Blog
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The Legacy of Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands
This article was originally published on Common Dreams.
The radiological legacy of U.S. nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands remains to this day and will persist for many years to come. The most severe impacts were visited upon the people of the Rongelap Atoll in 1954 following a very large thermonuclear explosion which deposited life-threatening quantities of radioactive fallout on their homeland. They received more than three times the estimated external dose than to the most heavily exposed people living near the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. It took more than two days before the Rongelap people were evacuated after the explosion. Many suffered from tissue destructive effects, such as burns, and subsequently from latent radiation-induced diseases.
In 1957, they were returned to their homeland even though officials and scientists working for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) determined that radiation doses would significantly exceed those allowed for citizens of the United States. The desire to study humans living in a radiation-contaminated environment appeared to be a major element of this decision. A scientist in a previously secret transcript of a meeting where they decided to return the Rongelap people to their atoll stated an island contaminated by the 1954 H-Bomb tests was “by far the most contaminated place in the world.” He further concluded that,
“It would be very interesting to go back and get good environmental data… so as to get a measure of the human uptake, when people live in a contaminated environment…Now, data of this type has never been available. …While it is true that these people do not live, I would say, the way Westerners do, civilized people, it is nevertheless also true that they are more like us than the mice.”
By 1985, the people of Rongelap fled their atoll, after determining that the levels of contamination were comparable to the Bikini atoll where numerous nuclear devices were detonated. The Bikini people were re-settled in 1969 but had to evacuate their homes in1978 after radiation exposures were found to be excessive. The Rongelap people fled for good reason. In 1982, a policy was secretly established by the energy department during the closing phase of negotiations between the United States and the nascent Republic of the Marshall Islands over the Compact of Free Association to eliminate radiation protection standards, so as to not interfere with the potential resumption of weapons testing. This resulted in a sudden and alarming increase in radiation doses to the Rongelap people eating local food.
These circumstances were subsequently uncovered in 1991 by the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. As a result, the U.S. Congress terminated DOE’s nuclear test readiness program in the Pacific and in 1992 the U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior entered into an agreement with the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Local Rongelap Government that re-established radiation protection standards as a major element for the re-settlement of Rongelap.
Apparently, this was not done for the southern islands of the atoll where local food is obtained. Despite the long and unfortunate aftermath of nuclear testing in the Marshalls, it appears that this critical element of safety was lost in the shuffle.
As it now stands, if forced to return to their homeland the Rongelap people could receive radiation doses about 10 times greater than allowed for the public in the United States.
Until the U. S. Government can assure that steps to mitigate doses to the same levels that are protective of American people are demonstrated, efforts to force the Rongelap people back to the home by Members of the U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration is unjustified and unfairly places the burden of protection on the Rongelap people. It appears that DOE and Interior have quietly crept away from the 1992 agreement, without verifying that its terms and conditions to allow for safe habitability will be met.
Over the past 20 years, the U.S. Congress has enacted legislation to compensate to residents living near DOE’s Nevada Test Site uranium miners, nuclear weapons workers, and military personnel for radiation-related illnesses. These laws provide for a greater benefit of the doubt than for the people of the Marshall Islands where 66 nuclear weapons were exploded in the open air. In 2005, the National Cancer Institute reported that the risk of contracting cancer for those exposed to fallout was greater than one in three.
The people of the Marshall Islands had their homeland and health sacrificed for the national security interests of the United States. The Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress should promptly correct this injustice.
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Apocalypse in the Gulf Now (Oil) & Next (Nukes)
As BP’s ghastly gusher assaults the Gulf of Mexico and so much more, a tornado has forced shut the Fermi2 atomic reactor at the site of a 1966 melt-down that nearly irradiated the entire Great Lakes region.
If the White House has a reliable plan for deploying and funding a credible response to a disaster at a reactor that’s superior to the one we’ve seen at the Deepwater Horizon, we’d sure like to see it.
Meanwhile it wants us to fund two more reactors on the Gulf and another one 40 miles from Washington DC. And that’s just for starters.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has warned that at least one new design proposed for federal funding cannot withstand tornadoes, earthquakes or hurricanes.
But the administration has slipped $9 billion for nuclear loan guarantees into an emergency military funding bill, in addition to the $8.33 it’s already approved for two new nukes in Georgia.
Unless we do something about it, the House Appropriations Committee may begin the process next week.
Like Deepwater Horizon and Fermi, these new nukes could ignite disasters beyond our technological control—and our worst nightmares.
