Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: Jennifer Simons

  • Promising Initiatives for Changing the Discourse by Jennifer Simons

    This is the transcript of a talk given by Jennifer Simons at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s symposium “The Fierce Urgency of Nuclear Zero: Changing the Discourse” on October 25, 2016. The audio of this talk is available here. For more information about the symposium, click here.

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    I am deeply appreciative of the invitation to participate in this Conference, and to speak on Promising Initiatives for Changing the Discourse.  I want to thank you, David, for the opportunity, and commend you and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation for your commitment, your Foundation’s stability, its unflagging energy – staying the course since 1982 – in order to advance the agenda for a nuclear free world.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, I imagine, like The Simons Foundation, was an initiative in response to the immense growth of the US nuclear arsenals in the 1980’s – a concrete expression of outrage and an urgent desire to do something about it.

    The numbers are now down from the obscene number in the 1980s of some seventy thousand, to approximately fifteen thousand, three hundred and fifty.   Yet, not only has the pace of elimination significantly lessened, the nuclear weapons states, disregarding their commitments to disarm, are upgrading their arsenals and infrastructure and planning for their indefinite retention.

    The danger, therefore, to humanity still exists.  In fact the current dangers are considered to be greater than during the Cold War. [1]

    Our task remains as urgent – or is, perhaps, more urgent than in the 1980s when the Cold War provided some stability. [2]

    Russia has, not only been flaunting its nuclear capability, but is now breaking the former sacrosanct separation between nuclear and conventional warring.   In retaliation to the global outrage about Russia’s aerial bombardment of Aleppo, Russia has moved its nuclear-capable Iskander missiles to Kalingrad, and as well, has withdrawn from three bi-lateral nuclear disarmament treaties between the US and Russia.

    With the end of the Cold War, hopes for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons were high and at the turn of the century these high expectations remained.  Promising initiatives, like the New Agenda Coalition, pressured the Nuclear Weapons States to fulfil their legal obligation to disarm; and were successful at the 2000 NPT Review Conference with the achievement of commitments, in Article VI, of thirteen steps to disarmament.

    These hopes were dashed by the failure of the 2005 Conference, yet rose again in 2010 when crucial language  – the “catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons” – was accepted as part of the 2010 NPT Review Conference document. [3]   This changed the discourse and set the stage for, what seemed to be, the most promising initiative for achieving the goal of a world without nuclear weapons.

    This new language in the 2010 NPT gave fresh life to the issue; and provided a new dimension for action and led to the three global conferences in Oslo, Nayarit and Vienna on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons.

    This, in turn, led to the  UN Resolutions   in 2012  and 2015 [4]  to convene  Open-Ended Working Groups.[5][6]

    The outcome of these conferences was that, on September 28th, a group of participating states introduced a draft UN General Assembly Resolution calling for the convening, in 2017, of a two-day UN conference to “negotiate a legally-binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading toward their total elimination.”

    While on the one hand this is the most momentous event since the Reykjavik Summit at which Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev – to the horror of their military bureaucracies – agreed to eliminate all their nuclear weapons. [7]  On the other hand, like Reykjavik, it will not lead to a nuclear-weapon-free world because there would be no regulations for elimination of nuclear weapons, and the critical elements of their irreversible, verifiable and transparent destruction would be left for future negotiations.

    It does, however, hold some promise.  As John Burroughs has pointed out “a prohibition treaty would have the beneficial effect of erecting a further barrier to the spread of nuclear weapons.”   It could “strengthen non-proliferation obligations. It could perhaps “prohibit the development of nuclear weapons” or “prohibit the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium.” If nothing else, it would reinforce the norm against nuclear weapons use.[8]

    The glaring weakness of this ban treaty initiative is that the nuclear weapons states have, not only refused to participate in the process, but, in fact, have outright rejected it.   These are the states with the weapons.  And it is only through their agreement that they will rid themselves of their arsenals and sign a treaty eliminating and prohibiting nuclear weapons.

    Nuclear disarmament cannot – and will not – move forward without the participation of the states with the weapons.    It is essential, therefore, to close the gap, to change the discourse – to seek appropriate engagement rather than to attack  – so that this engagement with the nuclear weapons states encourages them to get on with the process of eliminating their arsenals, and within a time-bound framework.

    I do not agree with – or in any way  – support the nuclear weapons states non-compliance with their NPT commitment and their disregard of the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion.

    Although he has not been successful, I do support President Obama’s call for a world without nuclear weapons and his efforts to accomplish this.  He said “we cannot succeed in this endeavour alone, but we can lead it, we can start it.”  And this is what he has attempted to do – to work with Russia on bi-lateral cuts to their arsenals as the first step forward, paving the way to multilateral negotiations which will lead to a nuclear weapon free world.

    For this reason it is my view that Global Zero is the most promising initiative because it does change the discourse.  Its mission is to centre on, and to work with, the nuclear weapons states.  Global Zero has developed a foundational plan – a practical time-bound, phased, step-by-step process to zero; and formulates policies, strategies and recommendations for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.  Global Zero engages with governments, both nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapons states to advocate for these measures.

    The organization, launched in Paris in 2008, is a nonpartisan, international community of three hundred influential political, military, business, civic and faith leaders backed by some half a million citizens worldwide; and  the organization continues to build “a truly global disarmament movement  from the grassroots to the highest levels of government, firmly rooted  in critical nuclear weapons regions.

