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-162expe cted to be immediate and certain would not be an effective deterrent against
aggression committed with atomic weapons.
There would not be time for the Security
Council to act after receiving word of an illegal use of the bomb, nor would its
present organization and voting procedure permit it to act in the unhappy event
that one of the great states were to use the bomb.
It would thus be necessary, in
order to insure retaliatory action, to make provision separate from the regular
procedures for enforcement action and in advance of the aggression.
Advance pro-
vision for automatic retaliation by all other nations possessing the bomb against
any one which had illegally used it would be a powerful deterrent to a would-be
atomic aggressor.
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ie
Q
Separate advance provision for automatic‘ebtigatory retaliation by-passes
the great power veto,
Would such a provision be acceptable to the great powers?
Here reference should be made to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
This
article specifically reaffirms "ihe inherent right of individual or collective
self-defense if an armed attack occurst, 108
Legitimate collective self-defense
against atomic attack surely includes the right to negotiate bilateral or multilateral treaties in which the possessors of the bomb undertake the obligation of
automatic retaliation.
There might even be a single general pact specifying
this obligation, 109
-
If a general obligation of instant and automatic retaliation were the sole
safeguard evolved .by the international community against the new weapon, unlimited production of atomic bombs would be permitted.
It might be argued that
108. See Chapter III, supra.
107. This is the suggestion of E. L. Woodward, Montagu Burton Professor of
International Relations at Oxford, in Some Political Consequences of the Atomic
Homb, L,ndon, Oxford University Press, 1946, p. 25, except that Professor Wood-
ward would provide for obligatory retaliation unless the bomb had first been
used with the unanimous consent of the Council. It would probably be preferable
and certainly more practical if the Council's authorization were given in
accordance with its usual voting procedure, as laid down in the so-called Yalta
voting formula, which does not require the unanimous consent of the non-permanent
members of the Council.