All major agreements reached since the second half of the nineteenth century through to mid-2002 are critically analysed and assessed. The assessment is made in the light of the international security environment, the developments in the field of weapon technology, the threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons proliferation, and the efforts to strengthen the humanitarian law of armed conflict.

The accompanying CD-ROM reproduces full texts of carefully selected excerpts of treaties, conventions, protocols, guidelines, memoranda, common understandings, statutes, charters, binding decisions of international bodies, final acts of international conferences, exchanges of letters and diplomatic notes. Multilateral agreements are followed by a list of parties.

Enriched with new maps, tables and figures, and an expanded glossary and bibliography, the book will remain the definitive resource for students of international relations, journalists, diplomats and military strategists.

Contents
Part One: Analytical Survey
1. Basic concepts
2. Historical overview
3. The United Nations
4. Nuclear-weapon explosions
5. Nuclear arms limitation
6. Nuclear-weapon proliferation
7. Proposals for the abolition of nuclear weapons
8. Chemical and biological weapons
9. Environmental and radiological weapons
10. Outer space and celestial bodies
11. The sea environment
12. Demilitarized areas
13. Denuclearized zones
14. Conventional arms control
15. Constraints on conventional arms and technology transfers
16. Confidence building in Europe, Asia and the Americas
17. Restrictions on the methods of warfare
18. Prevention of accidental war
19. Verification and compliance
20. Concluding remarks
Part Two: Agreements and Parties (CD-ROM)
Selected Pre-World War II Agreements; Post World War II Agreements

About the author
Jozef Goldblat directed the SIPRI Project on Arms Control and Disarmament from 1969 to 1989. In 1980 he assisted the UN Secretary-General in preparing a report on a comprehensive nuclear test ban. He is Vice-President of the Geneva International Peace Research Insitute (GIPRI). He is also Associate Editor of Security Dialogue, a journal published by the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), and Resident Senior Fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva. Among the recent publications, he is the author of Arms Control: A Guide to Negotiations and Agreements (SAGE, 1994) and The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Régime: Assessment and Prospects (The Hague Academy of International Law, 1997) and the editor of Nuclear Disarmament: Obstacles to Banishing the Bomb (I. B. Tauris, 2000).