    Global Zero has met with extraordinary success.  The organization has attracted much attention from the global media which brought the nuclear disarmament issue, not only to the attention of the public again, but also to governments, their parliaments and Congresses. And some fifty international and national non-governmental organizations have supported and promoted Global Zero and its initiatives in various ways since its inception. [9]

    Its greatest success to date has been its interaction and positive reception in direct dialogue with governments at the highest level, with Global Zero leaders meeting in Foreign Affairs and State Departments, “advancing policies and political strategies” for the reduction of their nuclear arsenals “and to eventually engage in multi-lateral negotiations for elimination and prohibition.” [10]

    Global Zero’s foundational document is its Action Plan – a practical four-phase blueprint of concrete steps, which includes a negotiated and signed legally binding international agreement for verified dismantlement of all nuclear arsenals and the elimination of all nuclear weapons by 2030.   This plan is compatible with Point 1 of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s Five-Point plan for nuclear disarmament. [11]

    Global Zero has an on-going wealth of Commission Reports delineating essential interim steps, based on the Action Plan, in order to further its goal of a nuclear weapons free world.

    The Global Zero Commission members are drawn from former senior, influential, knowledgeable leaders from the political and military realms in key countries; and undertake in depth research, analysis and recommendations which they present in “high-level outreach and direct dialogue with governments.”

    The Commission issued a report at the Munich Security Conference in 2012 on NATO-Russian Tactical Nukes calling for the United States and Russia to remove all of their tactical nuclear weapons from combat bases on the European continent.

    Another, in 2012, was the Global Zero U.S. Nuclear Policy Commission Report – Modernizing U.S. Nuclear Strategy, Force Structure and Posture.  The Report called for the U.S. and Russia to reduce their nuclear arsenals to 900 weapons each.  This would pave the way to bring other nuclear weapons countries into the multilateral nuclear arms negotiations.

    In July of that year, Global Zero was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate regarding the report and the implications of its recommendations for the defence budget.  These recommendations included de-alerting, increased warning and decision time in the command and control systems, eliminating all tactical nuclear weapons and reducing the US arsenal from a triad to a dyad, by eliminating the silo-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.

    Global Zero briefed senior Russian officials on this Report at a conference in Moscow, and at meetings with Senior Russian Foreign Affairs officials.

    The Report was endorsed by The New York Times and the recommendations reverberated across the U.S.  – some of which were seized upon by NGOs for their furtherance.  For example, Ploughshares Fund offered grants to NGOs to undertake – under the Ploughshares umbrella – a project to eliminate the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.

    In 2014, Global Zero formed a Nuclear Risk Reduction Commission.  In October of that year at the UN, in a First Committee Side Event, Co-Founder, Bruce Blair previewed the Commission’s risk analysis and other findings.  And in 2015, at the NPT Review Conference, the Commission Report was released recommending a number of US-Russia bi-lateral steps to reduce risks, including de-alerting, and multi-lateral steps to stabilize the world’s Nuclear Force Postures. The Report was well-received, with one government committing to take the recommendations forward in a predominantly government – or Track One-and-a-half –meeting.[12]

    The Risk Reduction Commission Report also fed into the Humanitarian Consequences Conferences and the UN-mandated Open-Ended Working Groups; and its “authoritative validators” of risks provided a critical foundation for the Open Ended Working Groups’ Reports.

    There is no doubt that Global Zero is a major influence on the nuclear disarmament agenda.  It is unfortunate that Russia has declined, at the moment, to engage in further bilateral cuts to its arsenals.  President Putin ignored the 2013 offer made by President Obama to cut to a thousand weapons each, and the process is currently stalled.

    The Global Zero Action Plan timetable will not be far off schedule, however, if Russia changes course and re-engages within a few years.   This is not unlikely! Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr. Vitaly Churkin, in a recent interview said the “current situation is unlike the Cold War in that Russian and American diplomats today speak regularly and manage to accomplish things they can agree upon,” and stressed that he would like to “get back to normal in our relations.” [13]

    According to Russia’s Global Zero Leaders and Commission members, this sentiment is echoed in Russia; and Global Zero is poised  – with the lines of communication and engagement open – ready to move forward at the first signs of détente.

    The resumption of bi-lateral cuts will depend, also, on the outcome of the US election, both in the White House and the Congress.  President Obama’s offer of bilateral cuts to one thousand (1,000) still stands and Hillary Clinton has committed to this proposal. It is to be hoped, if she becomes President, that she will honour this commitment.

    The final Presidential Debate demonstrated that the nuclear issue is on her mind because, in her critique of her opponent’s inability to handle the so-called “nuclear button,” she cited the Global Zero-initiated letter signed by ten nuclear launch officers.

    And if the Democrats form a majority in the Senate, the possibilities are high for not only a resumption of bi-lateral cuts, but too, for positive change in United States Nuclear policy.   Russia’s participation in the process though, will depend on the United States taking into account some of its concerns – missile defense for one, for example.

    During this current period of tense relations between Russia and United States, Global Zero continues to formulate and promote essential steps in the process: for example, the promotion of No First Use as a global norm which, without the risk of a first strike, would provide confidence that no state is under attack and, as Bruce Blair says, would undermine Deterrence Policy.

