This article was originally published by Pressenza.
It was an historic day at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as oral arguments in the first-ever contentious cases on nuclear disarmament began at the ICJ. The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) argued strongly in favor of the ICJ holding jurisdiction in the case that the RMI has brought against India.
Mr. Tony deBrum, Co-Agent of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Copyright: UN Photo/ICJ-CIJ/Frank van Beek. Courtesy of the ICJ. All rights reserved.
Tony de Brum, Co-Agent of the RMI and former Foreign Minister, opened the arguments with a strong statement explaining why the case is before the ICJ. He said, “We are here in peace, and our goal is no smaller than to obtain the required negotiations in good faith for nuclear disarmament.”
Mr. de Brum went on to describe his personal experience as a witness to many of the 67 U.S. nuclear tests that were conducted in the Marshall Islands from 1946-58. He then told the court:
To be clear, while these experiences give us a unique perspective that we never requested, they are not the basis of this dispute. But they do help explain why a Country of our size and limited resources would risk bringing a case such as this regarding an enormous, nuclear-armed State such as India, and its breach of customary international law with respect to negotiations for nuclear disarmament and an end to the nuclear arms race.
India has raised objections with the ICJ that the Court does not have jurisdiction in this case for a number of reasons. The RMI legal team addressed India’s objections and argued effectively against them.
Nicholas Grief, a member of the RMI legal team and professor of international law at the University of Kent in the UK, explained why India has an obligation under customary international law to negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament. In particular, Professor Grief explained that the Court had recognized this customary obligation in its 1996 Advisory Opinion and that the UN General Assembly and Security Council had both contributed to the rule’s development. He recalled that the Court itself had referred to the very first General Assembly resolution, adopted unanimously in 1946, as the starting point for nuclear disarmament as an international norm. Among many other legal arguments, Grief also cited a 2009 UN Security Council resolution which calls upon “the parties to the NPT, pursuant to Article VI of the Treaty, to undertake to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to nuclear arms reduction and disarmament,” and calls upon “all other States to join in this endeavor.”
In February 2014, India stated at the Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, “We cannot accept the logic that a few nations have the right to pursue their security by threatening the survival of mankind. It is not only those who live by the nuclear sword who, by design or default, shall one day perish by it.”
The Marshall Islands, by bringing these lawsuits against India and the other nuclear-armed nations to the ICJ, seeks a peaceful resolution for the benefit of all humankind.
The ICJ oral hearings continue tomorrow at 10:00 am CET, with the RMI presenting arguments in its case against Pakistan.
Rick Wayman is Director of Programs at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, a consultant to the Republic of the Marshall Islands. He is tweeting about the ICJ hearings at @rickwayman.
This article was originally published by Pressenza.
THE HAGUE – Over the next two weeks, oral arguments in the Marshall Islands’ nuclear disarmament cases will take place at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) originally filed the lawsuits in April 2014 against all nine nuclear-armed nations (United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea). These are the first contentious cases about nuclear disarmament to be brought before the world’s highest court.
The RMI claims that the nuclear-armed nations are in breach of nuclear disarmament obligations under existing international law. This applies to the P5 nations that are signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), as well as to the four non-NPT signatories (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) under customary international law.
“We are, basically, asking the Court to tell the respondent states to live up to their obligations under international law and to conduct negotiations leading to the required result: nuclear disarmament in all its aspects,” said Phon van den Biesen, Co-Agent for the RMI and attorney at law in Amsterdam, who is leading the International Legal Team.
From March 7-16, the cases against India, Pakistan and the United Kingdom will be argued. The three respondents are the only nations among the “Nuclear Nine” that accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ. The other six nuclear-armed nations were invited to accept the jurisdiction of the Court in this case, but either explicitly declined (China) or ignored the application (U.S., Russia, France, Israel and North Korea).
The applications filed by the RMI in April 2014 are available online. All subsequent filings – memorials and counter-memorials – have thus far been treated as confidential by the ICJ. Standard practice of the ICJ is to make these documents public once the oral argument phase has begun. If and when the ICJ makes the memorials and counter-memorials public, they will also be available at the aforementioned link.
Arguments in RMI vs. India will take place on March 7, 10, 14 and 16. Arguments in RMI vs. Pakistan will take place on March 8, 11, 14 and 16. Arguments in RMI vs. United Kingdom will take place on March 9, 11, 14 and 16. All sessions will be livestreamed on the ICJ website, and transcripts will be available soon after each session. This round of hearings will address preliminary objections filed by each respondent nation. The Court’s 15 justices will decide whether the cases will proceed to the next phase in which the merits will be considered.
The ICJ issued an Advisory Opinion in 1996 about the legality of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. The justices wrote unanimously, “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” Twenty years later, no nuclear disarmament negotiations have taken place among nuclear-armed nations, and all nine are engaged in some level of “modernization” of their nuclear arsenals.
