Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: International Issues

  • India’s Nuclear Testing is a Wake-up Call to the World

    India’s nuclear tests are a wake-up call to the world, and particularly to the nuclear weapons states. The meeting of the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in Geneva, which concluded on May 8th, attracted near zero press attention and achieved near zero results. It was virtually a non-event. On the other hand, India’s tests three days later immediately got the world’s attention.

    The message of India’s tests is that we can have a world in which many countries have nuclear weapons or a world in which no countries have nuclear weapons, but we will not have a world in which only the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Israel retain nuclear weapons in perpetuity. India has long argued that it is unwilling to give up its nuclear weapons option so long as the current nuclear weapons states fail to make a commitment to eliminate their nuclear arsenals within a timebound framework. The Indians underlined this position in 1996 when they refused to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

    Following their recent nuclear tests, however, the Indians have offered to sign the CTBT, but only if the nuclear weapons states agree to eliminate their nuclear arsenals within a timebound framework and cease all subcritical and laboratory nuclear weapons testing. The Indian position is reasonable. They are calling for a world in which no state, including themselves, has nuclear weapons.

    What is not reasonable is the way in which the nuclear weapons states and their allies have treated India’s position as non-negotiable. The nuclear weapons states have consistently failed to this day to show the good faith in seeking nuclear disarmament that they promised in 1968 in Article VI of the NPT.

    Ironically, the only nuclear weapons state to consistently call for nuclear weapons abolition is China, but it, too, has been rebuffed by the other nuclear weapons states. It is ironic because India’s testing was, at least in part, a response to China’s possession and improvement of its nuclear arsenal.

    Despite their promises in 1995 for the determined pursuit of systematic and progressive efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament, the nuclear weapons states have been largely impeding nuclear disarmament. If they are serious about stopping India, Pakistan and other states from becoming full fledged nuclear powers, they had better reverse their course of action and begin serious and good faith negotiations to rid the world of nuclear arms. This is the only course of action with a chance of success to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation.

    The knee-jerk reaction of the U.S., Japan and other industrialized states to impose economic sanctions on India will not stop the Indians from developing a nuclear arsenal. It will only result in greater hostility in a world divided not only between rich and poor, but also between nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.”

    India’s testing is not only an Indian problem. It is a problem of the international system that leads the country of Gandhi to follow a nuclear weapons path. There is only one way out of the dilemma, and that is a commitment by all nuclear weapons states SQ now including India SQ to the abolition of their nuclear arsenals. According to a 1996 unanimous opinion of the International Court of Justice, the complete elimination of their nuclear arsenals is the legal obligation of the nuclear weapons states under international law.

    Nuclear weapons abolition is also the solution called for by military and civilian leaders and citizen action groups throughout the world. The Abolition 2000 Statement of over 1000 citizens organizations around the world calls upon the nuclear weapons states to “Initiate immediately and conclude by the year 2000 negotiations on a nuclear weapons abolition convention that requires the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.”

    In crisis there is opportunity. If India’s nuclear tests lead to sufficient pressure on the nuclear weapons states to reverse their course and become serious about ending the nuclear weapons era, we may still be able to enter the 21st century with a treaty in place to accomplish this goal. If the nuclear weapons states hold firm to their present positions, however, India may be only the first of many states to become new members in the nuclear weapons club.

  • India Press Statement

    As announced by the Prime Minister this afternoon, today India conducted three underground nuclear tests in the Pokhran range. The tests conducted today were with a fission device, a low yield device and a thermonuclear device. The measured yields are in line with expected values. Measurement have also confirmed that there was no release of radioactivity into the atmosphere. These were contained explosions like the experiment conducted in May 1974.

    These tests have established that India has a proven capability for a weaponised nuclear programme. They also provide a valuable database which is useful in the design of nuclear weapons of different yields for different applications and for different delivery systems. Further, they are expected to carry Indian scientists towards a sound computer simulation capability which may be supported by sub-critical experiments, if considered necessary.

    The Government is deeply concerned, as were previous Governments, about the nuclear environment in India’s neighbourhood. These tests provide reassurance to the people of India that their national security interests are paramount and will be promoted and protected. Succeeding generations of Indians would also rest assured that contemporary technologies associated with nuclear option have been passed on to them in this the 50th year of our independence.

    It is necessary to highlight today that India was in the vanguard of nations which ushered in the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963 due to environmental concerns. Indian representatives have worked in various international forums, including the Conference on Disarmament for universal, non-discriminatory and verifiable arrangements for the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. The Government would like to reiterate its support to efforts to realise the goal of a truly comprehensive international arrangement which would prohibit underground nuclear testing of all weapons as well as related experiments described as ‘sub-critical’ or ‘hydronuclear.’

    India would be prepared to consider being an adherent to some of the undertakings in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. But this cannot obviously be done in a vacuum. It would necessarily be an evolutionary process from concept to commitment and would depend on a number of reciprocal activities.

    We would like to reaffirm categorically that we will continue to exercise the most stringent control on the export of sensitive technologies, equipment and commodities – especially those related to weapons of mass destruction. Our track record has been impeccable in this regard. Therefore we expect recognition of our responsible policy by the international community.

    India remains committed to a speedy process of nuclear disarmament leading to total and global elimination of nuclear weapons. Our adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention is evidence of our commitment to any global disarmament regime which is non-discriminatory and verifiable. We shall also be happy to participate in the negotiations for the conclusion of a fissile material cut-off treaty in the Geneva based Conference on Disarmament.

    In our neighbourhood we have many friends with whom relations of fruitful cooperation for mutual benefit have existed and deepened over a long period. We assure them that it will be our sincere endeavour to intensify and diversify those relations further for the benefit of all our peoples. For India, as for others, the prime need is for peaceful cooperation and economic development.

     

  • Statement of the Foreign Minister of Pakistan

    The news of resumption of nuclear testing by India has not come as a surprise to us. For the past 24 years, Pakistan had consistently drawn the attention of the international community to India’s nuclear aspirations. the duplicity surrounding India’s political pronouncements and its clandestine nuclear weapons programme was also pointed out. The Prime Minister of Pakistan had recently drawn the attention of the international community particularly states permanent members of the United Nations Security Council regarding Indian plans to induct nuclear weapons.

    Pakistan’s repeated reminders to the international community particularly to the leaders of the states permanent members of the Security Council unfortunately did not receive attention that they merited.

    The international community has, in fact, by adopting a dismissive approach encouraged India to achieve its nuclear aspirations.

    The responsibility for dealing a death blow to the global efforts at nuclear non-proliferation rests squarely with India.

    Pakistan reserves the right to take all appropriate measures for its security.

    The Prime Minister has assured the people of Pakistan that Pakistan defence would be made impregnable against any Indian threat be it nuclear or conventional.

     

  • NATO Expansion

    To the U.S. Senate

    We believe that NATO expansion is a serious mistake. In this post-Cold War period, we should concentrate on reducing Russia’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, ensuring that her warheads and nuclear materials are secure from diversion, and bringing Russia into the Western family of democratic nations. As you know, Russia has delayed ratification of the START II Treaty because of NATO expansion. Further, the tensions raised by expanding NATO towards Russia’s borders can only make more difficult our critical effort to ensure her stockpile of nuclear warheads do not fall into the hands of terrorists or rogue regimes.

