Francis A. Boyle The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence  (Clarity Press) US$14.95

Following U.S. unilateral abrogation of the ABM Treaty, the entire edifice of international agreements regulating, reducing, and eliminating weapons of mass extermination has been shaken to its very core.  The prospect of yet another round of the multilateral and destabilizing nuclear arms race now stares humanity directly in the face.  The resumption of nuclear testing in outright defiance of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty regime and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Article VI might soon begin. As the U.S. War on Terrorism  hurtles into uncharted waters, challenging accepted norms of international law and setting a pattern for peremptory state behaviour, could a nuclear strike against a non-nuclear "rogue state" become an American option? Could conflicts between other nuclear states such as India and Pakistan go nuclear? 

The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence by Francis A. Boyle, with a foreword by Philip Berrigan, will give the reader the intellectual tools necessary to battle the U.S. nuclear empire.  A special introduction, "George Bush, Jr., September 11th and the Rule of Law" clarifies the illegal and dangerous trajectory of the present Bush, Jr. administration.

As a leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law, Francis A. Boyle is uniquely qualified to address the issue of nuclear deterrence. Twenty years of anti-nuclear advocacy have earned him what may be the worlds track record for anti-nuclear acquittals. Recently, his testimony persuaded a Scottish Judge in the UK to direct a verdict against the UK Trident 2. Through his exacting international legal analysis, prolific writings and tireless advocacy, he has succeeded in establishing the criminality of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence reflected in the recent World Court Advisory Opinion of 1996.  Prof. Boyle was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.  He has lectured  on nuclear weapons and international law to the U.S. military at West Point and to Russian and foreign lawyers through two lecture tours sponsored by the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and the Association of Soviet Lawyers. 

For more information, please visit the publisher's website at http://www.claritypress.com.

The book can be ordered directly through Ingram, amazon.com, or the publisher's distributor, at SCB Distributors, 15608 South new Century Drive, Gardena, CA. 90248

Email:  victor@scbdistributors.com  To contact the publisher:  claritypress@usa.net

Please note that this is not a review, nor is it a paid-for advertisement. The copy was provided by the publisher, and knowing Professor Boyle’s previous work – some of which appears elsewhere on this website -  we are pleased to pass it on to our readers. We hope to carry a review in the future.