Anthony J. Colangelo, Assistant Professor of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law, states that in light of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540, the main legal obstacles to establishing extraterritorial and, ultimately, “universal” jurisdiction over dual use nuclear commodities smuggling boil down to a problem of legality. Colangelo shows that the concept of geographic legality offers a useful lens through which to examine the potential for extraterritorial jurisdiction over smuggling of dual use nuclear items. This report frames the major legal obstacles to establishing such jurisdiction, and, as a result, also reveals mechanisms for surmounting or breaking down those obstacles. Specifically, it clarifies the roles of national law, positive international law (treaties), and customary international law, along with key sovereignty and individual rights components, to establishing expansive and ultimately universal jurisdiction over dual use nuclear commodities smuggling anywhere in the world.

Daniel H. Joyner, Professor of Law, University of Alabama School of Law, argues that nuclear materials and commodities smuggling is currently established in customary international law (CIL) as an international crime, but that that crime is limited in its effectiveness by its imprecise definition and its lack of an accompanying right of universal jurisdiction over the offense. He states that “a multilateral treaty further recognizing this crime and clarifying its criteria and scope and the universality of state jurisdiction over it, would be useful in addressing the limitations of a CIL-based crime, and would create a treaty-CIL mutually reinforcing relationship of a type seen in other substantive areas of international law”.

This is the Summary Report from the Nautilus Institute workshop “Cooperation to Control Non-State Nuclear Proliferation: Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction and UN Resolutions 1540 and 1373” held on April 4th and 5th in Washington DC with the Stanley Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This workshop explored the theoretical options and practical pathways to extend states’ control over non-state actor nuclear proliferation through the use of extra-territorial jurisdiction and international legal cooperation.

Other papers and presentations from the workshop are available here.

In this report Alexandre Y. Mansourov, a Nautilus Institute Senior Associate, comprehensively examines information technology in North Korea. He states that “[t]he DPRK mobile communications industry has crossed the Rubicon, and the North Korean government can no longer roll it back without paying a severe political price. The most the authorities can do now is probably to manage its rapid expansion in such a way that will ensure that the interests of the political regime and state security are taken care of first…While traditionally, the State Security Department monitored most communications on a daily basis, the implication of this explosion of mobile phone use is that communication in North Korea has transitioned from a panopticon of total control to a voluntary compliance system where the government makes an example of a select group to try and force the rest of the country to stay in line.”