The Construction of Global Hierarchies through Disarmament Law

This article explores how the Great Powers have employed different forms of disarmament law as tools of governance for constructing and reinforcing global hierarchies since the end of the nineteenth century. I argue that some of the laws have affected entities’ statehood, some have impacted states’ sovereignty, some have worked to symbolically lower the status of states in the eyes of the international community, and some have been infused with civilisational rhetoric that has portrayed the Great Powers as civilised entities while casting others as uncivilised. The article then turns to consider what impact the handful of disarmament law initiatives that have not been spearheaded by the Great Powers have had on global hierarchies. I contend that these treaties have done little to challenge the hierarchies entrenched by the Great Powers’ disarmament practices but that a few of them can, in limited ways, be understood as attempting to create alternative hierarchies in the international system.