Like BP, their builders would enjoy financial liability limits dwarfed by damage they could do.
Two of the new reactors are proposed for South Texas, where two others have already been leaking radiation into the Gulf. Ironically, oil pouring into the Gulf could make the waters unusable for cooling existing and future nukes and coal burners.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently admitted to Rachel Maddow he has no firm plans for the radioactive wastes created by the proposed new reactors, or by the 104 currently licensed.
That would include Vermont Yankee, where strontium, cesium, tritium and more are leaking into the Connecticut River. VY’s rotted underground pipes may have leaking counterparts at every other US reactor.
After 50 years, this industry can’t get private financing, can’t get private liability insurance and has no solution for its wastes.
The Gulf gusher bears the simple lesson that technologies that require liability limits will rapidly exceed them, and must not be deployed.
No US nuclear utility has sufficient capital resources to cover the damages from a reactor disaster, which is one reason taxpayers are targeted as the ultimate underwriters.
On May 27, the House Appropriations Committee was scheduled to vote on new nuke loan guarantees, which had been attached to an emergency military spending bill. Amidst a flood of grassroots opposition, the vote was postponed.
But it could return as early as June 15. We can and must stop these new guarantees, which would feed the gusher of nuke power hand-outs being dumped into new climate/energy legislation.
By all accounts, despite the horrors of the Gulf, the administration still wants legislation that will expand deepwater drilling and atomic technologies that are simply beyond our control…but that fund apparently unstoppable dividends for corporations like BP.
It’s our vital responsibility to transform this crisis into a definitive shift to a totally green-powered earth, based solely on renewables and efficiency. We have a full array of Solartopian technologies that are proven, profitable, insurable and manageable. They are the core of our necessary transition to a prosperous, sustainable future.
As our planet dies around us, truly green climate/energy legislation must come…NOW! The next key vote may come when the Appropriations Committee reconvenes.
Make your voice is heard. It’s all we have.
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Nuclear Deterrence Scam Blocking Progress to a Safer World
This article was originally published on The Huffington Post.
I recently returned home to New Zealand from attending a major conference at the United Nations in New York reviewing prospects for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Because a shaky consensus was reached, the conference has been hailed a success. However, what struck me was how detached the negotiations were from the reality of what the diplomats were haggling over.
As a former operator of British nuclear weapons, I try to articulate this reality, and to “get up close and personal” with this desperately serious issue for humanity, most recently in Security Without Nuclear Deterrence and a New York Review of Books symposium on “Debating Nuclear Deterrence.”
The nuclear weapon states’ blocking of any serious moves towards honoring their obligation in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to get rid of their nuclear arsenals is driven by their uncritical acceptance of nuclear deterrence. Yet my carefully considered conclusion is that nuclear deterrence is a huge confidence trick – an outrageous scam cooked up fifty years ago by the US military industrial monster created by the Manhattan Project and now dominating US politics. Look at how President Barack Obama’s vision for a nuclear weapon free world, raising global expectations in his Prague speech in April last year, was quickly contradicted by his caveat that “as long as these weapons exist, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies…”
In a statement on behalf of the non-governmental organization (NGO) community to delegates, I pointed out that belief in nuclear deterrence is based on a crazy premise: that nuclear war can be made less likely by deploying weapons and doctrines that make it more likely.
A rational leader cannot make a credible nuclear threat against a nuclear adversary capable of a retaliatory strike. And a second strike is pointless, because it would be no more than posthumous revenge, in which millions of innocent people would die horribly. This is why enthusiasm for a nuclear weapon free world is incompatible with the nuclear-armed states’ copout mantra: “We’ll keep nuclear weapons for deterrence as long as anyone else has them.”
Nuclear deterrence, like all theories, is not foolproof. It entails a hostile stand-off where, in the case of the US and Russia, each side still has over 2,000 warheads ready for launch within half an hour, over twenty years after the Cold War officially ended. What is more, they still have nearly 18,000 more nuclear warheads between them held in reserve.
The George W. Bush administration was the first to admit nuclear deterrence would not work against terrorists, now perceived to be the greatest threat to Americans – other than the real risk of inadvertent nuclear war with Russia because nuclear deterrence dogma requires all those warheads on hair-trigger alert. As for terrorism, a nuclear “weapon” is militarily unusable, combining uniquely indiscriminate, long-term health effects, including genetic damage, from radioactivity with almost unimaginable explosive violence. In fact, it is the ultimate terror device, far worse than chemical or biological weapons, which are banned by global treaties.
