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  • Day Three: What Is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?

    Day Three: What Is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?

    This article was originally published on Pressenza.

    The United Kingdom presented oral arguments at the opening session of the Marshall Islands vs. United Kingdom case today at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Marshall Islands filed an application against the UK – and separately against each of the other eight nuclear-armed nations – at the ICJ in April 2014.

    This morning’s hearing addressed preliminary objections raised by the UK. Sir Daniel Bethlehem began the arguments with a lengthy treatise about why there is no “dispute” between the United Kingdom and the Marshall Islands. According to Bethlehem, the UK was surprised that the Marshall Islands filed a case against it in 2014. He said, “The United Kingdom had thought, although naively, as it now appears, that we had a strong record on nuclear disarmament.”

    The United Kingdom currently plans to spend many billions of pounds to build a new nuclear weapon system to replace its current four Trident nuclear-armed submarines. Such a weapons system would be operable well in to the 2060s.

    Sir Bethlehem expressed dismay that the Marshall Islands would bring a case against the United Kingdom when it knew that the other nuclear-armed members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – the United States, Russia, France and China – do not accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ. A ruling by the Court against the UK in this case, Sir Bethlehem argued, could force the United Kingdom to “be the one hand clapping” for good faith nuclear disarmament negotiations among the five nuclear-armed NPT signatories.

    The UK was also displeased with the fact that the Marshall Islands filed an application against it on the very day that the UK’s anti-ambush clause expired. As part of the reservation that the UK has on file with the ICJ, countries are required to be a member of the Court for a minimum of one year before bringing any case against the UK. The Marshall Islands filed its application against the UK immediately after this one-year waiting period expired. For this reason, the UK called the Marshall Islands’ application “an artificial case.”

    Jessica Wells, Counsel for the UK, argued that the ICJ should not admit this case because the UK cooperates with other nuclear-armed nations on various nuclear-related issues. For example, the Mutual Defense Agreement is a bilateral treaty between the United States and UK in which both sides agree to share classified information to improve “atomic weapon design, development, and fabrication capability.” Because of this and other bilateral or multilateral arrangements, Ms. Wells argued, “a determination by the Court that the United Kingdom is in breach of its obligations to negotiate by reason of this conduct cannot be confined to the United Kingdom alone.”

    The Marshall Islands will present oral arguments in the case against the United Kingdom this Friday from 3-6 pm CET. As always, the hearings will be livestreamed on the ICJ website.

    Tomorrow, India will present oral arguments at the ICJ from 10 am to 1 pm.

    Rick Wayman is Director of Programs at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, a consultant to the Republic of the Marshall Islands. He is tweeting about the ICJ hearings at @rickwayman.

  • Day Two at the ICJ: Where Is Pakistan?

    This article was originally published by Pressenza.

    Observers arrived at the International Court of Justice this morning expecting to hear the first in a series of four days of oral arguments in the Marshall Islands vs. Pakistan nuclear disarmament case. Instead, Judge Ronny Abraham, President of the International Court of Justice, announced that Pakistan had decided not to attend the hearings.

    Marshall Islands legal team
    The legal team representing the Republic of the Marshall Islands at the International Court of Justice from 7-16 March, 2016.

    In a letter to the Court, Pakistan wrote, “The Government of Pakistan does not wish to add anything further to its statements and submissions made in its Counter-Memorial and therefore does not feel that its participation in the oral proceedings will add anything to what has already been submitted through its Counter-Memorial.”

    The Marshall Islands legal team was still able to present their arguments to the Court regarding jurisdiction and admissibility. Instead of hearing from Pakistan twice and the Marshall Islands once more, the judges will make their decision based solely on today’s oral arguments by the Marshall Islands, along with the Memorial and Counter-Memorial filed by the Marshall Islands and Pakistan, respectively. The Court made those documents public today after the hearing.

