Judge Christopher Weeramantry was a Judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) from 1991 to 2000, serving as its Vice President from 1997 to 2000. He is President of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms and a Councillor of the World Future Council. He holds the title Sri Lankabhimanya (Sri Lanka’s highest national honor), and is the recipient of the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education (2006) and the Right Livelihood Award (2007).

Humanity is now in a terrible plight. It is in danger of the possibility of the destruction in one millisecond of all that has been built up over millennia of effort. If nuclear weapons were used anywhere in the world today, this would unleash the use of dozens of nuclear weapons, letting loose a "nuclear winter," which could even exterminate all life on Earth. Everything we have worked for over hundreds of thousands of years would come to an end.

The situation has been perilous ever since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the powers that be have propagated the myth of nuclear deterrence—that if you have nuclear weapons in your armory, you will not be attacked. This is one of the myths of the nuclear age, that the nuclear weapon has kept the nuclear weapon from being used for the last 60 years. In fact we have been on the verge of nuclear war time and again. All sorts of crises have occurred where it was divine providence, rather than human intervention, which saved us from what might have been the destruction of the entire human race.

I had the privilege to be on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1996, when it was asked by the United Nations General Assembly to give an opinion on the legality or otherwise of the use of nuclear weapons. This was probably the biggest case the International Court of Justice has ever heard. Many states were represented, and the court’s sitting lasted for weeks.

Witnesses came from many places to tell us about the bomb’s effects. One of the lawyers from a state which argued against the legality of nuclear weapons asked what we would say if Stone Age man had been able to devastate the environment in such a manner as to affect us 25,000 years later. Our response would surely be, "what brutes, what savages, what barbarians."

We are doing the same thing for posterity, not just for 25,000 years but for multiples of 25,000 years, with a total unconcern for our responsibility to pass on the environment in, at least, the same condition in which we received it. We are knowingly perpetrating that on future generations.

The terrible damage to the present generation was described by a delegation from the Marshall Islands who offered heartrending testimony about the effects of radiation from nuclear weapons testing on their children who were being born terribly deformed; children with two heads, no knees, three toes on each foot and so on. What greater act of wrongdoing can there be than inflicting such damage on children yet unborn?

Throughout history, the worlds of philosophy, religion and morality have been seen as one thing and the worlds of power and authority as another.

The separation of International Law from religion began when modern International Law took shape in the 17th century. Then, there was a prevailing feeling that religion had been a cause of wars. The Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) was ravaging Europe. The Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius started the modern discipline of International Law with On the Law of War and Peace, written in 1625. He thought it would be better to distance this new discipline from religion, so he decided to base International Law on human experience rather than on divine revelation. So there are valid historical reasons for International Law becoming distanced from religion in the past.

However, after 400 years, there is no reason for this to continue because, as modern researchers have pointed out, there is a huge amount of coincidence in religious teachings on the fundamentals of human conduct, including the way we carry out our wars. All religions agree about the dignity of the human person, the peaceful settlement of disputes, protection of the environment and the preservation of the rights of future generations.

Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam, for example, all teach us about our duties to the environment and the future. They convey the message that we have to respect the environment and protect the rights of future generations; the opposite of what we do when we go to war using nuclear weapons. Religious teaching is a tremendous reservoir of global wisdom, and we need to resort to it as an enriching source for International Law.

In fact I used my knowledge of world religions to support my decisions at the ICJ, arguing that religion has been an inspiring force for ideas about government, humanity and the parliament of man. Hindu philosophy claims that the "ultimate sovereign of the world will not be Chakravarti, a physical ruler, but the kingless authority of the Law." What better description of International Law than the "kingless authority of the Law"?

In the nuclear weapons case, the judges were divided. I said that the use of nuclear weapons is illegal in all circumstances whatsoever. I wrote a long dissenting opinion, which is often referred to, on the illegality of the nuclear weapon, citing religious teachings. For instance, in Hindu tradition, there are two epic wars described in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Rama was told by his generals that a hyper-destructive weapon was available which could devastate the enemy’s countryside and decimate his population, but he was told, ”Don’t use it without first consulting the sages of the law.” So Rama consulted the sages of the law, who told him: ”You cannot use this weapon because the purpose of war is to subjugate your enemy and live in peace with him thereafter, not to ravage his countryside and devastate his population.” So Rama did not use the weapon. I cited this as a reinforcing argument to show the leaders of the world that they should listen to the advice of their legal advisers, and not just pay lip service to them.

In all religions you get the same view. Buddhism outlaws war completely. In Islamic Law, you can’t even use a poisoned arrow. The same is true if you look at customary law systems across the world; African systems are very consistent, as are systems in the Pacific: cruel and unnecessary suffering is prohibited.

In Christianity, at the Second Lateran Council in 1139, it was determined that the crossbow and the siege engine were too cruel to be used in warfare among Christian nations. In the 19th century, when the dumdum bullet, which explodes when it enters the human body, was invented, statesmen outlawed it as being too cruel to be used among civilized nations. But the same civilized nations do not see the absurdity of saying that the use of the nuclear weapon is permissible.

In the ICJ opinion on the legality of nuclear weapons in 1996, all the judges without exception agreed that the use of nuclear weapons offended every principle of humanitarian law, but there was slight disagreement on one point: What is the position if a nation is under attack and its very survival is at stake?

The court could not pronounce on illegality in this extreme situation, and this is where I disagreed with the majority and held nuclear weapons to be illegal in all circumstances whatsoever.

However, all 14 judges unanimously agreed that there existed a responsibility on the part of all the nuclear powers to take meaningful steps, starting forthwith, to abandon their nuclear arsenals. There can be no more binding legal opinion than a unanimous decision of the ICJ. However, far from reducing their arsenals, they are perfecting their arsenals, improving their bombs and refining their techniques.

We are not, in fact, living under the protection of the nuclear bomb; we are living under its shadow. Nuclear weapons are the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, and we are passing that on to future generations. We must stimulate the conscience of the general public, as well as stimulating activism so that we can tell the rulers of this world that they must listen to public opinion. Eliminating nuclear weapons is the greatest responsibility that has ever rested on the shoulders of any generation. We are bearing that responsibility, and we must discharge it.

This article is based on a speech Judge Weeramantry gave at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia, on December 6, 2009.

The International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons was handed down in 1996. It states:

“The threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law . . .

“There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”