The UK’s purchase of F-35A jets: legal opinion

CND has commissioned a new legal opinion which has found that Britain’s plans to expand its nuclear weapons programme by purchasing nuclear-capable F-35A fighter jets is in breach of its disarmament commitments under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The purchase means that Britain, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, will have two delivery systems for nuclear weapons and a renewed nuclear mission for the Royal Air Force since its sovereign air-launched nuclear weapons were retired. The F-35s will be deployed under NATO’s nuclear Dual Capable Aircraft mission and will be able to deliver both conventional and the nuclear B61-12 guided nuclear bomb, currently deployed to NATO bases across Europe including at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk.

In the joint opinion, international law experts Professor Christine Chinkin and Dr Louise Arimatsu lay out a case that Britain’s purchase of these nuclear-capable jets puts Britain in clear breach of its obligations under article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).