The process of mutual radicalization is used as a framework to examine relations between the ruling regime and the revolutionary opposition. Mutual radicalization involves a collective process, in which rational individuals are overwhelmed by collective movements and behaviors, which are often irrational. During phase one, group mobilization takes place and the revolutionary opposition comes to perceive the ruling regime as distinct and different from the rest of society, illegitimate and immoral, unstable, and also an obstacle to future progress. During phase two, the ruling regime and the revolutionary opposition develop extreme ingroup cohesion in opposition to one another. Intergroup aggression and hostility increases. Individuals can step outside the group and recognize that the collective is behaving incorrectly, but social forces pressure rational individuals to conform to irrational collective behavior. In phase three, the identities of the ruling regime and the revolutionary opposition are reconstructed in opposition to one another. Each side defines themselves in opposition to the other group, and extremists control relationships between the two sides.

One of the fundamental problems with the TPNW is that the five officially recognized nuclear-weapons states – Russia, the United States, China, France and the United Kingdom, collectively the NWS – and four other states who possess nuclear weapons – India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – have boycotted the Treaty negotiations and refused to sign or ratify it. Despite moves toward neo-universalism, this leaves an important gap in the TPNW legal framework, because it does not directly bind the NWS and it seems unlikely that these NWS will join the Treaty or be bound under opinio juris. One way to remedy this problem and fill the legal gap is to appeal to an existing set of legal obligations found in international jurisprudence to which NWS are already bound. Specifically, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has highlighted that states owe obligations erga omnes – toward all – that derive from other international laws, legal principles and conventions.