While the ICJ will hear arguments exploring complex interpretations of international law, the Marshall Islands continues to highlight the underlying reason for bringing these cases.
Tony de Brum, former Marshall Islands Foreign Minister and Co-Agent in the cases, said, “I have seen with my very own eyes nuclear devastation and know with conviction that nuclear weapons must never again be visited upon humanity. Nuclear weapons are a senseless threat to survival and there are basic norms that compel those who possess them to pursue and achieve their elimination. This is the subject of legal action by my country at the International Court of Justice.”
The United States used the Marshall Islands as a testing ground for 67 nuclear weapon tests from 1946-58, causing human and environmental catastrophes that persist to this day.
Rick Wayman is Director of Programs at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, a consultant to the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Follow him on twitter at @rickwayman.
These comments were delivered by Tony de Brum at a ceremony in Japan on March 1, 2016.
I am honored to be here with you on this very special occasion.
I wish to first offer my apologies for not keeping my promise to be with you in previous years for reasons which were not within my control.
I bring you greetings from the people of the Marshall Islands who, like you, share the knowledge of the horrors of nuclear weapons and their ever increasing threat to human life, to our children, and to our mother earth.
While our experience with nuclear arms cannot even come close to matching that of our Japanese brothers and sisters, it has taught us lessons of everlasting value not just for ourselves but all of mankind. From the deliberate exposure of human beings to radiation to systematic cover up of critical health impacts, from human experimentation to premature resettlement of exposed populations, from denial of claims to withholding of information critical to basic understanding of the extent of damage, the nuclear history of the Marshall Islands has been nothing short of a testament to human beings being abused, mistreated and marginalized by more powerful, more ambitious neighbors.
The most important of these lessons can only be that nuclear weapons of any kind are immoral and illegal and cannot be allowed to exist amongst civilized human beings. Nuclear weapons cannot be justified for any reason whatsoever, including those we continue to hear from countries claiming that these arms are required to preserve peace and security for the world.
Nuclear weapons have no conscience, no sense of discrimination, and cannot differentiate between good and evil. Like all weapons of mass destruction, nuclear arms have no mercy for babies and children, they are not selective as to flowers and trees and food and soil. They destroy all life and render a devastation that is final, complete, and irreversible. That itself should be reason enough to ban them from the face of the earth.
Between 1946 and 1958 the United States conducted atomic and thermonuclear tests and experiments in the Marshall Islands. The cumulative output of these tests has been described by Mr. Jon Weisgall, an attorney for the people of Bikini Atoll, as having a yield equivalent to “detonating 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day, for twelve years”. One of those events, the BRAVO shot of March 1, 1954 had the combined force of 1000 Hiroshima bombs. That the experimentation of nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands wreaked havoc on the island community is an insensitive and cynical understatement, forever insulting and hurtful to our people. America’s nuclear program in the Marshall Islands inflicted pain and suffering to those who lived to see the tests themselves, those who survive today as Marshallese wounded in body and spirit, and those of future generations who will continue to bear the scars of this terrible chapter in our country’s history.
To this day, the United States continues to classify information pertinent to tests even though we have repeatedly requested their release. To this day, knowledge critical to our understanding the true extent of nuclear damage done to our people and our homeland is kept secret by America. According to their government, this information is withheld from public scrutiny because it is in the national interest of the United States that nuclear secrets be kept secret. Even after review by a United Nations Rapporteur and very specific recommendations made in his report, the United States still remains intransigent in its position to keep secret their nuclear activities in the Marshall Islands.
Unless and until the United States government releases all the information held in secrecy but necessary for the full understanding of its nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, no government, no leader worth his salt, no legislature, commission or scientific panel can claim fair and just resolution to the nuclear disagreement. There can be no closure without full disclosure.
As we speak, even more discoveries are being made in the Marshall Islands where environmental degradation and pollution directly attributable to nuclear weapons testing continue to threaten the health and livelihood of our people and pose immeasurable dangers to the health and well being of our children and their future generations. In Kwajalein Atoll, where missiles to deliver nuclear weapons are tested, severe heavy metal and other contamination of land and water has been so severe, the consumption of fish and other seafood has been found to be dangerous to human life and health. We cannot observe this injustice in silence and fear. We cannot allow our future generations to be permanently wounded on account of our timid refusal to confront and seek justice under the law. We cannot justify our existence as leaders and caretakers of our lands and heritage if we do not do all in our power to ensure that the truth of nuclear madness is exposed and the end of nuclear insanity is part of our global agenda. Only then will true peace be achieved and only then will the sacrifice of our forebears receive the respect and honor deserved.