    We lament that, after the expensive and dangerous Cold War, we seem to take rather cavalierly the opportunity at long last to build a friendship with Russia. Surely, moving NATO right up to Poland’s border with the Russian province of Kaliningrad cannot be taken as an act of friendship, however we might dress it up with rhetoric. Admitting the Baltics, who share long borders with Russia, will make matters even worse.

    The Administration has stated repeatedly the first round “will not be the last.” Thus, this first vote is not simply about Poland Hungary and the Czech Republic. It is as much about Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia and the several others whose expectations have been raised. How can we admit some and exclude others without creating instability and tensions? Indeed, how can there be stability if Russia is destabilized by expansion?

    We share the goal of a stable Europe, but suggest that it would be far better to address the needs of Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltics by opening the markets of Western Europe to them and by pressing our allies to admit them to the European Union, an organization much better suited to nation-building than a military alliance.

    Signed by former Republican Senators

    Jim Abdnor of South Dakota
    Edward Brooke of Massachusetts
    Dick Clark of Iowa
    John Culver of Iowa
    Mark Hatfield of Oregon
    Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire
    Roger W. Jepsen of Iowa
    Mack Mattingly of Georgia.

    Signed by former Democratic Senators

    Thomas Eagleton of Missouri
    Gary Hart of Colorado
    John Melcher of Montana
    George McGovern of South Dakota
    Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin
    Sam Nann of Georgia
    Adlai Stevenson of Illinois
    Harrison Williams of New Jersey.

  • Question and Answer Session at the National Press Club Newsmakers Luncheon with General Lee Butler

    USAF, (ret.), Commander-in-Chief, United States Strategic Air Command (1991-92); Commander-in-Chief, United States Strategic Command (1992-94)

    DOUG HARBRECHT (Moderator. National Press Club president and Washington news editor of Business Week): (Brief audio break) – [Do you think the U.S. should consider using nuclear weapons in] Iraq or in response to any chemical or biological weapon threat?

    GEN. BUTLER: At the risk of reiterating something I just said, I think it’s worth reiterating perhaps in a slightly different context. I had the opportunity to go through this calculus. When I was the director of strategic plans and policy in the 1989 to ’91 time frame, it was my direct responsibility to draw up the strategic objectives of our prospective war in the Persian Gulf, to imagine outcomes and to set war termination objectives.

    At the very heart of that calculus was to imagine the prospect of using nuclear weapons. And I would point out to those of you here who might have read Colin Powell’s memoirs that he goes through this himself in the latter stages of his book, because he was asked to imagine the kinds of targets in the Persian Gulf that might be struck with nuclear weapons. I share his reservations absolutely.

    The first issue, of course, is the one that I posed in my remarks. If we rightfully abhor and condemn the resort to the use of a weapon of mass destruction, how is it we could possibly justify — we, the United States, a democratic society — ourselves steeping to such ends?

    Number two, can you imagine the impact in a part of the world where we worked so assiduously for so many years to build our presence, to build support and credibility, of being the nation that used a nuclear weapon against Arab peoples? Only the second time in history that such a device had been used, and it would be the United States, and it would be in a part of the world where even today those actions raise powerful suspicions.

    Secondly, what would — thirdly, what would have happened to the coalition? How painstakingly we worked to put together a coalition of some 30 nations from very disparate points on the ideological and cultural compass in order to provide the proper underpinnings of the international community for that war. Can you imagine the impact on that coalition if we, the United States, had used a nuclear weapon, even in response to the use of a weapon of mass destruction by the Iraqis? It would have been devastating.

    There’s the question of targets. If you were the target planner for the use of a nuclear weapon in the Persian Gulf, what would be your choice? Surely it would not be the city of Baghdad. Would you hold hundreds of thousands of people accountable for the acts of their leader? Would it be an Iraqi division in the far western reaches of that nation? You might be interested to know the calculation of how many tactical nuclear weapons it requires to bring even one division to its knees when it’s spread over such a vast expanse.

    What would have happened to the fallout from the blast? If you want to do maximum damage, you use a (surface aspirant?). How is it that the fallout patterns would have arrayed themselves beyond the borders of Iraq, perhaps even to the south if the wind had been blowing in that direction?

    The real point of the exercise is that the United States has put itself happily in a position where it has no need to resort to weapons of mass destruction to respond to such provocation. We brought Iraq to its knees conventionally. We could have decimated that country. We could have occupied it as we did Japan and Germany at the end of World War II. We chose not to do that, but it was within our capacity to do so. And if we could do that in 1991, when they had the fourth-strongest army in the world and a significant air force, can you imagine the task today when we’ve reduced all of that by at least two-thirds? It is wrong from every aspect. It is wrong politically. It makes no sense militarily. And morally, in my view, it is indefensible.

    MR. HARBRECHT: General, what happens to an officer — (applause). What happens to an officer who breaks, as you have, from the orthodoxy of our military? Is the military changing in this respect?

    GEN. BUTLER: It is, of course, very difficult and probably presumptuous in the extreme to answer on behalf of something called the military. And so I won’t pretend to do that. But I think that I can speak to it from this regard.

    It has been very gratifying over the last two years to receive countless phone calls and letters from colleagues who were on active duty with me, now retired, or who continue to serve, who support the arguments that I have tried to make, who believe, as I do, that it was near-miraculous that we escaped the Cold War without a nuclear holocaust, and that our number one foreign policy and national security priority should be the normalization of relations with the former Soviet Union and to walk back from the abyss that we created by the amassing of nuclear weapons in the tens of thousands.

    And, so, no, I would not pretend to speak for the military. And with regard to what happens, it’s also gratifying to have the comfort and to experience the fact that we live in a country where people can express their views freely. And while some, many, might take exception to them, no one in my experience has yet but to do anything but to applaud the fact that we’re trying to bring this issue back to the forefront of policy discourse in this country.

    MR. HARBRECHT: Do you also believe that the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unnecessary or counterproductive?

    GEN. BUTLER: I don’t know. I don’t know. There are some historical eras into which I can put myself with some comfort; I’ve got the context right. But they’re really only those eras in which I actively participated. I was in uniform as an officer for 33 years. I understand that era very, very well.

    As an itinerant associate professor of political science, formerly with the Air Force Academy, and an historian, particularly a military historian, I have some understanding of the challenges that were faced by political leaders and military forces in early eras.

    It’s very difficult for me yet to recreate in my own mind the intensity of the period in which that decision was made by the president of the United States. And as I said in my speech, my purpose is not to accuse but to assess. It’s to try to understand the lessons that might be drawn from that. It’s to try and understand the consequences of having dropped atomic devices on Japan.

    At the time and today, we still believe that we spared the lives of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million U.S. and allied soldiers. But at the same time, we took the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. And now we have the opportunity, thank God, to step back, to pause and reflect on that in a different political, military and moral climate. And that’s what I’m trying to do. So I can’t make that judgment, but I certainly can try and draw my own observations.

    MR. HARBRECHT: General, it’s widely believed that Israel not only possesses nuclear weapons but would use them if its survival depended upon them. Is Israel’s reliance on its nuclear weapons in the dangerous Middle East ill-advised?