Recent research assessing a regional nuclear war involving use of just 100 warheads, each with an explosive power of 15 kilotons like the US bomb detonated over Hiroshima, on cities in India and Pakistan found that, in addition to millions of immediate casualties, smoke from fires could block enough sunlight to cause widespread famine. For all these reasons, the overwhelming majority of states feel more secure without depending on the circular logic, myths and misleading promises of nuclear deterrence – which is effectively state-sponsored nuclear terrorism.
As in 2005, this year’s NPT Review Conference was bedevilled by two closely related issues: the nuclear programmes of Iran, which is suspected of trying to build nuclear weapons, and Israel, which has denied having them for over forty years. Intertwined with these is one of several fundamental contradictions about the NPT: its promotion of nuclear energy, which inevitably stimulates nuclear proliferation because it provides the fissile material for nuclear weapons. This, and the double standards imposed on the non-nuclear member states by the privileged five recognized nuclear-armed states, with their associated veto power in the UN Security Council, have finally reduced the NPT process to impotence.
Perhaps the most positive outcome was a new groundswell of opinion among a large majority of the non-nuclear signatory states that the only hope of making any meaningful progress towards nuclear weapon abolition is to start a parallel process leading to a Nuclear Weapons Convention, like the ones banning chemical and biological weapons. A model treaty exists, drafted by a group of experts from the NGO community. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been sufficiently impressed to have endorsed it as part of his five-point plan for nuclear disarmament.
Meanwhile, in Britain a coalition government has taken power at a crucial moment for the future of British and global nuclear policy. The deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, leads the Liberal Democrats, whose election manifesto included opposition to both nuclear energy and replacing the Trident nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine force with a similar system. What is more, Clegg challenged the value to Britain of the US-UK special relationship, after the debacle of blindly following the US into Iraq and Afghanistan. Such poor decisions, driven by British nuclear dependence on the US, have left a black hole in the British defence budget, with the white elephant of a replacement Trident system increasingly vulnerable.
Britain should take this opportunity to reassert its sovereignty, and exploit the US-UK relationship in a dramatically new way. Making a virtue from necessity, it should announce that it had decided to rescue the dysfunctional non-proliferation regime by becoming the first of the P5 to rely on more humane, lawful and effective security strategies than nuclear deterrence.
As with the abolition of slavery, a new world role awaits the British. Such a ‘breakout’ would be sensational, transforming the nuclear disarmament debate overnight. In NATO, the UK would wield unprecedented influence in leading the drive for a non-nuclear strategy – which must happen if NATO is to survive the growing strains from overstretch in Afghanistan and confusion over a common European security policy. British leadership would create new openings for shifting the mindset in the US and France, the other two most zealous guardians of nuclear deterrence.
The key is to see nuclear disarmament as a security-building process, moving from an outdated adversarial mindset to a co-operative one where nuclear weapons are recognized as a lethal liability.
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Report on the Morning NGO Abolition Caucus: Insomniacs for Peace
The NGO Abolition Morning Caucus met every day during the four week Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference starting on Tuesday, May 4th straight through to the last day of the UN meeting on May 28th. We gathered each day at 8:00 AM at the UN gates on First Avenue, waiting for the guards to unlock the chains on the UN fence and then proceeded through “security” to the temporary building on the North Lawn where a conference room had been reserved for the use of NGOs. Conference Room A was almost always in use, hosting the Abolition Caucus, the daily NGO government briefings organized by Reaching Critical Will, the plethora of NGO panels, films, testimony from Hibakusha, brainstorming and strategy sessions through the course of the Review.
Our Abolition Caucus began each morning by reviewing the day’s calendar, proposing a new agenda for each day, and then brainstorming to plan various actions during the course of the Conference. At the end of each meeting a new facilitator would volunteer to Chair the meeting for the following day, and volunteers sent out daily minutes of our work. In the first week, as many as 60 nuclear activists showed up at our morning meetings, hailing from every continent and united in our commitment to rid the world of the nuclear scourge.
We were encouraged by the many nations who called for negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention and all signed on to about 30 thank you notes that were presented to their Ambassadors at the Review conference. The Ambassador from Switzerland was so moved by our message that he asked us to send another one to his Foreign Minister. We sent two letters from the caucus to Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon. One expressed our thanks and appreciation for his enthusiastic support of negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention and his Five Point Plan.The other was to express our dismay and urge mediation instead of the rude treatment we witnessed of Iran’s President, by the western powers who walked out on him during his speech on the first day of the Conference.