    No First Use would also have “huge implications for the U.S. Nuclear program”.  It would “reduce the risks of accidental or unauthorized use, eliminate launch of warning, and thus rationalize de-alerting.  It would also “provide the rationale for the elimination of tactical nuclear weapons and the land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missile force, and save the United States about 100 billion dollars.[14]

    An important component of Global Zero is its campaign – its online social media program and its on-ground grassroots campaign in US, which is currently taking advantage of the US election gatherings; and also its global Annual Bike around the Bomb program and its international Action Corps.   This awareness-raising, however, is not delivering enough of a critical mass to prompt leaders in the Nuclear Weapons States to action.

    The most difficult issue with which we nuclear disarmers grapple is how to bring to the streets the numbers, protesting nuclear weapons, which we saw – and many of us were part of – in the 1980s:  the five million in Europe, the one million in New York and the huge marches elsewhere around the globe, which caused Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev to want to do something about it:  And the earlier march in New York against nuclear testing which caused President Kennedy to act.  This is a question that troubles me.

    How can we awaken the public to the dangers of which they do not seem to be aware?  How can we encourage millions of people – people enough so that their representatives in democratic parliaments and congresses will do something about it?  Governments are not convinced by moral arguments, by invoking the devastating consequences to humanity.  So unless there is a huge groundswell of public opinion, nothing will change.

    It is disappointing that the International Court Justice and the U.S. Court declined jurisdiction for the Marshall Islands suit – though I understand that it is still alive and before the U.S. Court of Appeal. The initiative held some promise for change, gained the attention of the media and raised the issue in the public domain, so I do hope the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Nuclear Zero campaign on the Marshall Islands intends to continue; and turn its focus to an educational campaign on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear detonations, centered on schools, universities, parent-teacher associations, community centers and places of worship.

    Who wants to suffer the fate of the Marshall Islanders – to live with the horror, and horrific effects, of nuclear destruction and it radioactive fallout?  Who wants to die from the myriad of fatal cancers?  What person, what parent or grandparent, wants to be the parents or grandparents of “monster babies” – of entities looking like bunches of grapes, or babies like jellyfish with no bones and transparent, so their brains and beating hearts are visible for the few days before they die?

    The United States was responsible for this! Presented to the public as a personal perspective and from the perspective of moral responsibility, it could be an effective motivator in the United States.

    It is past time to wake up America to those sixty-seven nuclear bomb tests on the Marshall Islands. The focus of the consequences of nuclear weapons use is, and has been, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Not enough attention has been paid to the victims of nuclear tests.  [15]

    The Marshall Island tests were a crime against humanity of a magnitude far greater than the crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    When the United States tested on the Marshall Islands the devastating consequences to human beings of nuclear detonations were known.  The US government, the Pentagon, the US scientists, the medical researchers sent to Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the blasts, knew about the incineration, the deaths, the consequences of fallout, radiation sickness, the maiming, the bleeding, and the fatal cancers.

    But it is not just about tests, or nuclear war – both are currently unlikely – it is about the risks and dangers that come with possession: it is about the eighteen hundred nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert and targeted for immediate launch; the accidental, malicious or mistaken launch, nuclear accidents; the inadequate command/control and warning systems; and hackers penetrating these systems which are highly automated.  It is about inadequate security of fissile materials and warheads, both of which terrorists have been attempting to acquire.

    I am in full agreement with the Conference title, The Fierce Urgency of Nuclear Zero: Changing the Discourse, but there is no fast track.  The catalyst for a fast track, however, could be an accidental, malicious or unauthorized detonation of a nuclear weapon in the United States.  This would be so devastating that we do not want this, and this is what we are attempting to prevent.

    Therefore every initiative that brings attention to the issue and raises awareness of the danger holds promise and is important.  It is slow, steady, dedicated work and we must continue to seek appropriate avenues for chances of success in weaning the nuclear weapons states from these inhumane weapons.

    Endnotes

    [1] 1, 800 nuclear weapons of these weapons on hair-trigger alert and targeted for immediate launch.  There is no guarantee that India and Pakistan will not engage in a war and, as well, Pakistan’s command and control systems are not considered secure.  The risks are high from accidental, malicious or mistaken launch; from inadequate command/control and warning systems; and of hackers penetrating these systems which are highly automated.  There is also the possibility of hackers “spoofing an attack which would set off an automated retaliatory response. We are at risk because of inadequate security of fissile materials and warheads, both of which terrorists have been attempting to acquire.

    [2] Earlier this month, German Foreign Minister, Frank Walter Steinmeier, spoke of his dismay at “the collapsing relations between the West and Russia” and said that it is “a fallacy to think that this is like the Cold War.  The current times are different and more dangerous.”  Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, believes that there is “considerable danger of a military confrontation between Russia and the West.” [2]   Mikhail Gorbechev echoed these concerns several days later.

    [3] The 2010 Review Conference of the NPT gave specific focus – inter alia – to this issue in its consensual conclusions and recommendations for follow-on actions (2010 Action Plan) by expressing “its deep concern at the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons […] reaffirm(ing) the need for all States at all times to comply with applicable international law, including international humanitarian law”. Moreover, the 2010 NPT Review Conference resolved in Action 1 of the 2010 Action Plan that “All States parties commit to pursue policies that are fully compatible with the Treaty and the objective of achieving a world without nuclear weapons.”

