.

Professor Wang obtained his MA and Ph.D. in Sociology from University of Carolina at Chapel Hill, and BS in Industrial Management from National Cheng Kung University. 

This is a CDDRL seminar within our Democracy in Taiwan Program.

Philippines Conference Room

Chin-Shou Wang Assistant Professor Speaker National Cheng Kung University
Seminars

Human Rights for the 21st Century: Sovereignty, Civil Society, Culture

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A new moral, ethical, and legal framework is needed for international human rights law. Never in human history has there been such an elaborate international system for human rights, yet from massive disasters, such as the Darfur genocide, to everyday tragedies, such as female genital mutilation, human rights abuses continue at an alarming rate. As the world population increases and global trade brings new wealth as well as new problems, international law can and should respond better to those who live in fear of violence, neglect, or harm.

Modern critiques global human rights fall into three categories: sovereignty, culture, and civil society. These are not new problems, but have long been debated as part of the legal philosophical tradition. Taking lessons from tradition and recasting them in contemporary light, Helen Stacy proposes new approaches to fill the gaps in current approaches: relational sovereignty, reciprocal adjudication, and regional human rights. She forcefully argues that law and courts must play a vital role in forging a better human rights vision in the future.

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CISAC Conference Room

Helen Stacy Senior Fellow Speaker CDDRL
Workshops
Linda Randall Meier Research Workshop on Global Justice

The Immigration Dilemma: the Demise of Social Justice

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Stephen Macedo joined the faculty of the Princeton University in 1999 as Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics. On September 1, 2001, he was appointed director of the University Center for Human Values.

Macedo studies topics in political theory, ethics, American constitutionalism and public policy, with an emphasis on liberalism and its critics, and the roles of civil society and public policy in promoting citizenship. He chairs the Princeton Project on Universal Jurisdiction, which has formulated principles of international law to guide national courts seeking to prosecute human rights violations irrespective of the nationality of the victims or alleged perpetrators. From 1999 through 2001, he served as founding director of Princeton's Program in Law and Public Affairs.

Macedo has taught at Harvard University and at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. He earned a bachelor's degree at the College of William and Mary, master's degrees at The London School of Economics and Oxford University, and a master's degree and Ph.D. at Princeton University

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Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Stephen Macedo Politics Dept. and Director, Center for Human Values Speaker Princeton University
Workshops
Linda Randall Meier Research Workshop on Global Justice

Proliferation of International Dispute Settlement Mechanisms: The Threat of Fragmentation vs. the Promise of a More Effective System? - Some Reflections from the Perspective of Investment Arbitration

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(From the introduction) For more than a decade, international lawyers and international relations scholars have been fascinated by an ever-increasing number of international courts and tribunals. These are producing more international case-law, thereby replacing the traditional scarcity of international law precedents embodied in a few celebrated ICJ and PCIJ cases. Today, there is a host of frequently highly specialized international dispute settlement mechanisms like the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, the International Tribunal for the Law of The Sea, the International Criminal Court, various investment tribunals acting under The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Convention or other arbitration rules. All apply, interpret and probably ‘make’ international law. One question frequently raised in this context is whether these institutions contribute to the development of a single uniform body of international law or whether they make ‘their own’ ever more fragmented law. To the extent that they must apply specifically agreed upon rules, such as the WTO agreements, various bilateral investment protection treaties or the Law of the Sea Convention, etc., this is of course largely a false problem. In so far as they rely on common rules of international law, coherence vs. fragmentation does indeed arise and is a serious issue.

Scholars of international law have intensely debated these problems mostly under the heading ‘fragmentation’ of international law or ‘proliferation’ of international courts and tribunals. Gerhard Hafner has significantly contributed to this scholarly debate in a number of articles, and most importantly in a report prepared for the International Law Commission (ILC), which triggered the Commission’s work on fragmentation and was further pursued by Gerhard Hafner’s successor on the ILC, Martti Koskenniemi.

It thus appears appropriate to dedicate a few modest thoughts about these issues to a great international lawyer with whom I have had the privilege to work at the Department of International Law and International Relations at the University of Vienna during the last twenty years. Gerhard Hafner will understand that due to the space allotted in this liber amicorum, I must limit the scope of my remarks on fragmentation and proliferation to a specific subfield of international law. He will also appreciate that the chosen field is investment law and arbitration, which, in many respects, may be viewed as a test laboratorium of international law where many of the pertinent problems mentioned above have appeared in particularly visible form.

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Martinus Nijhoff Publishers in "International Law between Universalism and Fragmentation - Festschrift in Honour of Gerhard Hafner", J. Crawford/A. Pellet/I. Buffard/S. Wittich (eds.)
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