In recent times, the Marshall Islands have filed in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) a lawsuit against the nuclear powers of the world seeking their compliance with Article VI of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. That action seeks to compel those countries with nuclear weapons to commence immediate negotiations to disarm and to negotiate in good faith an agreement for the elimination of nuclear weapons from the earth. Oral arguments are being heard in the Hague on the 7th of March of this year. We are confident that justice will prevail and that our nuclear powers will see their way clear to comply with the undertaking they made in signing the NPT to rid the world of nuclear weapons. I must make it absolutely clear that these ICJ lawsuits do not seek compensation, nor do they seek to point fingers or level liabilities against any of the nuclear powers. Our lawsuits only seek to engage the nuclear powers in negotiations for disarmament as they agreed to in the NPT.
To our brothers and sisters in Japan, the people of the Marshall Islands stand with you in your efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to ban all development of these terrible arms which threaten us, whether in the military context or in its civilian for power generation. As long as these weapons are around and are capable of deployment at a second’s notice, we are in danger.
Nuclear weapons can be used by design or by accident, by military planning or by the act of insane characters; for as long as they exist, they are making human race a target in the nuclear killing field. That must end, it must stop, and we must be part of the movement to restore true peace and harmony in a world without nuclear weapons. It is something that we owe to those who have passed on before us as well as those of our future generations. It is the least we can do for our children and children’s children. Until that happens we must unite in our mission to eliminate nuclear weapons and serve that purpose until every breath in our bodies is gone.
To all our friends who have gathered with us today we bring you love from your Marshallese neighbors. May peace be with you and all our brothers and sisters in Japan, in Polynesia, and in every corner of our world.
Geneva, 26 January 2016
Norwegian Nobel Institute
Henriks Ibsens gate 51
0255 Oslo
Dear Sir/Madam
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE NOMINATION 2016: Tony de Brum and the legal team of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
The International Peace Bureau is pleased to convey to you its nomination for the 2016 Prize: former Foreign Minister Tony de Brum and the legal team appointed by the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) to handle its nuclear weapons cases.
On April 24, 2014, the RMI filed landmark lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed nations for failing to comply with their obligations under international law to pursue negotiations for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons. As the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation underlines: “The Republic of the Marshall Islands acts for the seven billion of us who live on this planet to end the nuclear weapons threat hanging over all humanity. Everyone has a stake in this.”
The RMI has made a courageous step in challenging nine of the world’s most powerful states at the International Court of Justice. The tiny Pacific nation has launched a parallel court case against the USA at the Federal District Court (1). RMI argues that the nuclear weapons‐possessing countries have breached their obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non‐Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and customary international law by continuing to modernize their arsenals and by failing to pursue negotiations in good faith on nuclear disarmament.
RMI’s former Foreign Minister Tony de Brum has played the key political role in gaining support and approval for this initiative. He in turn has been supported by a highly effective legal team. De Brum and RMI have already received at least two important international prizes for their action.
The Marshall Islands were used by the USA as testing ground for nearly 70 nuclear tests from 1946 to 1958. These tests gave rise to lasting health and environmental problems for the Marshall Islanders. Their first‐hand experience of nuclear devastation and personal suffering gives legitimacy to their action and makes it especially difficult to dismiss.
The Marshall Islands are presently working hard on the court cases. Hearings on preliminary issues in the International Court of Justice will take place in March 2016, and an appellate hearing in the case in the US court will take place in 2016 or possibly 2017. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize would do much to draw public attention to this extremely important initiative and to help ensure a successful outcome.
It is certainly not the case that the RMI, with its some 53,000 inhabitants, a large proportion of whom are young people, have no need of compensation or assistance. Nowhere are the costs of a militarized Pacific better illustrated than there. The country is burdened with some of the highest cancer rates in the region following the 12 years of US nuclear tests. Yet it is admirable that the Marshall Islanders in fact seek no compensation for themselves, but rather are determined to end the nuclear weapons threat for all humanity.
The world still has around 16,000 nuclear weapons, the majority in the USA and Russia, many of them on high alert. The knowhow to build atomic bombs is spreading, largely due to the continued promotion of nuclear power technology. Presently there are 9 nuclear weapon states, and 28 nuclear alliance states; and on the other hand 115 nuclear weapons‐free zone states plus 40 non‐nuclear weapons states. Only 37 states (out of 192) are still committed to nuclear weapons, clinging to outdated, questionable and extremely dangerous ‘deterrence’ policies.
IPB has a long history of campaigning for disarmament and for the banning of nuclear weapons (http://www.ipb.org). The organisation was, for instance, actively involved in bringing the nuclear issue before the International Court of Justice in 1996. The IPB sincerely believes that the Marshall Islands initiative will prove to be a significant and decisive step in ending the nuclear arms race and in achieving a world without nuclear weapons.