    [4] 2012 (67/56) and 2015 (L.13.Rev)

    [5] The first “to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons”; and the second,   “to address concrete effective legal measures, legal provisions, and norms that will need to be concluded to attain and maintain a world without nuclear weapons.”

    [7] October 1986

    [8], Changing the Landscape: The U.N. Open-Ended Working Group on Nuclear Disarmament, John Burroughs, The Simons Foundation Fellow, The Simons Foundation Briefing Paper, September 2016, www.thesimonsfoundation.ca.  My emphasis.

    [9] While Global Zero has not yet become a household word, it has come to refer –  not just to the organization, – but as well, to become the signifier of a nuclear- weapon-free world in the same way that Brexit is universally known as the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union.

    [10] Matt Brown email letter September 8, 2016

    [11] Phases 1 and 2 of the Action Plan call for bilateral action on the part of the US and Russia – to agree to each reduce their arsenals to 1,000 by 2018 and to further reductions to 500 warheads each by 2021.  The U.S. and Russia would ratify a bi-lateral accord and require the other nuclear weapons states to commit to a cap on their existing stockpiles and to participate in multilateral negotiations for proportionate reductions of their stockpiles following the Russian and US reductions to 500 each until 2021. The Action Plan requires “a rigorous and comprehensive verification and enforcement system is implemented, including no-notice, on-site inspections, and strengthened safeguards on the civilian nuclear fuel cycle to prevent diversion of materials to build weapons.”

    Phase 3 of Action Plan requires all “the world’s nuclear-capable countries negotiate and sign a Global Zero Accord: a legally binding international agreement for the phased, verified, proportionate reduction of all nuclear arsenals to zero total warheads by 2030. [compatible with UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s 5-point plan for nuclear disarmament]

    And Phase 4 “The phased, verified, proportionate dismantlement of all nuclear arsenals to zero total warheads is complete by 2030. The comprehensive verification and enforcement system prohibiting the development and possession of nuclear weapons is in place to ensure that the world is never again threatened by nuclear weapons.”

    [12] 2015 the Global Zero Commission on Nuclear Risk Reduction — led by former U.S. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James E. Cartwright and comprised of international military experts — issued a bold call for ending the Cold War-era practice of keeping nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.

    The Commission’s extensive report calls for (1) an urgent agreement between the United States and Russia to immediately eliminate “launch-on-warning” from their operational strategy, and to initiate a phased stand down of their high-alert strategic forces, beginning with taking 20% of both countries’ nuclear forces off launch-ready alert within one year and 100% within 10 years; and (2) a longer-term global agreement requiring all nuclear weapons countries to refrain from putting nuclear weapons on high alert

    [13] A Senior Envoy’s take on Relations with the United States: ‘Pretty Bad’, NY Times, October 18th, 2016

    [14] James E. Cartwright and Bruce G. Blair, “End the First-Use Policy for Nuclear Weapons,” The New York Times, 15/08/2016Bruce Blair letter (email) September 13, 2016

    [15] Since 1954, the people of the Marshall Islands have engaged in “a lifelong battle for their health and a safe environment.”  The radioactive fallout destroyed the lives of many – with deaths from leukaemia, brain tumours, thyroid and other forms of fatal cancers.  Their food sources were destroyed – staple crops, like arrowroot, disappeared completely; the fish were radio-active and instantly caused blisters, terrible stomach problems and nausea.

    The radioactive fallout from the nuclear testing has affected the health of three generations so far – and has definitely jeopardized the lives of future generations.  The consequences have been the inability to reproduce and the birth of severely deformed babies – entities – because in many cases they do not resemble human forms.  There were no words in the Islanders’ language to describe these “monster” babies – some with two heads – so they described them as “octopuses,” “apples,” “turtles” and “jellyfish babies” who lived for a day or two – with no bones and transparent – their brains and beating hearts visible

  • Signposts, Milestones to a Culture of Peace

    The subject I have been asked to address is one of optimism – “Signs that we are on the road to a culture of peace.” It is one that I can’t, with integrity, address entirely in that frame. Instead I would like to speak in terms of signposts, milestones and paving stones on the road to a culture of peace because it seems to me that for every sign of peace there is a counter sign of war, of conflict, of human violations.

    Actually, the state of affairs is more dismal than merely counter signs to peace.I think if I had to broadly define Western Culture, I could, without hesitation, say that we live in a war culture despite the fact that the majority of the members of civil society are not interested in being warriors. In the twentieth century alone, in the neighbourhood of “two hundred million people have been killed, directly or indirectly, in wars” – over twenty million directly in wars – in man-made violence.We live in a world where, at present, there are about fifty small wars taking place – a situation that is likely to multiply as populations expand, resources shrink, or are destroyed.Even though, western culture has a history of democracy originating with the Greeks, war has always played a defining part.However, I am not suggesting that violence or aggressionare innate in humans, but violence and aggression may be culturally determined. (Bookchin, 110, Weeramantry, 11)

    I am not a war historian – but it seems to me that beginning in the nineteenth century war, the number of deaths,- and deaths on a massive scale – and threats to civilian populations has progressively grown.I would suggest that the cause of this phenomenon coincides with the birth of the industrial epoch and its expansionist goals and is perhaps the root from which the unprecedented scale of violence emerges.The situation has been further exacerbated – and perhaps even caused – not only the development of technology but by the death of God defined as the “universal communion of man” and its replacement by worship of technology.There is little faith in resolving situations between people peacefully.The faith has been transferred to technology – peace kept by terror – a nuclear armed missile named “peacemaker,” for example; the concept of safety under the “nuclear umbrella”; protection enforced by Stars Wars, National Missile Defence System, the weaponization of space; and so on.