We drafted statements in response to the Main Committee I and III reports, issued our own nuclear abolitionists preamble to the report, did a satirical take on the conference in The Scallion, a riff on The Onion, a US publication that writes spoofs of current events, and issued a final statement and critique of the weakened outcome document at the Conference. Usually our documents were inserted in the News in Review issued each day by Reaching Critical Will for distribution to the delegates. The Abolition Caucus documents are on the web at http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/2010index.html under “Other Resources”. We also networked with the Commission on Sustainable Development which was meeting concurrently with the NPT and addressing the catastrophic results of mining. They held a heart-wrenching presentation on the havoc of uranium mining. Our caucus was able to enroll the French government, represented at one of the morning briefings, to permit us to show the promo for a film on the evils of uranium mining at the closing of a French presentation on the benefits of “peaceful” nuclear power.
At the close of the meeting we presented the delegates with fortune cookies, which when opened, said “Global Zero Now”. Most important, we now have a list of over 100 international participants who can continue the warm relationships and camaraderie that developed over the four weeks, newly energized and inspired by each other as we work together for a nuclear free world. Onward to June 5th and International Nuclear Abolition Day!! See www.icanw.org.
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Rebalancing the World
It may turn out that May 17, 2010 will be remembered as an important milestone on the road to a real new world order. Remember that the phrase ‘new world order’ came to prominence in 1990 after Iraq’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait. It was used by George W. H. Bush, the elder of the two Bush presidents, to signify the possibility after the end of the Cold War to find a consensus within the UN Security Council enabling a unified response to aggressive war. The new world order turned out to be a mobilizing idea invoked for a particular situation, and not the beginning of a new framework for collective security. The United States did not want to create expectations that it would always be available to lead a coalition against would be breakers of world peace. The apparent commitment, and even the language, of a ‘new world order’ disappeared altogether from American diplomacy right after the First Gulf War of 1991. What one wonders now is whether the Brazilian/Turkish effort to resolve the Iran nuclear crisis with the West is not more genuinely expressive of a changing global setting, perhaps leading this time to something durable–a ‘real new world order.’
May 17th was the day that the Brazilian/Turkish initiative bore fruit in Tehran, with Iran agreeing to a ten-point arrangement designed to defuse the mounting confrontation with the United States and Israel with regard to its enrichment facilities. The essence of the deal was that Iran would ship 1200 kilograms of low enriched uranium (LEU) to Turkey for deposit, and receive in return 120 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20% for use in an Iranian nuclear reactor devoted to medical research. The agreement reaffirmed support for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well as acknowledged Iran’s right under the treaty to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, which meant the entire fuel cycle, including the enrichment phase.
The bargain negotiated in Tehran closely resembled an arrangement provisionally reached some months earlier at the initiative of the International Atomic Energy Agency in which Iran had agreed to turn over a similar amount of low enriched uranium to France and Russia in exchange for their promise of providing fuel rods that could be used in the same medical research reactor. That 2009 deal floundered when Iran raised political objections, and then withdrew. The United States had initially welcomed this earlier arrangement as a desirable confidence-building step toward resolving the underlying conflict with Iran, but it wasted no time repudiating the May 17th agreement, which seemed so similar in its content.
How should we understand this discrepancy in the American response? It is true that in recent months Iran has increased its LEU production, making 1200 kg of its existing stockpile amount to 50% of its total rather than the 80% that would have been transferred in the earlier arrangement. Also, there were some unspecified features in the May 17th plan, including how the enriched uranium would be provided to Iran, and whether there would be a system of verification as to its use to produce medical isotopes. In this regard, it would have seemed appropriate for Washington, if genuinely troubled by this, for Washington to express its substantive concerns, such as requesting Iran to transfer a larger quantity of LEU and to spell out the details, but this is not what happened.
Instead of welcoming this notable effort to reduce regional tensions, which it had once encouraged, the Brazilian/Turkish initiative was immediately branded as an amateurish irrelevance by the American Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton. She insisted that the concerns about Iranian nuclear enrichment be left exclusively in the hands of the ‘major powers,’ and immediately rallied China and Russia (in addition to France and the United Kingdom) to support a fourth round of punitive sanctions that were to be presented to the UN Security Council in the near future. It now appears that the five permanent members of the Security Council will support this intensification of sanctions that is expected to call for an arms embargo on heavy weapons, travel restrictions on Iranian officials, a boycott of banks and companies listed as linked to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, and a provocative authority to search ships to and from Iran suspected of carrying prohibited items. Such a resolution if implemented would certainly increase tensions in the Middle East without any discouragement of the Iranian nuclear program. Indeed a new round of sanctions would almost certainly increase Iran’s incentives to exercise its full rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and complete its development of the complete fuel cycle as has been previously done by several other parties to the treaty, including Japan, Germany, The Netherlands, and ironically, Brazil.