    GEN. BUTLER: I think that it is a perfect illustration of the short-sightedness that tends to surround this issue of whether or not nations should acquire nuclear capability. What was it that prompted Iraq to try and acquire weapons of mass destruction, a nuclear weapon arsenal of their own? Could it have in any way been tied to the fact that Israel acquired such capability? And what of Syria or Iran? What of Libya?

    These things have causes and they have effects. They’re related. The circumstances in which nuclear weapons capability is created and sustained aren’t static. As a consequence, in my view, it is dangerous in the extreme that in the cauldron of animosities that we call the Middle East, one nation has armed itself, ostensibly, with stockpiles of nuclear weapons, perhaps numbering in the hundreds, and that that inspires other nations to do so. And, of course, that’s not the only regional conflict where we see this perilous confrontation.

    I will tell you what I do think. I cannot imagine any regional quarrel or conflict that is or will be made easier to resolve by the presence of the further introduction of nuclear weapons.

    MR. HARBRECHT: What can be done to persuade an emerging superpower like China to give up nuclear weapons? Would such a decision have to wait for the emergence of democracy in China?

    GEN. BUTLER: There’s a story, perhaps apocryphal, but it’s been in the literature for many years, as to why it was that the Chinese acquired nuclear weapons capability. The story goes that it was proposed to Mao and he said, “Why should I do this?” And he was told, “Well, other nations have them.” And his answer purportedly was, “Well, I guess we should have some.”

    If you look at the Chinese nuclear arsenal, it is far from modern. Their forces are not on alert. They’re struggling to bring up its safety and surity characteristics. China has avowed time and again that they are a no-first-use nation and that they are strongly on record in favor of nuclear abolition. I don’t know what it would take to persuade China to abandon their nuclear arsenals, but I am comforted by what they say.

    I believe that the keys to creating a climate in which the Chinas of the world — Great Britain, France, the non-declared states — are willing to join in a serious-minded, forthright and concrete series of commitments and steps to move steadfastly toward the abolition of nuclear weapons is for the United States and Russia to take the lead.

    I believe that we are missing priceless opportunities in what is perhaps a perishable window of opportunity to move forward much more swiftly and boldly in getting our forces off alert, bringing tactical nuclear weapons home from Europe, declaring no-first-use policies, and most importantly, reaching out to our friends in Russia and making the decision that it is time to get on with concrete measures for much more severe cuts in nuclear stockpiles than we’ve been willing to acknowledge to date.

    It is, in my view, a sad commentary on the current state of thinking on this issue that we are comfortable with a goal for reductions that would still have 3,500 operational nuclear weapons on alert 10 years from now. It is a dismal commentary on the current state of thinking that we still believe that distant nuclear arsenals that measure in the hundreds is a low number.

    It is time for the United States to act much more boldly and with stronger leadership with respect to getting on with getting the nuclear era to a close.

    MR. HARBRECHT: General, do you ever feel any guilt for having been so integral a part of building the nuclear machine? Shouldn’t you have spoken up earlier?

    GEN. BUTLER: Well, this isn’t about guilt. This is about understanding. This is about reflection. I talked with Bob McNamara about this subject. He took a lot of heat when he published his recent book, “Vietnam.” And Bob may, in fact, be here today. I told him forthrightly that as a veteran of Vietnam, I was anguished by some of what he said. I felt like that perhaps he hadn’t shown enough guilt.

    And he said to me, “Lee, we were who we were and we were where we were.” He said, “I can’t change any of that.” He said, “But what I can do is to try and think through and make public and help others to understand the judgments and the pressures and the outcomes and how I see them now, not in order to assess blame, but in the hope that future generations of policymakers can read those lessons and not make the same mistakes.” That’s all. I’m trying to do here. (Applause.)

  • Thirteen Million Voices for Abolishing Nuclear Arms

    More than thirteen million Japanese citizens have signed a petition calling for the abolition of the world’s nuclear arsenals in what may be the greatest outpouring of support ever for creating a nuclear weapons free world. The petition is part of a global campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons called Abolition 2000, an international network of over 900 citizen action groups in 74 countries.

    The signatures in Japan were collected in just three months, from November 1997 to January 1998, by members of the Soka Gakkai, a Japanese Buddhist organization long active on disarmament issues. On February 21, 1998, at a ceremony at the Memorial Hall of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the signatures will be presented to David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a leader in the Abolition 2000 campaign. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is the International Contact for the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons.

    “These signatures represent voices of the common people, people in Japan who know the devastation caused by nuclear weapons,” said Krieger. “The people are tired of waiting, they are tired of excuses. The Cold War is long over, and they want an end to the nuclear threat. They understand that the only way to do this is to eliminate nuclear weapons. They are sending a message to the rest of the world, and particularly to the leaders of the nuclear weapons states.”

    According to Krieger, notice of the petition campaign will be provided to the leaders of all nuclear weapons states, and to delegates to the Preparatory Committee meeting of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference which will take place in Geneva from April 27 through May 8, 1998. Krieger also said that plans are being made to pass the 13 million signatures supporting Abolition 2000 to Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, and to Jayantha Dhanapala, the newly appointed UN Under-Secretary General for Disarmament.

    “The nuclear weapons states are currently stalled in efforts to fulfill their promise in the Non-Proliferation Treaty to eliminate their nuclear arsenals,” said Krieger. “We are hopeful that these 13 million plus voices for nuclear weapons abolition will get them moving. There are still some 36,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and the only number that makes sense for humanity is zero.”

    The Abolition 2000 International Petition calls for ending the nuclear weapons threat, signing an international treaty by the year 2000 to eliminate nuclear weapons within a fixed time period, and reallocating resources from military purposes to meeting human needs and assuring a sustainable future.

    Petition drives are continuing in Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Netherlands, United Kingdom, the United States and other countries. The petition can be signed on the Worldwide Web at www.wagingpeace.org.

  • Security and Sustainability in a Nuclear Weapons Free World

    There is a danger that the contemplation of security and sustainability in a nuclear weapons free world will imply to some readers that nuclear weapons have in some way provided security and even sustainability. It is not my intention to imply this. I believe that nuclear weapons have never at any time provided security for their possessors, and that they make no contribution to sustainability.

    The world that we currently live in — a world divided between a small number of states possessing nuclear weapons and a large number of states that do not — is neither secure nor sustainable. If nuclear weapons in fact provided security, logic would suggest that an effort be made to spread these weapons to other states. In fact, the opposite viewpoint has prevailed. Most states, including those currently in possession of nuclear weapons, support policies of non-proliferation.

    The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which has been in force since 1970, requires a trade-off from the nuclear weapons states. In exchange for the non-nuclear weapons states agreeing not to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapons states agreed in Article VI to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament. When the NPT was extended indefinitely in 1995, the nuclear weapons states promised the determined pursuit of “systematic and progressive efforts” to achieve nuclear disarmament.

    The failure of the nuclear weapons states to make significant progress toward nuclear disarmament may result in undermining the NPT, and in the proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional states beyond the five declared and three undeclared nuclear weapons states. Such proliferation would further bolster the insecurity and unsustainability of the current international system.

