The primary enquiry of the Tribunal was "An Examination of the Legality of Nuclear Weapons" . As an acceptable standard of lawfulness the Tribunal has taken the six principles identified above, namely:

1. Principle of Discrimination
2. Principle of Proportionality
3. Principle of Lawfulness
4. Principle of Necessity
5. Principle of Humanity
6. Principle of Neutrality

As part of that examination the Tribunal posed and endeavoured to answer two fundamental questions:

1. does international law forbid the use of nuclear weapons, and,
2. does international law forbid the possession of nuclear weapons?

The Tribunal received evidence under four main headings:

• The Medical and Environmental Effects of Nuclear Attack
• Current Weaponry and Strategy
• The Moral Implications
• The Legal Implications

The task of the Tribunal was to make findings of fact on the evidence and in particular of the behaviour and intentions of the nuclear weapon states and of the likely effects of that behaviour and those intentions. Those findings have been compared with the standards set by the six principles.