    The 15 judges listened with great interest as Tony de Brum, Co-Agent of the Marshall Islands, opened today’s session with a powerful personal story. He said:

    Yesterday was a beautiful morning here in The Hague that featured a picture-perfect snowfall. As a tropical State, the Marshall Islands has experienced ‘snow’ on one memorable and devastating occasion, the 1954 Bravo test of a thermonuclear bomb that was one-thousand times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb. When that explosion occurred, there were many people, including children, who were a far distance from the bomb, on our atolls which, according to leading scientists and assurances, were predicted to be entirely safe. In reality, within 5 hours of the explosion, it began to rain radioactive fallout at Rongelap. Within hours, the atoll was covered with a fine, white, powdered-like substance. No one knew it was radioactive fallout. The children thought it was snow. And the children played in the snow. And they ate it. So one can understand that snow, while beautiful, has a tragic and dark history in the Marshall Islands.

    After hearing a strong case for jurisdiction and admissibility from the Marshall Islands legal team, the Court brought the hearings in this phase of RMI vs. Pakistan to a close. The judges will now deliberate in private before delivering their judgement at a public sitting at a date to be announced. Today’s ICJ press release has a more detailed explanation of the deliberation process.

    Tomorrow morning, the United Kingdom will present opening arguments in the RMI vs. United Kingdom nuclear disarmament case. The hearings will be livestreamed on the ICJ website starting at 10:00 am CET.

    Rick Wayman is Director of Programs at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, a consultant to the Republic of the Marshall Islands. He is tweeting about the ICJ hearings at @rickwayman.

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  • Day One at the ICJ: Marshall Islands Shines Against India

    Day One at the ICJ: Marshall Islands Shines Against India

    This article was originally published by Pressenza.

    It was an historic day at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as oral arguments in the first-ever contentious cases on nuclear disarmament began at the ICJ. The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) argued strongly in favor of the ICJ holding jurisdiction in the case that the RMI has brought against India.

    Tony de Brum
    Mr. Tony deBrum, Co-Agent of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Copyright: UN Photo/ICJ-CIJ/Frank van Beek. Courtesy of the ICJ. All rights reserved.

    Tony de Brum, Co-Agent of the RMI and former Foreign Minister, opened the arguments with a strong statement explaining why the case is before the ICJ. He said, “We are here in peace, and our goal is no smaller than to obtain the required negotiations in good faith for nuclear disarmament.”

    Mr. de Brum went on to describe his personal experience as a witness to many of the 67 U.S. nuclear tests that were conducted in the Marshall Islands from 1946-58. He then told the court:

    To be clear, while these experiences give us a unique perspective that we never requested, they are not the basis of this dispute. But they do help explain why a Country of our size and limited resources would risk bringing a case such as this regarding an enormous, nuclear-armed State such as India, and its breach of customary international law with respect to negotiations for nuclear disarmament and an end to the nuclear arms race.

    India has raised objections with the ICJ that the Court does not have jurisdiction in this case for a number of reasons. The RMI legal team addressed India’s objections and argued effectively against them.

    Nicholas Grief, a member of the RMI legal team and professor of international law at the University of Kent in the UK, explained why India has an obligation under customary international law to negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament. In particular, Professor Grief explained that the Court had recognized this customary obligation in its 1996 Advisory Opinion and that the UN General Assembly and Security Council had both contributed to the rule’s development. He recalled that the Court itself had referred to the very first General Assembly resolution, adopted unanimously in 1946, as the starting point for nuclear disarmament as an international norm. Among many other legal arguments, Grief also cited a 2009 UN Security Council resolution which calls upon “the parties to the NPT, pursuant to Article VI of the Treaty, to undertake to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to nuclear arms reduction and disarmament,” and calls upon “all other States to join in this endeavor.”

    In February 2014, India stated at the Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, “We cannot accept the logic that a few nations have the right to pursue their security by threatening the survival of mankind. It is not only those who live by the nuclear sword who, by design or default, shall one day perish by it.”

    The Marshall Islands, by bringing these lawsuits against India and the other nuclear-armed nations to the ICJ, seeks a peaceful resolution for the benefit of all humankind.