    Security

    Security has two critical dimensions: protection from physical harm, and access to resources to meet basic needs. It also has a third dimension, an illusory psychological dimension, that operates at the level of belief systems. Nuclear arsenals do not provide security from physical harm. The only security they provide is in this psychological dimension, rooted in a belief in the efficacy of deterrence. The threat of retaliation with nuclear weapons is not physical protection; the protection provided is only psychological. An opponent’s fear of retaliation may or may not prevent that opponent from launching a nuclear attack based upon irrationality, faulty information, human error, or mechanical or computer malfunction.

    A world without nuclear weapons would be one in which the threat of cataclysmic nuclear holocaust would be removed. Achieving such a world will require careful planning to assure that some states do not secretly retain nuclear weapons or clandestinely reassemble them. As states reduce their nuclear arsenals toward zero, an agreed upon plan will be required to assure transparency, accurate accounting of nuclear weapons and weapons-grade materials, effective procedures for verification of dismantlement and the controlled and safeguarded immobilization of nuclear materials and the production facilities to create them. The process of reducing nuclear arsenals to zero will be challenging both technically and politically, but it is a challenge that can be accomplished with determination and political will.

    The process of nuclear weapons abolition will demand the creation of stronger systems of international security. Thus, achieving abolition will, by the nature of the process, coincide with strengthened international security arrangements. In order to have a security system that assures maximum protection against physical harm and access to resources to meet basic needs, it will be necessary to go even further in system design than the elements required to maintain security in a world without nuclear weapons. The main components of this security system would be:

    • All states would be allowed to maintain only weapons for defence against territorial invasion, and no weapons with offensive capabilities.
    • Each state would be subject to regular and challenge inspections by international teams to assure that it is neither maintaining nor creating any offensive weapons systems, particularly weapons of mass destruction.
    • All states would be required to make periodic public reports of the types and numbers of weapons in their arsenals.
    • An International Criminal Court would be responsible for holding individual leaders responsible for the most serious crimes under international law (crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, and international aggression), and for violations of the conditions specified in points 1 to 3 above.
    • A United Nations Inspection Force would be created to conduct inspections and monitor states for violations of points 1 to 3 above.
    • The United Nations Security Council would be responsible for enforcement of points 1 to 3 above, for apprehending serious violators of international law, and for assuring cooperation with the United Nations Inspection Force.
    • The United Nations system — including the General Assembly, the World Bank, the UN Development Programme and other specialized agencies, and a UN Disaster Relief Force — would be charged with assuring that all peoples of all states have access to the necessary resources to meet their basic needs.

    Sustainability

    Sustainability is the protection of the resources required to meet basic needs for present and future generations, and the upholding of the quality of these resources. Sustainability requires environmental protection to ensure the quality of the air, the water, and the earth. It is no longer possible to ensure sustainability in any state anywhere in the world if all states do not cooperate in protecting the Earth’s resources and the common heritage of the planet — the atmosphere, the oceans and the land. Clean air and water and unpolluted topsoil to grow healthy crops must be maintained if we are to have a sustainable future.

    Over 1000 nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere and a roughly equal number of underground tests have already made a heavy assault upon the environment, as have thousands of tons of nuclear wastes, large quantities of which have already leaked into the earth, air and water. Sustainability will require not only a nuclear weapons free future, but a future in which nuclear wastes are also not generated by civilian nuclear reactors. Present and future generations are already burdened with enormous problems from the nuclear wastes created by both military and civilian nuclear reactors. Some of this waste will be a threat to life for tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of years.

    It is unfair to burden future generations with still more dangerous radioactive wastes. What has been produced to date has been the product of ignorance, arrogance, and blind faith, sadly, by some of the best minds of our time. Sustainability requires having an answer to the problem of dangerous wastes before they are produced rather than burdening future generations with these problems.

    Beginning the Process

    A world that is divided between nuclear “haves” and “have nots” is neither secure nor sustainable. Nuclear weapons pose a threat to humanity and to all forms of life. If they continue to be relied upon, at some point in the future they will again be used. It is a strong lesson of history that weapons once created will be used — as indeed nuclear weapons have already been used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    The challenge of the highest magnitude before humanity today is to ban forever these weapons which constitute such a serious threat to humanity’s future. The opportunity is before us with the Cold War ended. The nuclear weapons states have promised to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament. The International Court of Justice has stated its opinion that the nuclear weapons states are obligated to complete negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. In fulfilling this mandate, these states must consider the issues of security and sustainability in a nuclear weapons free world.

    A secure and sustainable world order without nuclear weapons is achievable. It cannot occur, however, so long as the nuclear weapons states are wedded to their nuclear arsenals. The first step in breaking their addiction is to begin negotiations in good faith to achieve their elimination. If they are to complete the journey, they must first begin and thus far serious negotiations to eliminate nuclear arsenals have not begun.

    An international consortium of lawyers, scientists and disarmament experts led by the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP) with technical assistance from the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP) has prepared a draft Nuclear Weapons Convention that has been introduced by Costa Rica to the United Nations General Assembly. This Convention — which draws upon previous international treaties including the Chemical Weapons Convention — provides indicators of the issues that the nuclear weapons states will have to resolve to achieve a treaty they can support. It provides a good starting point for the nuclear weapons states to begin the process of negotiations for abolishing their nuclear arsenals.

    What is missing now is the political will to begin the process. Many actions of the nuclear weapons states suggest that they are more interested in “systematic and progressive efforts” to impede rather than achieve nuclear disarmament. There is only one way that this can change, and that is by the people making their voices heard. When the people of the world understand the extent to which their security and a sustainable future for their children and grandchildren is threatened by the continued reliance of the governments of the nuclear weapons states upon nuclear arsenals, they will demand that the promises of nuclear disarmament be kept. It is our job to bring about that understanding.

  • Human Rights, Wrongs, and Responsibilities

    This is the 50th Anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document of vision and decency, which was proclaimed as a “common standard” for all humanity by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948. At its heart, this is a document about the equal and inalienable right of every person to live in dignity.

    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of the great documents of the 20th century. In fact, it is one of the great documents of all time. It gives voice to the common aspirations of all humanity to be treated fairly and justly. It includes civil and political rights, and also economic, social and cultural rights. It holds high the value and worth of each individual.

    Despite the importance of this document, however, it is not widely known or appreciated throughout much of the world. Very few Americans are familiar with the document, and fewer still have read it and know of its contents. This is a failure of our educational systems. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be at least as well known to Americans as our own Bill of Rights, which it surpasses in its comprehensiveness.

    No document, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, can solve the problems of humanity simply by its existence on paper. Far from it. Set down on paper, the Universal Declaration represents only the vision and hope of those who proclaimed it. To give life to the document, each generation must work actively and diligently to uphold its principles. To bring the Universal Declaration to life, each of us must work to uphold human rights and oppose human wrongs.

    This is what Mahatma Gandhi did in his nonviolent protests for an end to colonialism in India. This is what Martin Luther King, Jr. and the freedom riders and other civil rights activists did in putting their bodies on the line for equal rights for all citizens in the United States. This is what the mothers of the disappeared did in standing in silent protest in Argentina during its “dirty war.” This is what Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress did in their struggle against apartheid in South Africa. This is what Bishop Oscar Romero did in working for justice in El Salvador, and what Rigoberta Menchu Tum has done in Guatemala. This is what Aung San Suu Kyi and her followers do in Burma today.