    We live in warrior culture in which we human beings, are engaged in a struggle to maintain our human dignity and to live in a peaceful and just society.

    Occasionally, individuals who epitomize this struggle, emerge, and as a consequence of their principled stands focus our attention on – and raise our awareness of – the forces of domination and destruction – knowledge and understanding that often has disappeared into individual and collective amnesia, in pursuing the day-to-day functions of everyday life. Individuals like Mahatma Gandhi, Vaclav Havel, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Nelson Mandela remind us of our humanity and our responsibility to maintain human dignity and to provide us with the energy and hope to continue on our road – or roads to a Culture of Peace:

    For there are two roads to be travelled concurrently.The first is a tough road – to fight against a system seemingly determined to annihilate us as it accumulates arsenals of weapons of mass destruction and maintains policies that could bring about their use; the second is peace-building – building a road to peace.The first is about survival, the second is about peace.

    The first road to be travelled is in the active pursuit of the elimination of nuclear weapons, and the mobilization of political will to ban the weaponization of space. At the moment, we have the ability to destroy ourselves and the planet in an afternoon.As well, we are already facing 21st Century weapons of mass destruction which bode ill for humankind and have the potential for destruction greater than nuclear war.

    Bill Joy, Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems wrote to me about the new technological weapons and asked me “to raise the issues of these technologies and support efforts to contain these new dangers”. Mr. Joy is concerned, first of all, because they “may empower nearly anyone to [commit] massively destructive acts,” and secondly, because these technologies could cause an arms race similar to that of nuclear weapons. These weapons – genetics, nanotechnology and robotics – are capable of runaway self-replication and destruction on a such a scale that, in the case of nanotechnology the biosphere could be destroyed within half and hour.”This is the first moment in the history of our planet,” writes Carl Sagan in”Pale Blue Dot” when any species, by its own voluntary actions, has become a danger to itself- as well as to vast numbers of others.” (Joy letter; quoted in Joy)

    Nuclear war, or war utilizing these technologies, is not war in the traditional sense.Nuclear weapons are not weapons in a conventional sense that can be used in a war where one side becomes the victor and the other the defeated Hans Morgenthau asserts that the concepts nuclear”weapons” and nuclear “war” are euphemisms.A nuclear weapon is “an instrument of unlimited, universal destruction.”Nuclear war is suicide and genocide. The control and abolition of nuclear weapons and these 21st Century technologies is essential if we are not to pass along, generation after generation, the intolerable threat of nuclear holocaust, or destruction from these new technologies, and if we are continue to exist in history.

    The second and concurrent road on which we must travel – and one we must travel in the shadow of extinction – We “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23) – is the call to action and action itself, in its many forms, to work for global security, common security, human security in order to create a sustained world peace in which all people can live in their diverse cultures to their full potential.This entails an end to “unrestricted and undirected growth through science and technology”, an end to “perpetual economic growth.” – mindless production and consumption.(Japanese people have recently been criticized by their government for not consuming enough).

    One of the primary keys to peace is the amelioration of suffering in the developing world, the elimination of poverty, hunger, famine, environmental degradation, illness with AIDS emerging as a major threat.These issues can perhaps be attributed, in part, to the legacy of colonialism, playing some part in the root causes of the tribal, ethnic and civil strife.It is no secret that the countries of the developing world are of interest to the major world powers – the G-8(and before them the colonial powers) only in relation to their own economic gain.It is only where their financial interests are at stake will the powerful nations intervene – a prime example is the Gulf War when the oil supplies were endangered by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

    We recently celebrated the 100th Anniversary of the 1899 Hague Appeal for Peace Conference.The 1899 Conference is perhaps an appropriate defining point to measure how far we have come on the road to peace; to look for significant milestones that suggest we may be having some success in our struggle for a culture of peace; and signposts that will provide us with direction on the path to a peaceful future.

    By the time of the first Hague Conference there were over four hundred peace societies – the growth, development, sophistication of which, since then, I see as the most significant and most important progression on the road to peace.One hundred years later Cora Weiss, President of 1999 Hague Appeal for Peace managed to bring to The Hague, over 8,000 people from around the globe, representing many different organizations concerned with the need, and working in different areas, for peace.This is the future of civil society.

    The 1899 Hague Peace Conference emerged at the end – and because of – a war-torn century- at that time the worst in history.There are several views on the reason for the meeting in the Hague in 1899 and I think two of them, inconsistent though they are, provide a telling argument for the complexities in which we find ourselves, with regard to the peoples-of-the-world’s longing for peace.