    The ICJ oral hearings continue tomorrow at 10:00 am CET, with the RMI presenting arguments in its case against Pakistan.

    Rick Wayman is Director of Programs at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, a consultant to the Republic of the Marshall Islands. He is tweeting about the ICJ hearings at @rickwayman.

  • Preview: Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Disarmament Cases at the ICJ

    This article was originally published by Pressenza.

    THE HAGUE – Over the next two weeks, oral arguments in the Marshall Islands’ nuclear disarmament cases will take place at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) originally filed the lawsuits in April 2014 against all nine nuclear-armed nations (United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea). These are the first contentious cases about nuclear disarmament to be brought before the world’s highest court.

    The RMI claims that the nuclear-armed nations are in breach of nuclear disarmament obligations under existing international law. This applies to the P5 nations that are signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), as well as to the four non-NPT signatories (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) under customary international law.

    “We are, basically, asking the Court to tell the respondent states to live up to their obligations under international law and to conduct negotiations leading to the required result: nuclear disarmament in all its aspects,” said Phon van den Biesen, Co-Agent for the RMI and attorney at law in Amsterdam, who is leading the International Legal Team.

    From March 7-16, the cases against India, Pakistan and the United Kingdom will be argued. The three respondents are the only nations among the “Nuclear Nine” that accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ. The other six nuclear-armed nations were invited to accept the jurisdiction of the Court in this case, but either explicitly declined (China) or ignored the application (U.S., Russia, France, Israel and North Korea).

    The applications filed by the RMI in April 2014 are available online. All subsequent filings – memorials and counter-memorials – have thus far been treated as confidential by the ICJ. Standard practice of the ICJ is to make these documents public once the oral argument phase has begun. If and when the ICJ makes the memorials and counter-memorials public, they will also be available at the aforementioned link.

    Arguments in RMI vs. India will take place on March 7, 10, 14 and 16. Arguments in RMI vs. Pakistan will take place on March 8, 11, 14 and 16. Arguments in RMI vs. United Kingdom will take place on March 9, 11, 14 and 16. All sessions will be livestreamed on the ICJ website, and transcripts will be available soon after each session. This round of hearings will address preliminary objections filed by each respondent nation. The Court’s 15 justices will decide whether the cases will proceed to the next phase in which the merits will be considered.

    The ICJ issued an Advisory Opinion in 1996 about the legality of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. The justices wrote unanimously, “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” Twenty years later, no nuclear disarmament negotiations have taken place among nuclear-armed nations, and all nine are engaged in some level of “modernization” of their nuclear arsenals.

    While the ICJ will hear arguments exploring complex interpretations of international law, the Marshall Islands continues to highlight the underlying reason for bringing these cases.

    Tony de Brum, former Marshall Islands Foreign Minister and Co-Agent in the cases, said, “I have seen with my very own eyes nuclear devastation and know with conviction that nuclear weapons must never again be visited upon humanity. Nuclear weapons are a senseless threat to survival and there are basic norms that compel those who possess them to pursue and achieve their elimination. This is the subject of legal action by my country at the International Court of Justice.”

    The United States used the Marshall Islands as a testing ground for 67 nuclear weapon tests from 1946-58, causing human and environmental catastrophes that persist to this day.

    Rick Wayman is Director of Programs at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, a consultant to the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Follow him on twitter at @rickwayman.

  • Líder de la paz y el medio ambiente es asesinada en Honduras

    Click here for the English version.

    Otra flor del selecto jardín de defensores del medio ambiente fue deshojada por las fuerzas más oscuras decididas a destruir nuestro hogar común y un futuro sostenible.

    Berta Cáceres, la valerosa luchadora por los derechos humanos y el medio ambiente en su natal Honduras, fue víctima de los intereses comerciales que están detrás de sus asesinos.

    En este 2 de marzo un escuadrón armado irrumpió en su modesta casa en La Esperanza, acribillándola a balazos.  Aunque las autoridades policíacas enfocan el caso como un asalto con fines de robo, los familiares de Berta insisten en que fue víctima de un asesinato planeado.