Further details about the lawsuits and the campaign are available at www.nuclearzero.org
Yours sincerely
Colin Archer
Secretary‐General
The International Peace Bureau is dedicated to the vision of a World Without War. We are a Nobel Peace Laureate (1910), and over the years 13 of our officers have also been recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. Our 300 member organisations in 70 countries, and individual members, form a global network bringing together expertise and campaigning experience in a common cause. IPB has UN Consultative Status since 1977 and is the Secretariat for the NGO Committee for Disarmament (Geneva). Our main programme centres on Disarmament for Sustainable Development, of which the Global Campaign on Military Spending is a key part.
This article was originally published by The Nation.
Dear fellow citizens:
By their purported test of a hydrogen bomb early in 2016, North Korea reminded the world that nuclear dangers are not an abstraction, but a continuing menace that the governments and peoples of the world ignore at their peril. Even if the test were not of a hydrogen bomb but of a smaller atomic weapon, as many experts suggest, we are still reminded that we live in the Nuclear Age, an age in which accident, miscalculation, insanity or intention could lead to devastating nuclear catastrophe.
What is most notable about the Nuclear Age is that we humans, by our scientific and technological ingenuity, have created the means of our own demise. The world currently is confronted by many threats to human wellbeing, and even civilizational survival, but we focus here on the particular grave dangers posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear war.
Even a relatively small nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, with each country using 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons on the other side’s cities, could result in a nuclear famine killing some two billion of the most vulnerable people on the planet. A nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia could destroy civilization in a single afternoon and send temperatures on Earth plummeting into a new ice age. Such a war could destroy most complex life on the planet. Despite the gravity of such threats, they are being ignored, which is morally reprehensible and politically irresponsible.
We in the United States are in the midst of hotly contested campaigns to determine the candidates of both major political parties in the 2016 presidential faceoff, and yet none of the frontrunners for the nominations have even voiced concern about the nuclear war dangers we face. This is an appalling oversight. It reflects the underlying situation of denial and complacency that disconnects the American people as a whole from the risks of use of nuclear weapons in the years ahead. This menacing disconnect is reinforced by the media, which has failed to challenge the candidates on their approach to this apocalyptic weaponry during the debates and has ignored the issue in their television and print coverage, even to the extent of excluding voices that express concern from their opinion pages. We regard it as a matter of urgency to put these issues back on the radar screen of public awareness.
We are appalled that none of the candidates running for the highest office in the land has yet put forward any plans or strategy to end current threats of nuclear annihilation, none has challenged the planned expenditure of $1 trillion to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and none has made a point of the U.S. being in breach of its nuclear disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In the presidential debates it has been a non-issue, which scandalizes the candidates for not raising the issue in their many public speeches and the media for not challenging them for failing to do so. As a society, we are out of touch with the most frightening, yet after decades still dangerously mishandled, challenge to the future of humanity.
There are nine countries that currently possess nuclear weapons. Five of these nuclear-armed countries are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (U.S., Russia, UK, France and China), and are obligated by that treaty to negotiate in good faith for a cessation of the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament. The other four nuclear-armed countries (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) are subject to the same obligations under customary international law. None of the nine nuclear-armed countries has engaged in such negotiations, a reality that should be met with anger and frustration, and not, as is now the case, with indifference. It is not only the United States that is responsible for the current state of denial and indifference. Throughout the world there is a false confidence that, because the Cold War is over and no nuclear weapons have been used since 1945, the nuclear dangers that once frightened and concerned people can now be ignored.
Rather than fulfill their obligations for negotiated nuclear disarmament, the nine nuclear-armed countries all rely upon nuclear deterrence and are engaged in modernization programs that will keep their nuclear arsenals active through the 21st century and perhaps beyond. Unfortunately, nuclear deterrence does not actually provide security to countries with nuclear arsenals. Rather, it is a hypothesis about human behavior, which is unlikely to hold up over time. Nuclear deterrence has come close to failing on numerous occasions and would clearly be totally ineffective, or worse, against a terrorist group in possession of one or more nuclear weapons, which has no fear of retaliation and may actually welcome it. Further, as the world is now embarking on a renewed nuclear arms race, disturbingly reminiscent of the Cold War, rising risks of confrontations and crises between major states possessing nuclear weapons increase the possibility of use.
As citizens of a nuclear-armed country, we are also targets of nuclear weapons. John F. Kennedy saw clearly that “Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.” What President Kennedy vividly expressed more than 50 years ago remains true today, and even more so as the weapons proliferate and as political extremist groups come closer to acquiring these terrible weapons.
Those with power and control over nuclear weapons could turn this planet, unique in all the universe in supporting life, into the charred remains of a Global Hiroshima. Should any political leader or government hold so much power? Should we be content to allow such power to rest in any hands at all?