    Upholding human rights and opposing human wrongs is the work of all who seek to provide food and shelter for the hungry and destitute, for all who seek justice, for all who seek an end to tyranny and oppression, for all who seek peace and an end to violence, for all who work to rid the world of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

    Human rights demand human responsibilities. The worst atrocities of the 20th century were committed by governments, often against their own people. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a response in part to the genocidal abuses which occurred during World War II. But genocide has not gone away in the latter half of this century. We have only to think of Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda.

    It is our responsibility to build an international community that is strong enough to prevent the commission of genocide from occurring ever again. A step in this direction was taken this past summer in Rome when delegates of more than 100 countries agreed to a treaty to establish an International Criminal Court. This court would hold accountable perpetrators of the most serious international crimes — genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. Unfortunately, once again, as with the Landmines Convention in 1997, the United States was not among the countries supporting this important step forward.

    The Fall 1998 issue of Waging Peace Worldwide includes comments on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Richard Falk, Frank Kelly, and Nelson Mandela. The winning essay in our Swackhamer Peace Essay Contest discusses “Human Rights and Responsibilities” is also included in this issue, as well as a proposal for a United Nations Volunteer Force by Tad Daley, comments on establishing an International Criminal Court by Kofi Annan and Benjamin Ferencz, and Senator Douglas Roche’s inaugural speech in the Canadian Senate.

     

  • Nuclear Weapons: The Global Dialogue

    Nuclear weapons, which might more appropriately be called “instruments of genocide,” are the ultimate weapons of mass annihilation. Global dialogue, on the other hand, is an engaged series of communications that seeks a deeper understanding and reconciliation of differences as well as peaceful solutions to conflicts affecting the international community. Nuclear weapons necessitate global dialogue.

    Throughout the Nuclear Age, most of the exchange on nuclear weapons within the nuclear weapons states has been insular, technical and restricted to an elite group of political, military, industrial and academic participants–hardly a dialogue. It has been restricted to what kind of nuclear weapons to create, how to deploy them, how they should be developed and tested, and how many are needed. This non-dialogue has taken place within national security establishments, generally behind closed doors, with little public involvement. The result has been the development of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, reliance on untestable theories of deterrence, and security policies with the crudeness and finality of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).

    Even in democratic societies such as the U.S., Britain and France, the public has never been offered a significant role in decisions on nuclear policy. The public has managed to intrude itself in the discourse only in extreme circumstances. One such circumstance occurred from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s when the public, with leadership from men like Albert Einstein, Linus Pauling, Bertrand Russell, and Albert Schweitzer, became justifiably worried about the health effects of the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Public protests of atmospheric testing in the U.S. and elsewhere led to the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting the testing of nuclear weapons in the oceans, the atmosphere and outer space.

    In the U.S., the public again entered the discourse on nuclear weapons issues in the early 1980s when Cold War rhetoric reached alarming levels. Ronald Reagan was referring to the Soviet Union as the “evil empire,” and dialogue between the leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union had all but vanished. Large numbers of people became active in a campaign to freeze nuclear arsenals as a first step towards nuclear disarmament. Civic and religious organizations throughout the nation added their voices in support of the freeze. On June 12, 1982 some one million people gathered in New York in support of the nuclear freeze movement.

    In the mid-1980s, when the nuclear freeze movement was active in the United States, Europeans were protesting the deployment of U.S. cruise and Pershing missiles on their territories. People throughout Europe feared that with the emplacement of these nuclear-armed missiles on their soil, Europe would become the primary battleground for a nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

    Each of these periods of public involvement opened the door to dialogue between the U.S. and Soviet governments on arms control issues. Unfortunately, the governments chose to take only small steps rather than significant strides. They ceased atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, but continued their testing underground. In doing so, they immediately reduced the environmental threat to humanity, but they failed to take the more important step of ending the nuclear arms race. The nuclear freeze movement led to a resumption of dialogue between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev, a leader with surprising vision, had become the head of the USSR. He and Ronald Reagan almost agreed to the elimination of their nuclear arsenals at a face to face meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1986. For a few hours the two leaders, without their national security subordinates, actually engaged in a serious dialogue on eliminating their nuclear weapons. In the end, they were unable to reach an accord due to President Reagan’s commitment to building a missile defense system. A few years later, however, they began the process of strategic arms reductions. The U.S. and USSR were also able to agree to the elimination of all intermediate-range nuclear missiles, leading to the removal of U.S. cruise and Pershing missiles from Europe.

    Among governments in the international community, a dialogue on nuclear weapons began almost immediately after the use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. at the end of World War II. The very first resolution of the United Nations in January 1946 called for the creation of an Atomic Energy Commission with the task of eliminating nuclear weapons from national arsenals. Early efforts to achieve the international control of nuclear weapons at the United Nations failed, however, and the U.S. began atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific in mid-1946. Three years later the USSR began testing its own nuclear weapons.

    In 1968 the international community reached agreement on a treaty to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. This agreement defined two classes of states, those with nuclear weapons prior to January 1, 1967, and all other states. In effect, this treaty divided the world into nuclear “haves” (U.S., USSR, UK, France and China), and nuclear “have-nots” (all other countries). It effectively established a system of nuclear apartheid. In Article VI of this treaty, the nuclear weapons states promised the other states that they would proceed with good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. Today, 30 years later, many non-nuclear weapons states rightfully question the good faith of the nuclear weapons states.

    In 1995 the dialogue on non-proliferation and disarmament continued when the parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) held a review and extension conference. At this conference, the nuclear weapons states sought an indefinite extension of the treaty, and brought much pressure to bear on non-nuclear weapons states to achieve this goal. A number of the non-nuclear weapons states argued for extensions for periods of time (such as 5 to 25 years) with renewals contingent upon progress by the nuclear weapons states in keeping their Article VI promises. In the end, the nuclear weapons states prevailed and the treaty was extended indefinitely.

    Certain non-binding commitments, though, strongly advocated by the non-nuclear weapons states, were agreed to by the nuclear weapons states. These were: adoption of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, undertaking negotiations for a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, and the promise to engage in the “determined pursuit… of systematic and progressive efforts” to achieve nuclear disarmament. A CTBT was adopted in 1996, but negotiations have yet to begin on a fissile material cut-off. The “determined pursuit… of systematic and progressive” efforts by the nuclear weapons states to achieve nuclear disarmament is not apparent.

    There are encouraging developments of more recent public involvement in the global dialogue on nuclear weapons. In the mid-1990s non-governmental organizations (NGOs) came to the NPT Review and Extension Conference and lobbied for a commitment to the elimination of nuclear arsenals. When their lobbying of the nuclear weapons states fell largely on deaf ears, these NGOs prepared and adopted the Abolition 2000 Statement, which calls for negotiating a treaty by the year 2000 for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons. The goal of these NGOs was to enter the 21st century with such a treaty in place. These NGOs and others formed themselves into a global network to eliminate nuclear weapons, which is called Abolition 2000. Organizations in the network have attempted to enter into a dialogue with states on the issue of abolishing nuclear arsenals.

    Another major citizen activity that brought the public into the global dialogue on nuclear weapons was the World Court Project. This project sought a decision from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. Over 600 NGOs lobbied at the United Nations and around the world in support of taking this matter to the ICJ. They succeeded in getting both the World Health Organization and the UN General Assembly to ask the Court for an advisory opinion on the threat or use of nuclear weapons.

