Nuclear weapons strategy in the United States is designed around “presidential first use,” an arrangement that enables one person, the president, to kill and maim many millions of people in a single afternoon. Is presidential first use legal? Is it constitutional? Is it just? At a November 4, 2017, conference held at Harvard University and co-chaired by Elaine Scarry of Harvard and Jonathan King of MIT, gathers international and constitutional scholars and politicians to examine the nature of presidential first use in the United States alongside parallel arrangements in the other eight nuclear states. The conference exposed the grave illegality of first use, the likelihood of its occurring, and the way citizens can step forward to dismantle it.
Transcript of Presentations
Elaine Scarry: Introduction
Congressman Jim McGovern: Presidential First Use vs. Congress
William J. Perry: Nuclear North Korea: 1999 and 2017
Bruce G. Blair: Protocol for a US Nuclear Strike
Rosa Brooks: Nuclear Weapons and the Deep State
Kennette Benedict: Congress and the Citizenry
John Burroughs: International Law and First Use of Nuclear Weapons
Bruce Ackerman: Presidential Lawlessness
Zia Mian: Nuclear Weapons Use in South Asia
Hugh Gusterson: Democracy, Hypocrisy, First Use
Sissela Bok: The Use and Misuse of the Language of Self-Defense