    Berta era miembro de los lenca, el pueblo indígena que vive en la parte suroeste de Honduras y el este de El Salvador.

    Su vida ejemplar, siendo la voz de las personas más vulnerables de esa parte del mundo, le trajo amenazas contra su vida durante muchos años. Una de sus acciones más activas fue la oposición a la presa hidroeléctrica en Río Blanco. Ella libró una lucha desigual contra los intereses de la compañía hondureña Desarrollos Energéticos y la china, Sinohydro Corporation, la mayor empresa de construcción de hidroeléctricas en el mundo, así como otros gigantescos grupos industriales holandeses, finlandeses y alemanes.

    El gobierno de Honduras ha estado muy ocupado en poner a la venta los derechos de los ríos y muchos otros recursos naturales a los que estén dispuestos a pagar el mejor precio. En este caso, había violación a los derechos intrínsecos de las personas a tener acceso al agua, la esencia de la vida.  Eran muy grandes las presiones para construir la presa de parte del Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica, que, entre otros países, tiene inversiones por parte del gobierno de Estados Unidos.

    Berta sufrió durante muchos años persecuciones y su vida y la de su familia estaban en peligro. Se vieron obligados a abandonar su país por un tiempo. Nunca se dio por vencida, aún sabiendo que a los 43 años de edad sus días podrían estar contados. Ella fue recipiente en 2015 de uno de los premios más distinguidos de la ecología, el Premio Goldman de Medio Ambiente por su exitosa batalla contra la proyectada presa de Agua Zarca.

    En una entrevista con el periódico ingles The Guardian el día de su premiación, Berta dijo, “Debemos afrontar todas las luchas en el mundo, donde quiera que sean, porque no tenemos otro planeta ni forma de reemplazarlo. Sólo tenemos este y debemos tomar acción.

    Ahora, Berta Cáceres se une a la larga lista de héroes caídos famosos y también desconocidos que ofrecen lo mejor de sí en nombre de la raza humana y de nuestro planeta asediado.

    Nosotros, en NAPF ofrecemos un humilde homenaje a esta distinguida dama y expresamos nuestras más profundas condolencias a su familia y las personas que la aman. El mundo es un sitio más pobre ante su ausencia.

    Rubén Arvizu es Director para América Latina de la Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Leader of Peace and the Environment Is Assassinated in Honduras

    Vaya aqui para la version espanola.

    Another flower in the garden of Environmental Defenders was crushed by the dark forces committed to destroying our common home and a sustainable future.

    Berta Cáceres, the gallant fighter for human rights and the environment in her native Honduras, fell victim to the business interests behind her assassins.

    On March 2nd, an armed squad of armed men burst into her modest home in La Esperanza and riddled her with bullets. While local police are referring to the murder as an event that occurred during an armed robbery, Berta’s family has no doubt that she was the victim of a targeted assassination.

    Berta was a member of the Lenca, the indigenous people who live in the southwestern part of Honduras and eastern El Salvador. Her exemplary work, giving voice to the most vulnerable people of that part of the globe, brought her threats and persecution for many years. Her recent opposition to the hydroelectric dam in Rio Blanco ramped up those threats. She led an uneven fight against the interests of the Honduran company, Desarrollos Energeticos, and the Chinese Sinohydro Corporation, the largest hydropower construction company in the world, among other Dutch, Finnish and German industrial giants. However, the high-profile opposition campaign had garnered results. It was instrumental in causing the withdrawal of China’s Synohidro and the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, from the project.

    The government of Honduras has been willing to sell the rights to the rivers and many other natural resources to anyone willing to pay the best price…actively violating the human rights of the people to have access to water, the essence of life. Crucial in this dispute, is the involvement of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, which is subsidized by the U.S. government, along with other countries.