    One view, expressed by Judge Weeramantry, a highly regarded former judge, and Vice-President, of the International Court of Justice, is that the world was sickened by the fact that during the 19th Century, the horrors of war had caused human suffering on a scale at that time unprecedented in history: new levels of efficiency had been achieved “in the regimentation of resources for the slaughter of enemy populations.”In response to the outcry and call for peace, the Czar of Russia, according to Judge Weeramantry, took the initiative, and the Great Powers met in The Hague and(I’ll quote him) “made plans to lead humanity to a golden future free of the scourge of war [and] went further along the path to establishing a machinery for global justice than any other conference in recorded history.”However, we have to acknowledge the abysmal failure of this dream with over eight-and-a-half million people killed less than twenty years later. (Weeramantry, 10)

    Another view, and equally valid, voiced by Geoffrey Robertson, a well respected international lawyer and Queen’s Counsel, specializing in human rights, is that the Great Powers met in The Hague in 1899 and 1907, and prior to that in St. Petersburg, with the aim of reducing “the cost of killing soldiers in wars.”The major powers, he says, met out of concern about the cost of new weaponry, and agreed on limits “on the development of poison gases and explosive ‘dum-dum bullets.”According to him, these rules “came to be dressed up in the language of humanity… due to the influence of the International Committee of the Red Cross”.However, the intention of the founder of the Red Cross, who was “horrified by the carnage left on the European battlefields”, according to Robertson, was, not to end war, but merely “to make these wars more humane for injured soldiers and prisoners.” (Robertson, 15).

    This marked the emergence of International Humanitarian Law which is one of the milestones on the road to a culture of peace.Humanitarian law, though, is war law – it imposes legal restraints on the warrior, the methods of killing.The modern rules governing the conduct of warriors which include rules on who and what can be targeted,”are now collected in the four Geneva Conventions.”However, according to Robertson “after a century of arms control efforts, commencing in 1899 with a peace conference in The Hague at which twenty-six nations debated whether to use dum-dum bullets, ends with 50 million Kalashnikov rifles in circulation and with no international rule preventing the use – let alone the development – of nuclear weapons.” (Robertson, 173, 167).

    The development of International Law, even though still in its formative stages and relying “upon equity, ethics, and the moral sense of mankind to nourish its developing principles,” can be considered a series of milestones or perhaps paving stones – because they create a legal ground, a code of conduct – on the road to peace.However, the problem with International Law is that it develops after the fact, after the atrocity, after the war, and we are reaching the point where such retrospective remedies become increasingly futile. (Weeramantry, 5)

    Most – if not all (perhaps all) – of the decisive actions and the creation of major global institutions concerned with freedom, justice and human dignity – peace – have arisen – like the phoenix – from the ashes of war, of death, of abominable acts of destruction.The League of Nations and the International Court of Justice emerged as a response to the horrors of the First World War. These two institutions, however, did not concern themselves with human dignity per se, for the League of Nations was created for developing and keeping peace between states. The International Court Justice has jurisdiction only over consenting states party to the Statute of the ICJ.Individuals had to wait for another war before their interests, the interests of the members of civil society were taken into account.

    Their time came with the birth of the United Nations – the response to the carnage of the Second World War and it is important to state, the evils, the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis. This was in the minds of the drafters – and resonates in – the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.This is tremendous victory- another milestone – for human dignity, for global security, for a culture of peace.One of the Charter’s primary purposes-“respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms” – owes its prominent position to “last-minute pressure” from American non-governmental organizations on the American officials at the meetings in San Francisco in June, 1945. (Robertson, 32)

    Unfortunately for peace and human security, the power in the United Nations was – and is – vested in the victors of World War Two who became the five permanent members of the Security Council – the P-5 they are called – each with the power of veto.They are also the nuclear powers, and regrettably, hold the world in some kind of hostage.

    Another development from the Second World War – is The Nuremberg Charter, the response to the absolute horror at the unbelievably evil crimes of Hitler.This was another momentous step forward – another milestone – on the road to peace.Though there were earlier laws, piracy and anti-slavery which could be considered “crimes against humanity”, Nuremberg was the huge step forward for International Law.It changed, clarified and developed the concept of “crimes against humanity.”For the first time individual rights took precedence over sovereign rights and individuals who committed crimes against humanity on behalf of the states they represented were deemed responsible for the crime.Moreover, these states themselves were under a continuing obligation to institute legal proceedings and punish them for their crimes.If they failed to do so another state or the international community had the right to bring them to justice.

    Following the Nuremberg Judgements – almost fifty years later, however – two Criminal Courts were established on an ad hoc basis to punish crimes against humanity: the Hague Tribunal to prosecute the crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia and the Arusha Tribunal for crimes committed in Rwanda.And recently, in Rome, a treaty was drafted and up for ratification which will establish a permanent International Criminal Court.These must be seen as victories for peace – as milestones. However, it must be emphasized that crimes against humanity have been selectively punished according to the will of the United Nations Security Council.None of the victors have been put on trial for the razing, the carpet bombing, of Dresden and Berlin; for the firebombing of Tokyo, for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to say nothing of crimes against humanity committed in Vietnam.

    Moreover, the Rwanda massacre and the East Timor devastation could have been prevented but for UN Security Council’s -and above all the United States’ refusal to act.You will recall Stephen Lewis’s piercing indictment of U.S. Secretary of State, Madeline Albright).My dream is that someday justice will be elevated to a realm above state interest, because to the detriment of justice, International Law is subservient to states parties to the Treaty; and the United Nations is a convenient tool, governed by the power relations in the Security Council.