Given the generally constructive character of the agreement reached in Tehran, the uncompromisingly hostile reaction in Washington can only be understood in one of two ways, neither of which is reassuring. If the U.S. Government, with or without Israeli prodding, had already resolved to impose sanctions, then a tension-reducing development of this sort would weaken the case for this coercive approach and needed to be somehow undermined. All indications point to a conclusion that the United States was determined to go forward with sanctions, and was unpleasantly surprised when it suddenly became clear on May 17th that a credible deal had been negotiated. So long as the Brazil/Turkey initiative was given no chance of success, it was encouraged as a way to reinforcing the impression that Iran was not interested in a diplomatic solution, and the political atmosphere would be supportive of moves to tighten anti-Iranian sanctions. When it turned out that the U.S. had guessed wrong, and that the Brazilian/Turkish diplomacy would reach a positive outcome, the American leadership shifted course, and seemed to blame for Brasilia and Ankara for interfering in a policy domain where thy lacked experience and leverage. The Brazilians gave the lie to this posturing by Washington when Lula released Obama’s letter of April 20, 2010 in which a green light had been given to the Brazil/Turkey diplomatic effort to find a breakthrough that would reduce tensions and calm the region.
Perhaps, the more weighty explanation of the hostile response has to do with the changing cast of players in the geopolitical power game. If this reasoning is correct, then the United States angry response was intended to deliver a public reprimand to Brazil and Turkey, warning them to leave questions pertaining to nuclear weapons in the hands of what Hilary Clinton called ‘the major powers.’ In effect, the non-Western world should have no say in shaping global security policy, and any attempt to do so would be rebuffed in the strongest possible terms. Here, too, it was probably felt that this lesson could be indirectly given through the anticipated Iranian rejection of the proposed new arrangement. When this didn’t transpire, then the United States would have had to cede graciously part of the geopolitical stage, or do what it decided to do, and try to slap down the upstart Brazilians and Turks. Perhaps, it might have accepted the outcome had it not meant also giving up its plan to rely on enhanced sanctions.
The world of 2010 is very different from what it was in the late 20th century. Globalization, the decline of American power, and the rise of non-Western states have changed the landscape. This process has recently accelerated as a result of the world economic crisis, and the unresolved difficulties in the Euro zone. As the famous Bob Dylan 1960’s song goes, “The times, they are a-changing.” Recall that it was not long ago that the G-8 was scrapped in favor of the more inclusive G-20. Recently, as well, much attention has been given to the rise of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries. What seems most at stake in this attempt to supersede and nullify the Iran deal is banishing the Brazilian and Turkish intruders from the geopolitical playing field. For the West to claim that the Security Council remains remotely representative of the arrangement of power in 2010 is ludicrous. The identity of the five permanent members made some sense in 1945 following World War II, but today it is unquestionably anachronistic due to its failure to take any account of the fundamental shifts in world power that have taken place in recent decades. Brazil and Turkey were recently elected to be non-permanent two-year members of the Security Council, and have justified their selection by pursuing active and independent paths to a more secure and peaceful world. The old guard in world politics should have congratulated the Brazilians and Turks for succeeding where they had failed rather than complaining, and should have settled for defusing tensions rather than seeking their intensification, but this is not the world we are living in.
Further, this is not just a childish ploy by to grab a few headlines and tweak the old guard. The confrontation with Iran is exceedingly dangerous, agitated by Israel’s periodic threats of launching a military attack and reports of pushing hard on the United States behind the scenes to move toward exercising the military option that, in Beltway jargon, has never been taken off the table. This prevailing strategy of tension could easily produce a devastating regional war, disrupting the world economy, and causing widespread human suffering. Both Brazil and Turkey have strong national interests in working for regional peace and security, and one way to do this is to calm the diplomatic waters, especially in relation to Iran’s contested nuclear program. The fact that Iran seems prepared to go ahead with the agreement, at least if the UN refrains from further sanctions, argues for giving the deal a chance to succeed, or at worst, working to make the LEU transfer more reassuring to those countries that suspect Iran of secretly planning to become a nuclear weapons state.
