In the recent past there have been several high-profile unilateral, bilateral and multilateral declarations calling for a world free of nuclear weapons, further efforts to prevent proliferation and initiatives to secure nuclear material from falling into the hands of non-state actors, particularly terrorists groups. This work seeks to provide a concise and comprehensive analysis of the role of global institutions in this campaign. This work: provides a brief historical survey of the key international institutions as well as their major achievements details the new challenges that confront these institutions, particularly in the post-Cold War world analyses examine the role of the ad-hoc arrangements which emerged to address these specific challenges and their impact on the existing international institutions that they were meant to strengthen suggests a series of initiatives -- both ad-hoc and institutionalized -- which could reform and reinvigorate the institutions to carry out their widening and deepening mandates evaluates the prospects of these institutions in not only carrying out their basic disarmament and non-proliferation mandates but also establishing the norms and code of conduct for an eventual world free of nuclear weapons. Seeking to establish the reasons behind the inability of international institutions to carry out their mandates, and examining what will be necessary to ensure the future success of these initiatives, this work is an invaluable resource for all students, scholars and policy makers.

Author Biography

Dr. Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu is Vice President of Programs at the EastWest Institute. Prior to this he was Director of the New Issues in Security Course at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. Dr. Sidhu has researched, written and taught extensively on the United Nations and regionalism, Southern Asia, confidence-building-measures, disarmament, arms control, and non-proliferation issues. His recent publications include: The Iraq Crisis and World Order: Structural, Institutional and Normative Challenges; Arms Control after Iraq: Normative and Operational Challenges; Kashmir: New Voices, New Approaches and China and India: Cooperation or Conflict? He has also published in leading international journals, including Arms Control Today, Asian Survey, Disarmament Diplomacy, Disarmament Forum, International Peacekeeping, Jane's Intelligence Review, Politique Etrangere, and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Dr. Sidhu was the consultant to the first, second and third United Nations Panel of Governmental Experts on Missiles in 2001-2002, 2004 and 2007-2008 respectively. He was also appointed as a member of the Resource Group setup to assist the United Nations High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change in 2004.