It is time to end the nuclear weapons era. We are living on borrowed time. The U.S., as the world’s most powerful country, must play a leadership role in convening negotiations. For the U.S. to be effective in leading to achieve Nuclear Zero, U.S. citizens must awaken to the need to act and must press our government to act and encourage others elsewhere, especially in the other eight nuclear-armed countries, to press their governments to act as well. It is not enough to be apathetic, conformist, ignorant or in denial. We all must take action if we want to save humanity and other forms of life from nuclear catastrophe. In this spirit, we are at a stage where we need a robust global solidarity movement that is dedicated to raising awareness of the growing nuclear menace, and the urgent need to act nationally, regionally and globally to reverse the strong militarist currents that are pushing the world ever closer to the nuclear precipice.
Nuclear weapons are the most immediate threat to humanity, but they are not the only technology that could play and is playing havoc with the future of life. The scale of our technological impact on the environment (primarily fossil fuel extraction and use) is also resulting in global warming and climate chaos, with predicted rises in ocean levels and many other threats – ocean acidification, extreme weather, climate refugees and strife from drought – that will cause massive death and displacement of human and animal populations.
In addition to the technological threats to the human future, many people on the planet now suffer from hunger, disease, lack of shelter and lack of education. Every person on the planet has a right to adequate nutrition, health care, housing and education. It is deeply unjust to allow the rich to grow richer while the vast majority of humanity sinks into deeper poverty. It is immoral to spend our resources on modernizing weapons of mass annihilation while large numbers of people continue to suffer from the ravages of poverty.
Doing all we can to move the world to Nuclear Zero, while remaining responsive to other pressing dangers, is our best chance to ensure a benevolent future for our species and its natural surroundings. We can start by changing apathy to empathy, conformity to critical thinking, ignorance to wisdom, denial to recognition, and thought to action in responding to the threats posed by nuclear weapons and the technologies associated with global warming, as well as to the need to address present human suffering arising from war and poverty.
The richer countries are challenged by migrant flows of desperate people that number in the millions and by the realization that as many as a billion people on the planet are chronically hungry and another two billion are malnourished, resulting in widespread growth stunting among children and other maladies. While ridding the world of nuclear weaponry is our primary goal, we are mindful that the institution of war is responsible for chaos and massive casualties, and that we must also challenge the militarist mentality if we are ever to enjoy enduring peace and security on our planet.
The fate of our species is now being tested as never before. The question before us is whether humankind has the foresight and discipline necessary to forego some superfluous desires, mainly curtailing propensities for material luxuries and for domination of our fellow beings, thereby enabling all of us and succeeding generations to live lives worth living. Whether our species will rise to this challenge is uncertain, with current evidence not reassuring.
The time is short and what is at risk is civilization and every small and great thing that each of us loves and treasures on our planet.
The authors are affiliated with the Santa Barbara based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
North Korea has been sounding alarms since it withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003. Its latest wake-up call in early 2016 was its fourth nuclear test. This time it claimed to have tested a far more powerful thermonuclear weapon, although seismic reports do not seem to bear this out.
North Korea has been roundly condemned for its nuclear tests, including this one. To put this in perspective, however, the U.S. has conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests, continues to conduct subcritical nuclear tests, has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, is in breach of its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, regularly tests nuclear-capable missiles, and plans to spend $1 trillion modernizing its nuclear arsenal. The U.S. and the other nuclear-armed countries are quick to point fingers at North Korea, but slow to recognize their own role in fanning the flames of nuclear catastrophe.
What does an awakened world actually mean?
As the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have repeatedly warned, “We must abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us.” This will require good faith negotiations to end the nuclear arms race and achieve nuclear zero. And these negotiations must be convened and led by the US and Russia, the two most powerful nuclear-armed countries in the world.
If we are not awakened by North Korea’s latest test, what will it take? What other, louder alarm is necessary for the world to come together and work toward achieving nuclear zero before nuclear weapons are used again and we all become victims of a war from which humanity will never awaken?
A scenario: You’re nearing the end of a blind date, waiting for the waiter to bring out the ice cream. Both of you are still trying to come up with fodder for conversation. You’ve covered the weather, countries you have visited, documentaries you liked, your favorite breeds of dogs, where to buy the best ground coffee.
Just then, your date declares with a smile, “So how about nuclear weapons? Wouldn’t using them be…well, sort of fun? The collapse of modern society, or at least the end of the comforts we know? Imagine the thousands of immediate deaths, the damage to the Earth’s atmosphere and ecosystem. The famines. Oh, and I forgot the years of skyrocketing cancer cases!”
After you’ve finished staring, and blinking, after you’ve caught the waiter’s eye for the check, you might still be waiting for the punchline. No one could actually be so flip, so grotesquely cavalier about a grave danger to civilization — indeed, the gravest possible danger. Could they? Particularly with a new acquaintance they’re purportedly trying to woo? But I recently discovered this very discussion happening in reality, in the singularly strange world of “cyberdating.”
A screenshot of the OkCupid question about nuclear war.
For those who are still somehow unaware, Internet dating offers anyone the ability to post a profile on the Web about their likes and interests, typically with a photo. Users can then interact: send instant messages, talk, flirt. According to research, about 75% of single people are searching online for partners nowadays.