The concern about Iran seems genuine in many quarters, given the inflammatory language sometimes used by President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and considering the repressive internal practices in Iran. At the same time, even in this regard the United States leadership has rather dirty hands. While insisting that Iran cannot be allowed to do what several other non-nuclear states have already done in conformity with Non-Proliferation Treaty, the United States has acknowledged that it has been engaged in a variety of destabilizing military activities under Pentagon auspices within Iranian territory. (For confirmation see Mark Mazzeti, “U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast,” NY Times, May 24, 2010). Also, it is impossible to overlook the dispiriting silence that has long insulated Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal from scrutiny and censure, as well as the closely related refusal of the Western powers to back proposals put forward by Egypt and others for a nuclear free Middle East.
Back in 2003 Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense, made headlines by contrasting ‘Old Europe’ (especially France and Germany) that he denigrated as decadent because it opposed the invasion of Iraq, and ‘New Europe’ that was supposed to be the flourishing wave of the future in Eastern Europe that favored American policy. Now it is Old Europe that is again partnering with the United States, and so restored to the good graces of Washington. In this sense, Brazil and Turkey are being treated as geopolitical trespassers because of their refusal to absent themselves from any further engagement in Middle East diplomacy.
We seem to be witnessing the passing of an era in world politics, which has yet to be acknowledged. It is two decades since Charles Krauthammer, writing in Foreign Affairs, declared that “The immediate post-Cold War world is not multipolar. It is unipolar. The center of world power is the unchallenged superpower, the United States, attended by its Western allies.” The abrupt rejection of the Brazil/Turkey initiative can probably best understood as a nostalgic clinging by Obama’s Washington to the ‘unipolar moment’ long after its reality has passed into history, at lease with respect to nuclear weapons policy, including administering the non-proliferation regime. The U.S. Government has been more flexible in other substantive areas, so far encouraging reliance on the G-20 and treating the BRIC countries as virtual partners in the Copenhagen climate change high-level conference of last December.
Turkey has already demonstrated the enormous gains for itself and the region arising by the pursuit of an independent and activist foreign policy based on resolving conflicts and reducing tensions to the extent possible, with benefits for itself and its neighbors as measured by peace, stability, and prosperity. Not all of its initiatives have met with success. It tried to encourage the world to treat Hamas as a political actor after it fairly won elections in Gaza back in January 2006, but was rebuffed by Washington and Tel Aviv. Similarly, it brought to bear its mediating skill in trying to broker a peace deal between Israel and Syria, only to have the process break down after a series of promising negotiating rounds. Maybe also the Brazil/Turkey initiative will be effectively beaten down, but it was still definitely worth trying. For the sake of human security such governments should continue trying to supplant war and militarism with diplomacy and cooperative international relations. Outside of Western diplomatic circles it is already widely appreciated that the May 17th agreement showcases the exciting reality of a new geopolitical landscape in which the countries of the global South are now acting as subjects, being no longer content as mere objects in scenarios devised in the North. In the near future it is likely to be widely appreciated that there does exist a ‘real new world order’! At that time, the May 17th initiative might finally come into its own as the day that the North/South divide disappeared with respect to the shaping of global policy and the quest for the peaceful resolution of war-threatening conflicts.
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The 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference
The principal message from the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, which concluded on May 28, 2010, is that the nuclear weapon states are still on a Snail Plan for eliminating their nuclear arsenals – moving slowly and not recognizing the vulnerability of their thin shells. If a sense of urgency is to be instilled in the nuclear disarmament process, the people will need to press their leaders from below.
At five-year intervals, the parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty meet for a Review Conference. In 1995, on the 25th anniversary of the treaty, the parties extended the treaty indefinitely, with promises from the nuclear weapon states that they would pursue “systematic and progressive efforts” for nuclear disarmament. Five years later, in 2000, the parties to the treaty agreed upon 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. These included an “unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament….”
Five years later, however, the parties were deadlocked, could not agree on a Final Document, and the 2005 NPT Review Conference ended in failure. Since that time, the US has elected a new president, one who has expressed a vision of seeking “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” President Obama’s vision brought hope to the non-nuclear weapon states that are parties to the treaty that the 2010 Review Conference would produce a positive outcome.
The treaty is often referred to as having three significant pillars: nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear disarmament, and assistance with peaceful nuclear energy. The principal tension among the parties to the treaty is over whether the nuclear weapon states have made sufficient progress toward their nuclear disarmament obligations.