    Oral hearings at the Court took place in October and November 1995. The nuclear weapons states and their NATO allies argued that the Court should not issue an opinion but, if it did, it should rule that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be legal under certain circumstances. Nearly all of the other states that came before the Court argued that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be illegal under international law under any circumstances.

    On July 8, 1996 the Court issued its opinion. It found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal. Based upon the facts before it and the current state of international law, however, the Court was unable to conclude whether or not the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be legal or illegal in an extreme circumstance of self-defense in which the very survival of a state would be at stake. The Court also said that any threat or use of nuclear weapons that violated international humanitarian law would be illegal. Thus, even in an extreme circumstance of self-defense, when its very survival was at stake, a state would still have to use nuclear weapons in such a way as not to injure or kill civilians and not to cause unnecessary suffering to combatants. Because of the nature of nuclear weapons (instruments of genocide) this would not be possible.

    The Court concluded its opinion by stating: “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.” The nuclear weapons states have thus far largely ignored this obligation. The UN General Assembly has responded by referring to this obligation in annual resolutions calling upon “all States immediately to fulfill that obligation by commencing multilateral negotiations … leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination.” These resolutions have been adopted by the UN general Assembly in 1996 and 1997.

    Currently, many prominent voices are being heard in a decidedly one-sided attempt at global dialogue. These include distinguished international personalities–including U.S. General Lee Butler, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, British Field Marshall Lord Carver, former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, and Nobel Peace Laureate Joseph Rotblat–who were called together by the Australian government in the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. This commission made a strong plea for the elimination of nuclear arsenals in their 1996 report. They stated, “The proposition that nuclear weapons can be retained in perpetuity and never used–accidentally or by decision–defies credibility. The only complete defence is the elimination of nuclear weapons and assurance that they will never be produced again.”

    Some 60 former generals and admirals from throughout the world, also joined the call for the abolition of nuclear weapons in late 1996. The generals and admirals argued, “We believe… that business as usual is not an acceptable way for the world to proceed in nuclear matters. It is our deep conviction that the following is urgently needed and must be undertaken now:

    “First, present and planned stockpiles of nuclear weapons are exceedingly large and should now be greatly cut back;

    “Second, remaining nuclear weapons should be gradually and transparently taken off alert, and their readiness substantially reduced both in nuclear weapons states and in de facto nuclear weapons states;

    “Third, long-term international nuclear policy must be based on the declared principle of continuous, complete and irrevocable elimination of nuclear weapons.”

    In early 1998 over 100 international civilian leaders, including some 50 current or past heads of state or heads of government, also joined in the call for eliminating nuclear arsenals. These civilian leaders argued that the following six steps should be taken immediately:

    1. Remove nuclear weapons from alert status, separate them from their delivery vehicles, and place them in secure national storage.

    2. Halt production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.

    3. End nuclear testing, pending entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

    4. Launch immediate U.S./Russian negotiations toward further, deep reductions of their nuclear arsenals, irrespective of START II ratification.

    5. Unequivocal commitment by the other declared and undeclared nuclear weapon states to join the reduction process on a proportional basis as the U.S. and Russia approach their arsenal levels, within an international system of inspection, verification, and safeguards.

    6. Develop a plan for eventual implementation, achievement and enforcement of the distant but final goal of elimination.

    Nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in May 1998 impacted the global dialogue, underscoring the Indian position that they will live in a world with no nuclear weapons, but not in a world of nuclear apartheid. It reflects the failure of the global dialogue that states as poor as India and Pakistan would find it necessary to devote any of their resources to nuclear weapons when so many of their people are without adequate food, shelter, education, and health care.

    Over the years, religious organizations have from time to time spoken out on nuclear weapons issues. Some 75 U.S. Catholic Bishops associated with Pax Christi USA issued an important statement in June 1998 in which they challenged the theory of deterrence. Their statement concluded, “[T]he time has come for concrete action for nuclear disarmament. On the eve of the Third Millennium may our world rid itself of these terrible weapons of mass destruction and the constant threat they pose. We cannot delay any longer. Nuclear deterrence as a national policy must be condemned as morally abhorrent because it is the excuse and justification for the continued possession and further development of these horrendous weapons. We urge all to join in taking up the challenge to begin the effort to eliminate nuclear weapons now, rather than relying on them indefinitely.”

    In June 1998, eight middle power nations, referring to themselves as the New Agenda Coalition (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden), called for entering the new millennium with a commitment in place to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons. In important respects, the call of the New Agenda Coalition echoed that of Abolition 2000. “The international community must not enter the third millennium,” the eight nation declaration asserted, “with the prospect that the maintenance of these weapons will be considered legitimate for the indefinite future, when the present juncture provides a unique opportunity to eradicate and prohibit them for all time. We therefore call on the Governments of each of the nuclear-weapons States and the three nuclear-weapons-capable States to commit themselves unequivocally to the elimination of their respective nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons capability and to agree to start work immediately on the practical steps and negotiations required for its achievement.”

    While the chorus of voices seeking to eliminate nuclear weapons is growing and includes many significant leaders, a real dialogue is not yet occurring. The nuclear weapons states are not taking seriously the calls for abolition, and they are not responding to these calls. For the most part, the acts of the nuclear weapons states constitute a continuation of the status quo. By the behavior of the nuclear weapons states, including their lack of dialogue, one would think that the Cold War had not ended nearly ten years ago.

    We appear to be in a dialogue of the deaf. The people speak, but their voices are still weak. The political leaders and national security establishments of the nuclear weapons states do not respond. Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin have been practically moribund with regard to their own nuclear dialogue. By their work to extend the NPT indefinitely and to achieve a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, they have, arguably, only sought to perpetuate nuclear apartheid. They also pushed back the date for completing the START 2 nuclear arms reductions from January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2007.

    Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin certainly have not moved decisively toward eliminating the nuclear threat to humanity or reducing their own arsenals. I believe that they will be judged harshly in the future for missing this historic opportunity. It is unfortunate that they are now being judged harshly for their respective addictions rather than for their abdication of responsibility on this issue of greatest importance to humanity’s future.

    Dialogue is a characteristic of a healthy society. People must speak and listen to each other. Without dialogue, democracy fails. Without dialogue, needs go unmet and preventable disasters occur. In a global society, with technologies as powerful as nuclear weapons, dialogue is essential if we are to prevent major catastrophes.

    We can learn from the history of the Nuclear Age that when enough people speak with a strong and unified voice the political leaders will respond. However, if the people do not speak, their political leaders will be unlikely to alter the status quo by themselves. This is one of the great tragedies of our time. Our political leaders have led by following. This places additional responsibility on people everywhere. More and more people must again make their voices heard on nuclear disarmament. They must demand an end to secrecy and elitism with regard to decisions on nuclear armaments. But most of all, they must demand an end to the nuclear weapons era. They must demand negotiations on the elimination of nuclear armaments, and the conclusion of a treaty to complete this process.

    The future of humanity and much of life remains in jeopardy of annihilation by nuclear arsenals. The promises of the nuclear weapons states for good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament remain to be fulfilled. The people of the world, and particularly the people of the nuclear weapons states, must demand that the promise of Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty for good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament, be kept.

