My very first publication, admittedly written in a language that many AJIL
Unbound readers might be unable or unwilling to read, was an essay on the Treaty
on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and its effects
vis-à-vis third parties. Already back then, I found it difficult to
justify how an international treaty could rubber-stamp such a highly uneven
state of affairs. The overt acknowledgement of the discrimination between
nuclear and nonnuclear states, the hypocrisy about “unofficial”
nuclear states, and the Article VI obligation for nuclear states to negotiate
effective measures of disarmament, largely ignored in the first twenty years of
the treaty, were all elements that contributed to my perception of unfairness,
if not blatant injustice. As a young researcher approaching international law
with the enthusiasm of the neophyte, however, this looked like a little anomaly
in an otherwise fair and equitable international legal order. It did not set off
warning bells about the system as such. After all, international law was geared,
at least in my eyes, towards enhancing the wellbeing of humanity. It must have
been so. And it is not that I leaned particularly on the idealistic side; it
seemed normal to me … at the time.
Choice and (the Awareness of) its Consequences: The ICJ's
“Structural Bias” Strikes Again in the Marshall
Islands Case