The initial draft Report of Main Committee I (on nuclear disarmament), which was released on May 14, contained some very promising text. It called for “the need to implement Article VI [requiring nuclear disarmament] within a timebound framework.” It has long been a goal of the non-nuclear weapon states to achieve a timebound commitment to nuclear disarmament from the nuclear weapon states. Further, the draft called for the nuclear weapon states to “convene consultations not later than 2011 to accelerate concrete progress on nuclear disarmament….”
In addition, this draft contained a provision inviting the Secretary-General of the United Nations “to convene an international conference in 2014 to consider ways and means to agree on a roadmap for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons within a specified timeframe, including by means of a universal, legal instrument.”
These provisions raised hopes among representatives of non-nuclear weapon states and civil society organizations that real progress on nuclear disarmament would come from the NPT Review Conference. Unfortunately, this was not to be. The Final Document of the Review Conference requires consensus from all parties, and consensus agreements tend to result in a watering down of key provisions. Many of the key disarmament provisions were diluted by the US, UK, France and Russia.
Instead of a commitment to nuclear disarmament within a timebound framework, the Final Document simply affirmed that “the final phase of the nuclear disarmament process should be pursued within an agreed legal framework, which a majority of States parties believe should include specified timelines.” [Emphasis added.] In fact, the belief of the majority of states was clearly overridden by the nuclear weapon states, which did not want to be bound by timelines.
Many of the main nuclear disarmament points in the Final Document involved no more than the conference taking note of something, without commitment. For example, “The Conference notes the proposals for nuclear disarmament of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to inter alia consider negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention or agreement on a framework of separate mutually reinforcing instruments, backed by a strong system of verification.” This strong proposal by the UN Secretary-General would seem worthy of strong support rather than simply taking note.
Instead of committing to convene an international conference for nuclear disarmament in 2014, the Final Document called upon the nuclear weapon states only to report back on their progress in achieving a series of steps in 2014. It further called upon the 2015 NPT Review Conference “to take stock and consider the next steps of the full implementation” of the Article VI disarmament obligation.
The Final Document of the Review Conference gave strong affirmation to the spread of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. While this is in accord with the treaty provisions referring to nuclear energy as an “inalienable right,” it would increase the possibilities of nuclear materials being used for weapons – as was the case with Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa – and would thus complicate the likelihood of actually achieving nuclear disarmament.
One very positive outcome of the Review Conference was its endorsement of practical steps to achieve a Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone. The Final Document called upon the UN Secretary-General, along with others, to convene a regional conference in 2012 for the establishment of a “Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction.”
The 2010 NPT Review Conference resulted in a reaffirmation by the nuclear weapon states of their “unequivocal undertaking to accomplish…the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” In the end, the Final Document was largely aspirational. It brought the parties back to where they stood in the year 2000, but provided few specific guidelines for success to measure progress in 2015. One such measure, albeit a difficult one, will be progress toward the attainment of a Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone.
Most of the people of the world view the need to eliminate nuclear weapons, weapons capable of destroying civilization and ending most complex life on Earth, as urgent. Clearly, though, that sense of urgency has not reached the upper levels of political authority in the nuclear weapon states. The people throughout the world, and particularly those in the nuclear weapon states, will have to continue speaking out ever more forcibly in an attempt to move their governments to serious action.
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Can We Live With the Bomb?
This article was originally published on the History News Network.
For some time now, it has been clear that nuclear weapons threaten the existence not only of humanity, but of all life on Earth.
Thus, Barack Obama’s pledge to work for a nuclear weapons-free world—made during his 2008 presidential campaign and subsequently in public statements—has resonated nicely with supporters of nuclear disarmament and with the general public.
But recent developments have called that commitment into question. The administration’s Nuclear Posture Review does not indicate any dramatic departures in the use of nuclear weapons, while its nuclear weapons budget request for the next fiscal year represents a 14 percent increase over this year’s counterpart. The most alarming sign that the administration might be preparing for a nuclear weapons-filled future is its proposal to spend $180 billion over the next ten years to upgrade the U.S. nuclear weapons production complex.
From the standpoint of nuclear critics, the best interpretation of such measures—and one that might be accurate—is that they are designed to win support among hawkish Republican senators for the New START Treaty, which will reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. After all, the political argument goes, if Obama is to secure the sixty-seven Senate votes necessary to ratify the treaty, he needs to pick up some Republican support. Of course, these pro-nuclear measures might reflect a quite different scenario, one in which Obama is abandoning yet another political promise.