A friend told me to try OkCupid, the most popular dating site around. It was established 12 years ago and now has millions of regular users of every age group. One of the best-known features of OkCupid is its wealth of “match questions.” Once you join, the website — like a robot that’s been programmed to be endlessly, insatiably curious about what you love and hate — begins trying to discern the real you. A nearly endless stream of yes/no and multiple-choice questions continues for as long as you play along; the site suggests dating candidates based on your answers. Theoretically, it’s a matter of giving the algorithm of romance the food it needs to thrive and get smarter.
I spent some time grappling with the initial onslaught of questions, and at first most seemed somewhat reasonable. Would you consider dating someone who dislikes children? How shy would you say you are? Do you solely date people with athletic and toned bodies?
But then, the first day of my membership, this one appeared:
In a certain light, wouldn’t nuclear war be exciting?
I read the question several times, with emotions that included confusion, exasperation and anger. The hippest dating site on the Web was challenging me to answer a question that was not only inane but insane. I looked around to see if Rod Serling’s ghost was watching from a dim corner of the room.
I’m not alone in my puzzlement.
OkCupid for years has hosted online forums: message boards at which members can debrief about any question — how they answered it, and what the “best” answer might have been. The one on nuclear war clearly has been in active use by the dating site for many years, because as far back as 2008 it was sparking extended debate. That year, a site member (one of several) summarily condemned it:
“This is not even OK to even consider…” the site user wrote, “…unless you are an absolute idiot and have begun to believe the government/military attempts to make you think that such a thing would be survivable and wouldn’t be the end of life as we know it, which it would be.”
In 2011, people were still flocking to message boards to talk about the question, to defend how they answered it or (as before) to denounce it. One user called it “the most moronic question on this site.” A member in his late 50s identified himself as a former worker in the nuclear missile industry and declared that any use of such weapons would obviously be “a nightmare.”
“Actually many would survive,” he wrote. “But what would life on this planet be after that? Radiation clouds, radioactive rain, on and on…at least 10 years of death or more.”
On the message boards, lots of OkCupid users appear to agree with him, and this buoys my spirits. But there are also an unsettling number of comments by people standing by the notion that nuclear war might be the ultimate source of thrills. Many of these do not reach beyond a superficial concept of “excitement” to examine the widespread, unparalleled tragedy that a nuclear exchange would bring.
“It’s the end of civilization,” one site user writes. “How is that not exciting? I’m not saying it will be enjoyable in the slightest, but it will be fascinating. Literally a once in a lifetime event.”
Another, a 26-year-old man, posts that it stands to reason many people would find any big change in their prosaic existence to hold a certain allure. “People are craving anything to break the monotony of their droning, boring lives, and something that touches every individual would do that,” he writes. “Everyone wants to see an explosion, a house of cards fall over…”
But perhaps the most revealing (and disconcerting) remarks are by those romance-seekers who declare the prospect of nuclear war generates, for them, a responsive chord: memories of entertainment that they’ve enjoyed in the form of action-packed movies and video games. Specifically, they point to apocalyptic films about zombie invasions, or video games that ostensibly simulate the aftermath of nuclear cataclysm.
Fallout 4, released in 2015, had $750 million in sales on its first day of availability alone.
Take, for example, a wildly popular video game named Fallout. Quite a few OkCupid members mentioned it. In Fallout, which has appeared in several editions since 1997, the Earth after World War III is an exciting place to be, indeed. The latest version of the game is set in the bombed, charred remains of Boston in the year 2287, more than two centuries after nuclear bombs have devastated parts of the United States. Gamers take on the identity of “the Sole Survivor,” a heroic figure who emerges from a bomb shelter to search for a baby who was stolen and spirited away into the radioactive ruins of Beantown. Intricately detailed adventures await, with cutting-edge special effects, as players encounter bands of evil humans, “ghouls,” wild animals and even aliens. There are also “super mutants,” who previously were human but because of germ warfare have transformed into “massive, muscle-bound creatures with a natural immunity to radiation damage and disease,” according to information from gamers on the Wikia.com Fallout page. These characters are programmed to have no facial expressions other than “a permanent sneer,” and some of them have access to football-size nuclear weapons that can be launched by catapult. And they’re not happy to see you.
Fallout 4 came out in November 2015, and an incredible 12 million copies of the game were sold in the first 24 hours. That amounted to about $750 million in income for the game manufacturer — breaking the first-day-of-release record for any game sold in 2015.
The 2008 video game Fallout 3 was set in Washington, D.C., 200 years after the region’s nuclear obliteration in 2077.
