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Human Rights Fallout of Nuclear Detonations: Reevaluating ‘Threshold Thinking’ in Assisting Victims of Nuclear Testing

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  • Matthew Breay Bolton

Abstract

Atmospheric nuclear test detonations conducted by USA, USSR, UK, France and China, 1945–1980, generated radioactive particles that were dispersed by weather patterns, returning to earth as fallout. People who lived ‘downwind’ face ongoing risks from their exposure to ionizing radiation, as well as psychological, social, cultural and political distress. However, testing states obscured these humanitarian consequences by claiming that fallout could be contained to specific spatial zones, that there are ‘thresholds’ below which radiation exposure has negligible health impacts and that socio‐political forms of harm should be disregarded. While the scientific consensus concludes fallout circulates in complex, nonlinear patterns; there is no safe level of radiation exposure; and nuclear testing can generate tremendous anxiety, what Liboiron calls ‘threshold thinking’ continues to underlie policies ostensibly assisting victims of nuclear weapons. This article offers examples from responses to French Pacific nuclear testing, showing how access to compensation and other assistance has often been conditioned on threshold qualifications that function to limit downwind communities’ access to assistance and remedy. Victim assistance and environmental remediation obligations in the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons offer opportunities to move beyond reductive policy logics to multifaceted, human rights‐based approaches to affected communities’ concerns.

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  • Matthew Breay Bolton, 2022. "Human Rights Fallout of Nuclear Detonations: Reevaluating ‘Threshold Thinking’ in Assisting Victims of Nuclear Testing," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 13(1), pages 76-90, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:glopol:v:13:y:2022:i:1:p:76-90
    DOI: 10.1111/1758-5899.13042
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Becky Alexis‐Martin & Matthew Breay Bolton & Dimity Hawkins & Sydney Tisch & Talei Luscia Mangioni, 2021. "Addressing the Humanitarian and Environmental Consequences of Atmospheric Nuclear Weapon Tests: A Case Study of UK and US Test Programs at Kiritimati (Christmas) and Malden Islands, Republic of Kiriba," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(1), pages 106-121, February.
    2. Matthew B. Bolton & Elizabeth Minor, 2021. "Addressing the Ongoing Humanitarian and Environmental Consequences of Nuclear Weapons: An Introductory Review," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(1), pages 81-99, February.
    3. Nate Van Duzer & Alicia Sanders‐Zakre, 2021. "Policy Approaches Addressing the Ongoing Humanitarian and Environmental Consequences of Nuclear Weapons: A Commentary," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(1), pages 100-105, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Vladisaya Bilyanova Vasileva & Shizue Izumi & Noriyuki Kawano, 2023. "Addressing the atomic bomb damage: Associations between ‘state compensation’ demands and aspects of survivors' suffering," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 14(3), pages 500-515, June.
    2. Matthew Breay Bolton & Katherine Ketterer, 2023. "Environmental remediation as social archaeology: Excavating sites contaminated by early nuclear weapons activities in New York City, both literally and hermeneutically," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 14(2), pages 318-330, May.

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