In this context, we might ask: would abandoning the promise of nuclear abolition be a bad idea?
There are at least five good reasons why it would be:
- 1. If nuclear weapons are not scrapped, it is inevitable that, sooner or later, they will be used in war. Nations (and before them, competing territories) have engaged in war for thousands of years, and for these wars they have been tempted to draw upon the most powerful weapons in their arsenals. Today, such weapons are nuclear weapons—some 23,000 of them. Although supporters of these weapons maintain that they deter nuclear war, there is no reason to assume that nuclear deterrence works, or at least works in all cases. This is indicated by the U.S. government’s pursuit of national missile defense and its attempts to head off other nations (e.g. Iran) from developing nuclear weapons.
- If nuclear weapons are not scrapped, it is inevitable that additional nations will develop them. When some nations maintain large, devastating nuclear arsenals, it is naïve to expect other nations to tamely sit back and accept their non-nuclear status. Over the decades, this situation of military inequality has spurred on nuclear proliferation and, unless nuclear nations divest themselves of their nuclear weapons, it will continue to do so.
- If nuclear weapons are not scrapped, it is likely that they will be used by terrorists. Terrorists do not have the production facilities for building or testing nuclear weapons, but they have the possibility of obtaining them, though theft or bribery, from national arsenals. While nuclear weapons exist in national arsenals, obtaining and using them against civilian populations will provide a constant temptation to terrorists.
- If nuclear weapons are not scrapped, it is likely that they will be exploded accidentally. Numerous nuclear accidents—from nuclear weapons dropped to mistaken nuclear war alerts—have already occurred, although so far without detonation. In an age of BP oil explosions and other technological disasters, there are limits to how long we can press our luck with nuclear weapons technology.
- If nuclear weapons are not scrapped, they—and the uranium mining, warhead production, and testing they necessitate—will continue to pollute the earth with radioactive waste for thousands of years. Nuclear waste disposal is already a very significant problem in the United States, and, not surprisingly, no state has yet volunteered to serve as the permanent dumping ground for it.
In short, while nuclear weapons exist, we are living on the brink of an unprecedented catastrophe.
Thus, if we are wise, we should draw back from the brink and address the problem posed by nuclear weapons. If the U.S. government and others are serious about building a nuclear weapons-free world, they should begin negotiations on a nuclear abolition treaty. And, if they are not serious about nuclear abolition, the public should raise enough of a ruckus so that they have no alternative to becoming serious.
If we can’t live with the Bomb, we should begin planning to get rid it.
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Gaza Aid Convoy Killings: “Those Responsible Must be Held Criminally Accountable”
GENEVA – The UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, urged Monday the international community to bring to justice those responsible for the killing of some 16 unarmed peace activist, when Israeli armed commandos stormed a convoy of ships carrying aid to Gaza.
“Israel is guilty of shocking behavior by using deadly weapons against unarmed civilians on ships that were situated in the high seas where freedom of navigation exists, according to the law of the seas,” Mr. Falk said. “It is essential that those Israelis responsible for this lawless and murderous behavior, including political leaders who issued the orders, be held criminally accountable for their wrongful acts.”
There are confirmed reports of lethal interference by Israeli military units on the high seas with the Freedom Flotilla of six ships carrying some 10,000 tons of medicine, food, and building materials to the civilian population of Gaza. Preliminary reports suggest as many as 16 unarmed activists were killed, and dozens more wounded.
“This peaceful humanitarian initiative by citizens from 50 countries is an urgent response to the continuation of an unlawful blockade that has been maintained for almost three years causing great physical and mental harm to the whole of the 1.5 million people entrapped within Gaza,” the UN independent expert said. “Such a massive form of collective punishment is a crime against humanity, as well as a gross violation of the prohibition on collective punishment in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
“As Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, familiar with the suffering of the people of Gaza, I find this latest instance of Israeli military lawlessness to create a situation of regional and global emergency. Unless prompt and decisive action is taken to challenge the Israeli approach to Gaza all of us will be complicit in criminal policies that are challenging the survival of an entire beleaguered community.”
Mr. Falk urged the world community “to take urgent action in response to this flagrant flouting of international law. It is time to insist on the end of the blockade of Gaza. The worldwide campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel is now a moral and political imperative, and needs to be supported and strengthened everywhere.”
ENDS
Learn more about the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/countries/ps/mandate/index.htm.