I honestly can’t get my head around that amount of money being spent in a day, especially on a game — let alone one that takes the worst existential peril humankind faces and seeks to turn it into a circus world that’s so amusing that it’s addictive. To compare, $750 million represents 6.2 times the top opening-day box office receipts of any movie in history (“Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” also in 2015). I also find it interesting, stepping away from fantasy, that the United States Institute of Peace, a bipartisan federal agency that works to mediate other nations’ conflicts without force and to find nonviolent ways for the U.S. to protect its interests, is now subsisting on a budget of roughly $35 million per year. Apples and oranges, perhaps, but show healthy skepticism if Joe Consumer says he has nothing left to spend on international amity.
Getting back to my experience on OkCupid: I never did get past the bizarre “match” question, and I have yet to become an active user of the dating site. As a supporter of nuclear abolition, for me the question became a vexing distraction that made me doubt the logic behind the site’s much vaunted software for playing matchmaker. True, the “nuclear war excitement” question apparently was first posed, a long time ago, as a suggestion by an ordinary site member, and I’m under no delusion that the average person is well-versed in the dreadful humanitarian effects of nuclear weapons use. We all know that lack of education and lack of empathy can be common.
But I would have hoped the cyber-romance mavens who created the site — Harvard grads all — would have realized the question’s folly, too, instead of officially embracing it and then allowing it to foul the interrogatory stream all these years. (OkCupid didn’t reply to requests for comment about this essay.)
Actually, I have a strong feeling that those who run the dating site know that more than a few of its questions are absurd. But hey, it’s essentially free to use, and maybe that deters complaints (the site is mainly financed by advertising). To quote Christian Rudder, a co-founder of OkCupid who used to maintain his own blog before leaving the company, “The basic currency of the Internet is human ignorance, and, frankly, our database holds a strong cash position.”
That was honest, at least.
Do a strange dating-website question and an astonishingly successful game about a nuclear wasteland offer much to inform us about the future of the nuclear abolition movement? Perhaps.
These fantastical opinions and fantastical games prove, I believe, that people — decades after the Cold War — still have tremendous interest in the sheer power of these weapons and at least some awareness of their capacity to create calamity on an epic scale.
Educating these people, especially the younger generation, about the immeasurable extent of suffering inherent in any nuclear war, is the great challenge for antinuclear activists everywhere.
Robert Kazel is a Chicago-based writer and was a participant in the 2012 NAPF Peace Leadership Workshop.
The fate of humanity and that of all other inhabitants of the planet rests far too comfortably in the hands of a small number of national leaders (currently all male) who have the self-ordained authority to launch nuclear weapons. They hold in their hands the fate of every man, woman and child on the planet. On one sunlit morning or afternoon any one of these powerful individuals could launch his country’s nuclear weapons, triggering retaliatory responses. The skies would darken with the ash and soot rising from burning cities and create a nuclear winter. Even a small nuclear war could cause a nuclear famine, leading to the deaths by starvation of some two billion of the most vulnerable people on the planet.
Those with the power and control over nuclear weapons could turn this planet, unique in all the universe in supporting life, into the charred remains of a Global Hiroshima. Should any leader hold so much power? Should we be content to allow such power to rest in any hands at all?
Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein painted the starkness of our dilemma six decades ago in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”
Humanity has a choice to make. We can continue with business as usual, standing in the dark shadows of apathy, conformity, ignorance and denial, or we can take action to abolish nuclear weapons. Doing nothing all but assures that nuclear weapons will spread to other countries and eventually again be used by accident or design. Doing all we can to move the world to Nuclear Zero is our only chance to save the planet and assure a human future. We can start by changing apathy to empathy, conformity to critical thinking, ignorance to wisdom, and denial to recognition of the threat posed by nuclear weapons. The time is short and what is at risk is all we love and treasure.
When Pope Francis came to the United States he brought with him not only his spirituality, but his courage, compassion and commitment to creating a more decent world. He urged the people of the US and their representatives to live by the Golden Rule and to respect nature that sustains us all. Despite a full schedule, he found time to share a meal with the homeless, dialogue with prisoners, and bless those in need. He commented that the children are the most important among us. He taught us with his smiles, his warmth, his words and his deeds.
The Pope did so much during his six-day visit that many Americans may have missed his remarks at the United Nations on September 25th on the “urgent need to work for a world free of nuclear weapons, in full application of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in letter and spirit, with the goal of a complete prohibition of these weapons.” The Pope asks us not only to desire such a world, but admonishes us “to work” for it. In order to achieve this world, one must work to replace apathy with empathy, conformity with critical thinking, ignorance with wisdom, and denial with recognition of the threat these weapons pose to humankind and the human future.
Pope Francis calls upon us to recognize that there is an “urgent need” for such work. It is not work for a distant day, or work that can be put off to another time. The matter is urgent, the need is great. He also calls for the “full application of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in letter and spirit.” The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force in 1970, requires the parties in Article VI of the treaty “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament….”
