The United States is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons in warfare and claims-not only through its State Department, but through a Congressional vote as late as 1999-that the use of nuclear weapons is lawful. Can such a claim, with its undeniable assurance of the greatest degree of destruction of life and property this planet will ever have seen, be sustained? The author investigates this question as a prelude to a more extensive inquiry into the options of legal scholars on the legal status of nuclear weapons and international law. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.