    Berta knew her life and family were in danger. They were forced to leave their country for a while. Despite the risks to her life, she never gave up and urged others to fight as well. She was the recipient in 2015 of one of the most distinguished awards in ecology, the Goldman Environment Prize, for her successful battle against the projected Agua Zarca Dam.

    In an interview with The Guardian at the time of her award, Cáceres stated, “We must undertake the struggle in all parts of the world, wherever we may be, because we have no other spare or replacement planet. We have only this one, and we have to take action.”

    At 43 years old, she now joins the ever-growing pantheon of brave souls and fallen heroes who offered the best of themselves for the betterment of humanity and our besieged planet.

    We at NAPF pay our humble respects to this distinguished woman and express our deepest condolences to her family and the people who love her. The world is a poorer place for her absence.

    Ruben Arvizu is Director for Latin America of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

  • Remarks on Bravo Day

    These comments were delivered by Tony de Brum at a ceremony in Japan on March 1, 2016.

    Tony de BrumI am honored to be here with you on this very special occasion.

    I wish to first offer my apologies for not keeping my promise to be with you in previous years for reasons which were not within my control.

    I bring you greetings from the people of the Marshall Islands who, like you, share the knowledge of the horrors of nuclear weapons and their ever increasing threat to human life, to our children, and to our mother earth.

    While our experience with nuclear arms cannot even come close to matching that of our Japanese brothers and sisters, it has taught us lessons of everlasting value not just for ourselves but all of mankind. From the deliberate exposure of human beings to radiation to systematic cover up of critical health impacts, from human experimentation to premature resettlement of exposed populations, from denial of claims to withholding of information critical to basic understanding of the extent of damage, the nuclear history of the Marshall Islands has been nothing short of a testament to human beings being abused, mistreated and marginalized by more powerful, more ambitious neighbors.

    The most important of these lessons can only be that nuclear weapons of any kind are immoral and illegal and cannot be allowed to exist amongst civilized human beings. Nuclear weapons cannot be justified for any reason whatsoever, including those we continue to hear from countries claiming that these arms are required to preserve peace and security for the world.

    Nuclear weapons have no conscience, no sense of discrimination, and cannot differentiate between good and evil. Like all weapons of mass destruction, nuclear arms have no mercy for babies and children, they are not selective as to flowers and trees and food and soil. They destroy all life and render a devastation that is final, complete, and irreversible. That itself should be reason enough to ban them from the face of the earth.

    Between 1946 and 1958 the United States conducted atomic and thermonuclear tests and experiments in the Marshall Islands. The cumulative output of these tests has been described by Mr. Jon Weisgall, an attorney for the people of Bikini Atoll, as having a yield equivalent to “detonating 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day, for twelve years”. One of those events, the BRAVO shot of March 1, 1954 had the combined force of 1000 Hiroshima bombs. That the experimentation of nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands wreaked havoc on the island community is an insensitive and cynical understatement, forever insulting and hurtful to our people. America’s nuclear program in the Marshall Islands inflicted pain and suffering to those who lived to see the tests themselves, those who survive today as Marshallese wounded in body and spirit, and those of future generations who will continue to bear the scars of this terrible chapter in our country’s history.

    To this day, the United States continues to classify information pertinent to tests even though we have repeatedly requested their release. To this day, knowledge critical to our understanding the true extent of nuclear damage done to our people and our homeland is kept secret by America. According to their government, this information is withheld from public scrutiny because it is in the national interest of the United States that nuclear secrets be kept secret. Even after review by a United Nations Rapporteur and very specific recommendations made in his report, the United States still remains intransigent in its position to keep secret their nuclear activities in the Marshall Islands.

    Unless and until the United States government releases all the information held in secrecy but necessary for the full understanding of its nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, no government, no leader worth his salt, no legislature, commission or scientific panel can claim fair and just resolution to the nuclear disagreement. There can be no closure without full disclosure.