    There are hopeful signs. The growth of Abolition 2000 to over 1,100 organizations is a sign of hope. In Japan, in only three months, over 13 million people signed the Abolition 2000 International Petition calling for ending the nuclear threat, signing a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons, and reallocating resources to meet human needs. Abolition 2000’s goal of achieving an international treaty on nuclear disarmament by the year 2000 has now been echoed by the eight nations of the New Agenda Coalition. It is a reasonable goal. It provides an immediate focus for a global dialogue on nuclear disarmament. The missing actors in this dialogue are the leaders of the nuclear weapons states. The people must now lead them to the negotiating table.

     

  • The Universal Declaration at Fifty: David Krieger interviews with Richard Falk

    DK: As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights how do you assess the progress in implementing its important standards?

    RF: The formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 50 years ago was an achievement that has produced results far in excess of anything that could reasonably have been anticipated at the time it was adopted. It was originally viewed as an awkward response to vague aspirations and public opinion. There was no real feeling of serious commitment surrounding its adoption. It was a prime example of what is often called “soft law.” It was viewed as something that the governments gave lip service to in this declaratory form that was not even legally obligatory and had no prospect of implementation. Many of the participating countries at the time didn’t practice human rights in their own societies, so there was an element of a hypocrisy built into the endorsement of this declaration from the moment of its inception. One has to ask why did something that started with such low expectations of serious impact on the world turn out to be one of the great normative documents of modern times, perhaps of all times.

    The Declaration has been referred to as the most important formulation of international human rights law ever made. I think one of the things that helps explain this rise to prominence was that the citizens associations concerned with human rights found effective ways to take the Declaration seriously, as well, and to exert effective pressure on many governments to take the Declaration or parts of it seriously. This was a very instructive example of the degree to which what states do with respect to normative issues can be very much influenced by the degree of effective pressure brought to bear by civil society, both within particular countries and transnationally. The role of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and other groups, I think, was instrumental in putting the provisions and the impetus of the Declaration onto the political agenda of the world.

    DK: You feel that the progress that has been made in human rights since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could not have happened without strong pressure from groups in civil society?

    RF: Yes, I’m saying that was an indispensable condition for the partial implementation of the Declaration. There were other factors that I think are also important to identify. One of them was the fact that once human rights emerged with this greater visibility, then governments, particularly in the West, found it a useful way to express their identity, their role in the world. It was useful as a means to exert pressure on the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc. It was part of the Cold War, a normative dimension that related the conflict to widely shared values. This was the idea that freedom was definitely linked to the promotion of human rights.

    Then came the Helsinki Process in the mid-1970s in which the Soviet bloc was given a kind of stability for the boundaries that emerged in Europe at the end of WWII. In exchange, Moscow accepted a kind of reporting obligation about human rights compliance in their countries at the time. Conservatives in the U.S. criticized the Helsinki Accords harshly because they argued that the agreement was a give-away; they alleged it is legitimizing these improper boundaries and in exchange we get this kind of paper promise that has no meaning at all.

    As events turned out, the Helsinki emphasis on human rights was much more important than the stabilization of boundaries. Reliance on human rights was critical for a process of legitimizing and mobilizing the opposition forces that operated in Eastern Europe, particularly groups like Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, Solidarity in Poland and even the Moscow Trust group in the Soviet Union. It became clear that, in terms of struggles of resistance within particular societies against oppressive states, international human rights norms provided important political foundations for their commitment and their activity. I think this interplay between human rights norms and procedures at an international level and resistance politics in societies governed in an oppressive manner. was a second important strand.

    The third one that I would mention is the anti-Apartheid campaign, which was based on a worldwide normative consensus that Apartheid represented an unacceptable form of racial persecution that was, in effect, such a systemic violation of human rights that it amounted to a crime against humanity. This was reinforced by grassroots activists in the critical countries of the United Kingdom and the United States that put such pressure on their governments that even Thatcher’s Britain and Reagan’s U.S. felt obliged to go along with an international sanctioning process that was directed at Apartheid, and probably contributed to the peaceful abandonment by the majority of the white elite of Apartheid. This was something no one could have anticipated a decade before it occurred – people thought either Apartheid was so well established, so much in control of the society, that it was not feasible to challenge it, or that the challenge would come about by a very difficult and bloody civil war. I think that mounting this peaceful challenge was a major triumph in terms of peaceful transformation that was aided by a kind of human rights demand that itself can be traced back to the foundations that one finds in the Universal Declaration.

    DK: Do you feel that the successes that have been achieved up to this point can be built upon, and the Universal Declaration will become an even more significant document and guideline for the 21st century?

    RF: This is a matter of conjecture that is hard to be very clear about at this stage because you find that both possibilities seem susceptible of pretty strong supportive arguments. My sense is that there is a sufficient constituency committed to human rights that will continue to invoke the Universal Declaration and the authority that it provides as a foundation for carrying on campaigns of one sort or another. One of the things that emerged in the 1990s was the degree to which transnational women’s groups and indigenous peoples had organized themselves around a human rights agenda. Their presence was definitely felt in Vienna at the UN Human Rights Conference in 1993, and elsewhere, evidently believing that their own objectives and movements as capable of being articulated by reference to human rights demands and aspirations.

    I think there is a political ground on which post-Cold War world human rights can advance further. There are also the important efforts now, outside the West, expressing different concerns but asking the same question: “What do we want the human rights process to become?” These voices are saying, we didn’t participate in the initial formulations. We think the Declaration and its norms are too individualistic or too permissive in terms of the way it approaches the relationship of the individual to the community. This is a common criticism you find in Islam and Asia. How can the Declaration be extended to represent all the peoples of the world and allow them the sense that it not only substantively is reflective of their values, but also that they’ve had some opportunity to participate in the articulation of the norms. I think it is very important that we recognize the incompleteness of the normative architecture that has flowed from the Declaration, if understood as including the International Covenants that were formulated in 1966, and other more focused treaty instruments.

    There is still very important work to be done on creating a more universally acceptable and accepted framework for the implementation of human rights.

    DK: One of the human rights treaties that has been created in the aftermath of the Universal Declaration is the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It’s nearly universally adhered to. The only two countries that currently have not ratified this important convention are Somalia and the United States. Somalia apparently doesn’t have its government organized well enough to do so, but the United States doesn’t have any excuse. Why is the United States holding out on making this Convention universal, and why is it refusing to give its support to a Convention so broadly adhered to?

    RF: One needs to understand that this pattern of holding out against a nearly universal consensus is not limited to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The United States has been playing this obstructive role in a number of different settings, including the Landmine Treaty and the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol on the Emission of Greenhouse Gases. I’m not sure about the real objections to the Convention on the Right of the Child. I know the Pentagon has mounted pressure because of the recruiting age of soldiers and the feeling that it would not be cost effective for them to give up the right to recruit young people under the age of 18, which I think is the age in the Convention. The present recruiting age of American soldiers includes people who are 17. It seem like a small difference to justify a holdout on a treaty that enjoys such wide backing.

