Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: Narratives of Apocalyptic Time in Elite Discourse

Wednesday 15^th November, 2023

This seminar was presented by Zeenat Sabur, a visiting scholar at Melbourne Law School. Zeenat's seminar looked at the narratives of apocalyptic time that the proponents and P5 state opponents of the TPNW articulate. It argued that the impact of proponents’ narratives of the end of humanity, tied to the continued existence of nuclear weapons, is to delegitimize the key suppositions of deterrence theory through which possession is often justified. It also argued however, that such narratives of apocalyptic time presented in a future sense, work to exclude some from conceptions of humanity, namely those whose worlds have already been destroyed by nuclear weapons. Finally, it looked at narratives of the apocalypse in the understanding of the TPNW from the perspective of P5 state officials.