    As we speak, even more discoveries are being made in the Marshall Islands where environmental degradation and pollution directly attributable to nuclear weapons testing continue to threaten the health and livelihood of our people and pose immeasurable dangers to the health and well being of our children and their future generations. In Kwajalein Atoll, where missiles to deliver nuclear weapons are tested, severe heavy metal and other contamination of land and water has been so severe, the consumption of fish and other seafood has been found to be dangerous to human life and health. We cannot observe this injustice in silence and fear. We cannot allow our future generations to be permanently wounded on account of our timid refusal to confront and seek justice under the law. We cannot justify our existence as leaders and caretakers of our lands and heritage if we do not do all in our power to ensure that the truth of nuclear madness is exposed and the end of nuclear insanity is part of our global agenda. Only then will true peace be achieved and only then will the sacrifice of our forebears receive the respect and honor deserved.

    In recent times, the Marshall Islands have filed in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) a lawsuit against the nuclear powers of the world seeking their compliance with Article VI of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. That action seeks to compel those countries with nuclear weapons to commence immediate negotiations to disarm and to negotiate in good faith an agreement for the elimination of nuclear weapons from the earth. Oral arguments are being heard in the Hague on the 7th of March of this year. We are confident that justice will prevail and that our nuclear powers will see their way clear to comply with the undertaking they made in signing the NPT to rid the world of nuclear weapons. I must make it absolutely clear that these ICJ lawsuits do not seek compensation, nor do they seek to point fingers or level liabilities against any of the nuclear powers. Our lawsuits only seek to engage the nuclear powers in negotiations for disarmament as they agreed to in the NPT.

    To our brothers and sisters in Japan, the people of the Marshall Islands stand with you in your efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to ban all development of these terrible arms which threaten us, whether in the military context or in its civilian for power generation. As long as these weapons are around and are capable of deployment at a second’s notice, we are in danger.

    Nuclear weapons can be used by design or by accident, by military planning or by the act of insane characters; for as long as they exist, they are making human race a target in the nuclear killing field. That must end, it must stop, and we must be part of the movement to restore true peace and harmony in a world without nuclear weapons. It is something that we owe to those who have passed on before us as well as those of our future generations. It is the least we can do for our children and children’s children. Until that happens we must unite in our mission to eliminate nuclear weapons and serve that purpose until every breath in our bodies is gone.

    To all our friends who have gathered with us today we bring you love from your Marshallese neighbors. May peace be with you and all our brothers and sisters in Japan, in Polynesia, and in every corner of our world.

    Ours is a just cause, and we shall prevail.

     

  • NAPF: A Voice for Peace

    When we created the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in 1982 we believed that peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age.  That is, peace is no longer just desirable; in a nuclear-armed world, it is essential.  An important part of our work at the Foundation is to awaken people to the extraordinary dangers of living in the Nuclear Age.  We are always seeking new ways to break through the complacency of our time through education and advocacy.

    LOGO BUG PAGESI believe that complacency has four principal elements: apathy, conformity, ignorance and denial.  Together these four elements form the acronym ACID, and they are corrosive to a decent human future, or to any future at all.  We must transform apathy to empathy; conformity to critical thinking; ignorance to wisdom; and denial to recognition of the threats that nuclear weapons pose to our common future.

    We are seven decades into the Nuclear Age and the world has nine nuclear-armed countries possessing over 15,000 nuclear weapons, far more than enough to destroy civilization and the human species.  The leaders of these nine nuclear-armed countries are all engaged in modernizing their nuclear arsenals.  The US alone is planning to spend $1 trillion on modernizing its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades.  This is insane.  It will make the weapons smaller and more accurate, and thereby more likely to be used.

    When we stand alone our voices may be weak, but when we come together and unite we have the potential to be the most powerful force on Earth.  People power is far more potent than nuclear weapons.  Nuclear weapons are equal opportunity destroyers, but the people united are a superpower that can take charge of our planet.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, with its 75,000 members, is a valuable voice for peace.  Our purpose is to find better ways to resolve our differences than by making sacrificial lambs of our children and to lead in finding the way out of the nuclear weapons era, which could make sacrificial lambs of us all.