    Let me take the opportunity to say that the fact that something is put into treaty form or is in the Universal Declaration is no assurance that it’s going to be taken seriously, either by the human rights part of civil society or by governments. One needs to come to the awareness that when we talk about human rights what we really mean is civil and political rights. Social, economic and cultural rights, which are broadly set forth in the Universal Declaration and are the subject of a separate covenant that was signed in 1966, have received very little implementation over the years. The human rights organizations are by and large devoting all their resources to the promotion of selected items of political and civil rights. For much of the world, particularly the non-Western world, economic and social rights are at least as important, if not more important, than civil and political rights. This is one of the reasons that these organizations are viewed with some suspicion, even the Western human rights organizations that tell governments to be less authoritarian or to increase freedom of participation, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression. I had a conversation a couple of years ago with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Malaysia, and he was very sensitive to this issue and spoke about it with sincerity and conviction. It’s also, of course, a convenient pretext for not being responsible and accountable in the area of political and civil relations. It is true that for human rights to be broadly accepted as a desirable source of obligation they have to be seriously responsive to the problems of acute poverty and economic and social deprivation as well as to the problems that arise from authoritarian governments and from the absence of democratic practices.

    DK: Do you think that the United States and other Western states are failing in that regard? And, for that matter, also civil society? Have they failed to push for economic and social rights sufficiently?

    RF: Yes, I think there’s no question, especially in the recent period where the Reagan and Thatcher administrations were very clear that they didn’t even regard economic and social rights as a genuine part of human rights. They felt these claims were an importation of a socialist ethos that was inconsistent with the way in which a market-oriented constitutional democracy should operate, and that was basic to the existence of a legitimate form of government. There is that real question. In civil society it’s been partly the feeling that it was much more manageable to conceive of human rights violations as challenges that involved very basic affronts to human dignity that arose out of abuses of governmental power, like the torture of political prisoners or summary executions and disappearances. These abuses captured the political imagination, and they were discreet policies of governments that were in many ways objectionable. Focusing on them seemed to facilitate access to media coverage. It seemed to raise issues that one could get some sort of results in relation to. It didn’t raise the ideological question of whether economic and social rights were somehow an endorsement of a socialist orientation toward policy.

    DK: Of course, preventing torture and disappearances and other abuses of state power is quite important. It’s also a real problem that there is not safety net–that people are continuing to starve to death and to suffer and die from lack of health care and other very basic human rights–the right to be treated with dignity, the most basic right of all. What might we do from this point on to see that those rights are not pushed to the side or neglected entirely?

    RF: There’s no question that by affirming economic and social rights, one doesn’t want to undermine the pressure to prevent the acute violations of civil and political rights. I think there are some new initiatives – there’s a new Center for the Promotion of Economic and Social Rights in New York City, started recently by several Harvard Law School graduates, that is trying to do good work in this area to bring a balance into the human rights picture. It’s not only the sense that one needs to focus on economic and social rights, but also one needs to focus on the structures that generate these violations. There’s a group in Malaysia called JUST, headed by Chandra Muzaffer, that has been very active in trying to show that the global market forces are systematically responsible for the polarization of societies throughout the world, essentially making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The dynamics of globalization contribute to an atmosphere in which even governments feel almost helpless to prevent the impoverishment of a portion of their own societies because of the strength of global capital. It’s important that we understand the thinking that is going on around the world about these issues of economic and social rights.

    DK: How do you feel about the failure of the international community to adequately respond to situations of genocide that have arisen in Bosnia and Rwanda and other places? Hasn’t there been a terrible failure to uphold the right to life for hundreds of thousands, even millions of people?

    RF: Yes, I think it is a revelation of the moral bankruptcy of the organized international community and of a disturbing and recurrent acceptance in this world of sovereign states of the most severe human wrongs being committed as being beyond control or prevention. At the same time, I have some mixed feelings about those who advocate intervention to overcome genocidal behavior without understanding the political and military obstacles that lie on that path. Intervention is a very difficult political process to use effectively as the United States found out in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Cheap, shallow intervention is almost worse than non-intervening. I had many disagreements with friends about the policies that should be pursued with respect to Bosnia during the unfolding of the tragedy there a few years ago. I didn’t see it as beneficial for the United Nations to establish these safe-havens or to make half-hearted gestures because, and I feel in retrospect that this view has been at least vindicated in that setting, that it would create new options for those who were committing the crimes. Unless there was the political will to defend the safe-havens – as the Srebrenica tragedy showed there was not – it would really herd potential victims together in a way that made ethnic cleansing more efficient and more horrible in its execution. One has to be very careful not to embrace a kind of facile interventionism because of our feeling of the utter moral bankruptcy of a world order system that can’t respond to genocide. To jump from inadequacy to futility is to disguise the true nature of the problem and the solution.

    DK: We’ve also experienced a failure of sanctions, which has been particularly evident in relation to the sanctions imposed upon Iraq in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War. This failure has led to the more vulnerable parts of society suffering as a result of the sanctions. What do you see as the answer to this? Do we need to reform the international system? Do we need to have an international security force? If we have problems making sanctions work and problems with intervention, what do we do when we see the worst abuses of human rights occurring?

    RF: It’s a difficult challenge for which there’s no quick fix, in my view, because it’s not accidental that we don’t have adequate intervention. We don’t have a Peace Force that is disengaged from geopolitics and able to act independently. Sanctions of the sort that were imposed on Iraq have these devastating effects on civilian society. It comes out of a rather profound dominance of international political life by geopolitical considerations. In the case of the Iraqi sanctions, there was a sense of incompleteness in which the war was waged and ended, leaving Saddam Hussein in control after depicting him as such a brutal, dictatorial leader. Sanctions were a cheap way for the victorious coalition to somehow express their continuing opposition without incurring human or financial costs of any significance. The fact that the real victims of this policy were the Iraqi people was not really taken into account. I’ve seen Madeleine Albright and others confronted by this reality and they brush it aside. They just don’t want to confront that reality, and tend to say “Saddam Hussein is building palaces. If he were using his resources for his people….” The whole point of the critique is that this is a leader that is not connected with the well being of his people. If we know what the effect after seven years of these sanctions is and yet insist on continuing them, we become complicit in the waging of indiscriminate warfare against the people of Iraq.

    DK: At this point in time, nearing the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and approaching the new millennium, what advice would you offer to young people with regard to human rights and responsibilities?

    RF: The last fifty years shows how much can be done by activists, young people and others, on behalf of making human rights a serious dimension of political life. I think that what needs to be carried forward is a more comprehensive implementation of the human rights that exist, filling in some gaps on behalf of indigenous peoples and the perspectives of non-western society, extending the serious implementation to matters of economic and social rights. We should push hard for this as something that one takes seriously, also for one’s own society. I think Americans particularly are good at lecturing the rest of the world as to what they should be doing, but are generally rather unwilling to look at themselves critically. We could begin the new millennium particularly with that kind of healthy self-criticism, not a kind of destructive negativism, a healthy self-criticism that would allow us to realize that we too are responsible for adherence to these wider norms of human rights; that we really have to rethink the enthusiasm that so many parts of our country have for capital punishment, for instance, in relation to the worldwide trend toward its abolition. I think we have to ask the question, do we really want to endow our state, or any democratic state, with the legal competence to deprive people of life by deliberate design? If we do endow the state with such power, it seems to me we are endorsing a kind of sovereignty-first outlook that has many other wider implications that are not desirable, and that run counter to deeper tendencies toward the emergence of global village realities.