The five nuclear-armed countries that are parties to the NPT (US, Russia, UK, France and China) are not at present following either the letter or spirit of the treaty. Rather than ending the nuclear arms race, they are engaged in costly and dangerous “modernizing” of their nuclear arsenals, while ignoring their obligations to negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament. The four nuclear-armed countries that are not parties to the treaty (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) are bound by customary international law to these provisions of the NPT, and are also ignoring their obligations under international law.
Pope Francis is clear that the goal to be achieved is the “complete prohibition” of nuclear weapons. Partial measures are not enough. As the spiritual leader that he is, he must be keenly aware that all of Creation, including humankind, is placed at risk by the more than 15,000 nuclear weapons still on our planet. The Pope effectively dismisses nuclear deterrence as a justification for nuclear weapons. He states, “An ethics and a law based on the threat of mutual destruction – and possibly the destruction of all mankind – are self-contradictory and an affront to the entire framework of the United Nations, which would end up as ‘nations united by fear and distrust.’”
As someone who has worked for the abolition of nuclear weapons for more than three decades, I am greatly encouraged by the Pope’s resounding call for “complete prohibition.” He did not mince his words. He was clear and direct and spoke of the urgency that is necessary to accomplish the task. Many others throughout the world seeking a world free of nuclear weapons must also be elated by Pope Francis’ call for nuclear weapons abolition, including the 117 countries that have signed the “Humanitarian Pledge,” initiated by Austria, to fill the legal gap that currently exists regarding possession of these weapons. The tiny Republic of the Marshall Islands must be particularly encouraged by the Pope’s call for abolition as it is in the process of suing the nine nuclear-armed countries in the International Court of Justice and in US federal court for their failure to fulfill their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law.
Pope Francis is a wise and decent man. His words of support for a “complete prohibition” of nuclear weapons should give heart to all who seek a world free of nuclear weapons, a goal that those of us now alive owe to our children and grandchildren and all generations that will follow us on the planet.
Pope Francis delivered a strong message about war, peace and nuclear weapons to the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2015. The relevant passage starts at 30:45 in the video below.
“War is the negation of all rights and a dramatic assault on the environment. If we want true integral human development for all, we must work tirelessly to avoid war between nations and between peoples.
“To this end, there is a need to ensure the uncontested rule of law and tireless recourse to negotiation, mediation and arbitration, as proposed by the Charter of the United Nations, which constitutes truly a fundamental juridical norm. The experience of these seventy years since the founding of the United Nations in general, and in particular the experience of these first fifteen years of the third millennium, reveal both the effectiveness of the full application of international norms and the ineffectiveness of their lack of enforcement. When the Charter of the United Nations is respected and applied with transparency and sincerity, and without ulterior motives, as an obligatory reference point of justice and not as a means of masking spurious intentions, peaceful results will be obtained. When, on the other hand, the norm is considered simply as an instrument to be used whenever it proves favourable, and to be avoided when it is not, a true Pandora’s box is opened, releasing uncontrollable forces which gravely harm defenseless populations, the cultural milieu and even the biological environment.
“The Preamble and the first Article of the Charter of the United Nations set forth the foundations of the international juridical framework: peace, the pacific solution of disputes and the development of friendly relations between the nations. Strongly opposed to such statements, and in practice denying them, is the constant tendency to the proliferation of arms, especially weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear weapons. An ethics and a law based on the threat of mutual destruction – and possibly the destruction of all mankind – are self-contradictory and an affront to the entire framework of the United Nations, which would end up as “nations united by fear and distrust”. There is urgent need to work for a world free of nuclear weapons, in full application of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in letter and spirit, with the goal of a complete prohibition of these weapons.
“The recent agreement reached on the nuclear question in a sensitive region of Asia and the Middle East is proof of the potential of political good will and of law, exercised with sincerity, patience and constancy. I express my hope that this agreement will be lasting and efficacious, and bring forth the desired fruits with the cooperation of all the parties involved.”
I am honored to be here with you on this very special occasion.
We in the United States are in the midst of hotly contested campaigns to determine the candidates of both major political parties in the 2016 presidential faceoff, and yet none of the frontrunners for the nominations have even voiced concern about the nuclear war dangers we face. This is an appalling oversight. It reflects the underlying situation of denial and complacency that disconnects the American people as a whole from the risks of use of nuclear weapons in the years ahead. This menacing disconnect is reinforced by the media, which has failed to challenge the candidates on their approach to this apocalyptic weaponry during the debates and has ignored the issue in their television and print coverage, even to the extent of excluding voices that express concern from their opinion pages. We regard it as a matter of urgency to put these issues back on the radar screen of public awareness.
Those with power and control over nuclear weapons could turn this planet, unique in all the universe in supporting life, into the charred remains of a Global Hiroshima. Should any political leader or government hold so much power? Should we be content to allow such power to rest in any hands at all?
The Pope did so much during his six-day visit that many Americans may have missed