  • The Turing Award, Nuclear Risk, and Recapturing True Love

    This article was originally published on Defusing the Nuclear Threat.

    It has just been announced at 10 AM this morning that my colleague Whitfield Diffie and I will be receiving this year’s ACM Turing Award and the $1,000,000 that comes with it – one reason it’s sometimes called “the Nobel Prize of computing.” But what does my former life in cybersecurity, which is the reason for the award, have to do with defusing the nuclear threat – the theme of this blog? And what does either of those have to do with recapturing true love – the last part of this post’s title? This and my next few blog posts will explain, so stay tuned.

    hellmansOne connection between the Turing Award and reducing the risk of a nuclear disaster is that my wife Dorothie and I have decided to use my $500,000 share of the prize to further our efforts to create a more peaceful, sustainable world — which world, of course, requires eliminating the threat posed by nuclear weapons. The initial thrust of our effort will be to bring attention to a new approach we’re developing in a book due out later this year. Here’s a short summary:

    How would you like it if you never had another fight or argument? And how would you like it if that helped bring greater peace to the world?

    “A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home & Peace on the Planet” shows how the changes needed to build a strong marriage or other intimate relationship are the same ones needed to build a more peaceful, sustainable world. It also shows why working on both issues at the same time accelerates progress on each of them.

    We know this because we were able to transform an almost failed marriage into one where we haven’t had a single argument in well over 10 years. Working on global issues was essential to bringing magic back into our marriage, and personal relationships that really work are the model for a peaceful, sustainable planet.

    While I’ll continue to work on reducing the risks posed by nuclear weapons, this shift in focus to include the personal dimension is a recognition of two facts.

    First, few people are interested in nuclear weapons, so it’s been an uphill battle to get society to deal with this issue. But there’s a much larger “market” of people wanting to improve their relationships. In fact, Dorothie and I initially came to work on global issues out of a desire to save our marriage, not to save the world. But we came to see a strong interplay between the two goals and found that working on global issues, such as the nuclear threat, accelerated the work on improving our marriage. We’ll explain more about that in later posts.

    Second, as Dorothie says in our book:

    When people are confronted with the urgent need for radical change in international relations, they often ask, “What difference can I make on such a big issue?” But if the first step is for them to radically change their personal relationships for the better, who else can bring that about?

    Individually, no one of us can heal the planet. But, if enough of us work hard enough to succeed in healing our personal relationships, it can be the seed for global change. It’s somewhat mysterious, maybe even mystical. But it is true.

    There’s also an interesting connection between the work being recognized by the Turing Award and this new effort. Public key cryptography was a radically new way of communicating that at first seemed impossible. How could two people talking across a crowded room, with no prearrangement, exchange information privately from all the others listening in? Yet that’s what we showed how to do. And how could a digital signature be recognizable by everyone, but only created by the legitimate signer? Once people opened up to those radical, new possibilities, previously unimaginable options were opened, including modern electronic commerce, secure software updates and more.

    The same is true of the interpersonal communications approach that we’ll describe in our book. Dorothie and I had to develop a new way of communicating that seemed impossible from our old vantage point. Once we found the courage to break with that old perspective and entertain the new one, our lives were immeasurably improved. And the same is true at an international level.

    As just one example, I had to learn to “get curious, not furious” when Dorothie did something that seemed crazy to me. Now, every time I do that, I find out that there was something I was missing, and usually it makes my life better in ways that I also could not see until I asked Dorothie to explain.

    If we, as a nation, had “gotten curious instead of furious” in 2003, we could have avoided the current disaster in Iraq. The same was true in 1964 in Vietnam, and at many other times and places. And, each of those needless wars created needless nuclear risk since every war has some small chance of escalating out of control.

    If you’d like to receive updates about the book, send me an email at “martydevoe AT gmail DOT COM” with SUBSCRIBE as the subject (body text is optional).

    As you might expect from my efforts to maintain privacy in cyberspace, I will never share your address, and will promptly remove it from my list should you wish that.