    The latest victory for justice and human dignity was the Pinochet judgement which brought the crimes against humanity out of the zone of war and into the realm of “peace” – “peace” in the sense that it was not conflict between states. This would never have happened if, according to Robertson, Pinochet had decided to take tea with Henry Kissinger rather than Margaret Thatcher because the United States, which is a friend of Chile, would have issued Pinochet with a “suggestion for immunity”.In Robertston’s view credit it due to the British Government which allowed the law to take its course and to the English judges who, to quote him, “with an almost touching naiveté, took the Torture Convention to mean what it said.” [“With uncanny, uncynical decency, they proceeded to hoist the old torturer on his own petard”] (Robertson, 396,397)

    These are some of the milestones and signposts on the road to peace. But it seems to me that is atrocious and unjust that human beings are forced to carve their steps for peace out of, in reaction to acts of war and violence. There has to be some way to plant the seeds of a humane, just world in healthy soil rather than in the killing fields.

    Many or most of the actions to create a just world order, a culture of peace – and this is my most important point – a signpost – have come about because of the involvement and actions of civil society, of dedicated individual and groups.

    One of the most hopeful signs towards a culture of peace is the rapid growth of civil movements, of people and groups who are determined – to paraphrase a section of an Amnesty International call to action – to not “be part of the killing silence.”And another, for which we give thanks, is the accelerated development and expansion of communications technology, creating global networks which link non-governmental organizations around the world.Amnesty International, for example, has over one million members world-wide and there are 900 other non-governmental organizations defending and promoting human rights and hundreds and hundreds of others focusing in others facets of peace and justice, nuclear abolition, anti-war, health, education, environment, development and so on.

    A system parallel to the United Nations has grown up outside, alongside and synchronous with it – and often slightly ahead because these non-governmental organizations are not governed by power and politics. Their concern is respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.It is this moral force, which perhaps idealistically and naively, takes seriously the moral and ethical imperatives of the United Nations Charter and brings pressure to bear on the member states to act in the spirit of the Charter and to live up to their obligations under the various treaties, signed by them under the auspices of the United Nations.

    These non-governmental organizations are host to a wealth of knowledge, expertize, experience, energy and a principled value-oriented, ethical commitment.Their members come from many walks of life – some are lawyers, medical doctors, academic experts, former military officials, diplomats, weapons scientists and arms control negotiators; and religious and spiritual leaders who remind us of the dignity of the human, and of our responsibility for all life.

    Non-governmental organizations have created powerful global networks for information gathering and dissemination which have proven to be valuable to governments. Civil society has always played an important role in fact-finding, in the verification of information through the intelligence networks they have built.Citizen’s groups also focus attention on the issues and mobilize public opinion.

    When we look to past successes in our struggle for a humane world, the actions of members of civil society have played an immense role in the development of International Law.One of the most significant was the abolition of slavery; another was the concern articulated by the founder of the International Red Cross and supported by the outcry from the four hundred peace societies referred to earlier, which gave birth humanitarian law, albeit for war; there were the American non-governmental organizations (American Jewish Congress and the NAACP) whose pressure attained the primacy of “respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms” in the UN Charter.And Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch can take credit for most of the achievements in human rights law.

    The most significant action taken by civil society – in that it broke new ground by achieving its goal by linking with government- is the World Court Project.This project was initiated by a small group of individuals, who addressed themselves to the question of how to have the International Court of Justice, whose jurisdiction is based on consent, give an opinion on whether or not nuclear weapons, or the threat of nuclear weapons constitute a threat to humanity, a crime against humanity.This became a world-wide citizen movement which sought partnership with the World Health Organization and then because the Court refused the World Health Organization jurisdiction, with the government of Costa Rica.

    Building on a global coalition of citizens, the Canadian government, in 1997, forged a civil society/government partnership, to ban landmines which resulted in the Ottawa Process, a Landmines Treaty which the US, China and Russia, all UN Security Council members have, so far, refused to sign.

    The recent Treaty to establish an International Criminal Court is another important success-story for civil society and a step towards a culture of peace.Pressure from citizen groups, concerned with human rights, on their governments around the world resulted in its creation in Rome in 1998.

    Citizens protests against globalization at the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle and again recently in Washington at the World Bank/International Monetary Fund meetings are perhaps harbingers of change to address the global economic disparities caused by the unregulated activity of multinational corporations and the global currency markets.

    The nuclear abolition movement is undergoing a renaissance now that the Cold War is over, a Second Nuclear Age has set in, and new nuclear dangers are threatening the peace and security of the people of the world.The Canadian government, reacting to pressure from citizens’ groups, has in a small way attempted to create a civil society government partnership by establishing annual NGO/government consultations on the nuclear issue.It also included two NGO representatives on its delegation to the 2000 NPT Review Conference.At the conference Canada proposed the participation of accredited NGOs expert in this field.However, this was not acceptable to the majority of states.All that came out of the proposal was agreement that one formal meeting will be held between delegates and NGOs at which NGOs would make presentations to the delegates.This was mere formalization of a process that was already taking place.

    The United Nations conferences – Habitat, The Earth Summit, Women’s Conference in Beijing – which though excluding citizens from decision-making forum, gave the people the opportunity to mass in large numbers, network, create coalitions, bring the issues to the attention of the world’s public and create the ground for change in the interest of human beings.If Kofi Annan’s proposal for a Conference on Nuclear Dangers becomes a reality, then we will have the opportunity again to carve out a path towards a global peace.

    To me, the growth of civil movements, and evidence that they are going on the offensive, that their power is growing and they are demanding action and enforcement, is the most significant process, the most significant signpost directing us to the future – in the movement towards a culture for peace.

    We, the people, have to accept that we are responsible for all life, to create a world worth living in. We cannot trust our destiny to government nor can we trust diplomatic solutions.They are not just – they are all about sovereign power relations, statecraft.International Law is dependent on the will of states and subservient to States interests.An example of this is one I spoke about with regard to Pinochet’s bad decision to travel to England for his health problems, rather than the United States which would not have allowed the law to take its course. It is some comfort that the courts of Chile have stripped him of his immunity.Future perpetrators of crimes against humanity will perhaps hesitate, and current ones will perhaps tremble a little.

    I was outraged when I read that the US signed the 1977 Geneva Protocols on Genocide with a reservation that this did not apply to nuclear weapons; I feel angry that US will not sign the Landmines Treaty because it wants to continue to use them and their cluster bombs; and that China will not sign the Treaty to the International Criminal Court because of, it is suspected, its massacre in Tianamen Square.The U.S. will not sign it because it fears that its soldiers will be indicted.Recently, France, in an outright violation of justice for humanity, signed the International Criminal Court Convention with a reservation which will allow it to commit nuclear genocide with impunity.

    The U.S. prepares itself for a Third World War with tremendous investments in high-technological super weapons and the weaponization of space, and threatens world peace and stability with its proposed National Missile Defence System and potential abrogation of the ABM Treaty, its failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the resurgence of its nuclear doctrine as strategic to its defence policy and to NATO policy which has caused Russia to give new importance to nuclear weapons.All these actions have the potential to start a new arms race.

    There are some countersigns at the political and diplomatic levels – in the service of peace – for example, there is more emphasis on preventative diplomacy and conflict resolution; the UN has a peacekeeping force which, however, is merely operative to keep the peace once the mechanisms are established.Some governments, to name Canada for one, in the person of its Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lloyd Axworthy, are attempting to affect a transformation from the military security concept to one of human security and to concern themselves with issues of the effects of war on children, on women and children in armed conflict, child soldiers, landmines and so on.However, I do not think that they are attempting to ameliorate, in a real way, global economic disparities, poverty, famine, health, education, environmental degradation which perhaps would address the root causes of war.

    The real signs for peace come from civil society, to the thousands of activities undertaken in the striving for peace – the paving stones – of hundreds of thousands of individuals around the world. In political circles these would be called Track II activities – you, the teachers of global education, for example, imparting tools for a sustainable future, peace education, conflict resolution and so on – grounding our young people in ethically based knowledge and practices.There is also a minor revolution taking place in alternate technologies, small scale economic and development activities, though these are in no way a counterweight to the massive technological developments.

    These activities are taking place in the shadow of death, because the peace we are attempting to create today is more the outcome of fear of our demise from either ecological devastation or from death from weapons of mass destruction.Peace comes to be a mandatory goal, the only possible route for the continued existence of the human species.These thousands of civil initiatives may be the ones that will help us turn back from the wrong road we have taken – to recover an image of human good, of, borrowing from Murray Bookchin, “complementarity” in Nature, “complementarity” in relations between peoples, respect for “Other.”

    There are two events which haunt me and which I believe in the long run provide a key to a more humane, a more just, a peaceful world.The first one is Charter 77.Charter 77 was not only a document, but also a human rights movement, in communist Czechoslovakia.In 1975 Czechoslovakia signed the Helsinki Articles, two Covenants on Human Rights.The signatories – initially three, Vaclav Havel, Jan Patocka and Jiri Hajek -announced that they would Live in Truth, that is to say live as though the government of Czechoslovakia honoured the treaty it had signed.In actual fact the Treaty was specifically non-binding so that the United States could then sign it without Senate consent, and also because it suited Russia’s purposes.Nevertheless, the signatories took this declaration at its face value, and acted as though the state of Czechoslovakia was honouring the treaty.Their action, though politically and physically dangerous (in Jan Patocka died after an extremely gruelling interrogation) proved to be extremely powerful in gaining international attention, in gathering international supporters, who pressured governments and ultimately pressure was applied on Czechoslovakia.

    Fifteen years later, in 1992, Vaclav Havel as elected President of a democratic Czechoslovakia, in an address to the World Economic Forum, said that”Communism was not defeated by military force, but by life, by the human spirit, by conscience, by the resistance of Being and man to manipulation… This important message to the human race is coming at the 11th hour.”

    The other event I referred to earlier, was the British judges who naively accepted that the Torture Convention meant what it said.

    It is the people who have the moral authority, the moral courage, and the naiveté perhaps, the idealism – us – who have the greatest chance of creating a culture of peace.To quote Mahatma Gandhi: “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”

    Thank you very much.

    Jennifer Allen Simons, Ph.D.
    The Simons Foundation
    August 11th, 2000