Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: abolition

An Exchange on Nuclear Abolition

I want to thank the many commenters on my essay, “Nuclear Abolition: The Road from Armageddon to Transformation.” The comments were thoughtful, intelligent and sometimes passionate. Taken together, they give me hope that change is possible and humanity may somehow find a way through the current threat that nuclear weapons pose not only to human life but all complex life on our planet.

I will begin with the question: What are nuclear weapons? I remember some lines from a poem by American poet Robert Bly written during the Vietnam War. Bly wrote, “men like Rusk are not men: / They are bombs waiting to be loaded in a darkened hangar.” In the same way as Bly poetically removed “Rusk,” the then U.S. Secretary of State, from the category of “men,” I would argue that nuclear weapons are not really “weapons” in any traditional sense. Rather, they exist in their own category, defined by their omnicidal threats and capabilities as “instruments of annihilation” or “world-ending devices.”

Most of the comments recognized, either implicitly or explicitly, the unique destructive power of nuclear weapons and how they put us at the edge of Armageddon. Ian Lowe argued that “nuclear weapons constitute an existential threat to human civilization.” Lowe went on, “The subsequent development of fusion weapons gave the power-crazed the capacity to murder millions and raised the specter of destroying human society.” Of course, it is not only the “power-crazed” that have this capability with thermonuclear weapons. It could be any nuclear-armed leader, even the most ordinary, who could stumble into nuclear war. There have been many close calls, more than enough to sound the alarm and keep it blaring.

Steven Starr found, “Launch-ready nuclear arsenals represent a self-destruct mechanism for humanity, and they must be recognized as such.” He continued: “Such recognition will make it politically impossible to justify their continued existence.” I doubt, though, that awareness alone would make it possible to abolish nuclear arsenals. Thus far, it hasn’t been sufficient to change the world, although brilliant scientists like Einstein, Szilard and Pauling did their best to raise such awareness. More recently, Daniel Ellsberg has made the case that nuclear arsenals constitute “Doomsday Machines,” threatening the future of humanity. Nonetheless, continued attempts to raise awareness of nuclear dangers and consequences of nuclear war should be an important part of any project seeking to bring about transformative change toward abolishing these weapons.

Some of the commenters saw nuclear arms as a symbol, others as a symptom. Roger Eaton saw them as “a symbol that we live in a dog-eat-dog world.” He went on: “They tell us we cannot trust others and that cooperation only works if we are calling the shots.” John Bunzl expressed the view that the weapons are more of “a symptom of humanity’s failure to cooperate than a cause.” Arthur Dahl found that the weapons “are only the most egregious symptom of the lack of trust between States.” These perspectives on what nuclear weapons represent have important implications for those who hold them on how to approach their abolition. In Eaton’s case, it is a call for “human unity.” In Bunzl’s case, it is a call for more cooperation among states. In Dahl’s case, the symptom requires enough trust among states sufficient to create mechanisms of global governance.

In my view, it is not sufficient to think of nuclear weapons as symbols or symptoms, although they may be these as well. Nuclear weapons, regardless of what they symbolize, are the problem. They are humankind’s most acute problem and they must be eliminated as a matter of urgency. The question is how. Before turning to this question, I will first examine some gender issues that were raised in the commentary, an aspect of the discussion that I found to be very rich.

Anna Harris first raised the question of the disproportionate number of men responding to the issue of “nuclear Armageddon.” She wrote: “What is lacking, to put it bluntly, is the ability to talk about feelings, which is something women seem to have developed more, and without which this whole discussion becomes one of control and numbers which renders it to me almost totally meaningless.” I agree with Anna’s call for bringing the passion of one’s feelings into the abolition project, and I understand the “unspeakable rage” that she reports feeling. Little is gained by a focus on control and numbers, which has been the principal approach of the leaders of nuclear-armed states. I believe there is only one number that truly matters when it comes to nuclear arms, and that number is zero. This is in line with Richard Falk’s warning about the dangers of focusing on the “arms control” and the managerial aspects of nuclear armaments, as opposed to the far more critical focus on their abolition.

Miki Kashtan followed up on Harris’s post, arguing that “nuclear arms are the tragic and horrifying extension of patriarchy.” She went on, “I don’t see that we can use patriarchal means to solve problems that patriarchy created.” This is a strong point and may be at least part of the answer to what Einstein meant when, early in the Nuclear Age, he famously said, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

Susan Butler also came in behind the comments of Anna Harris’s concerns about the importance of feelings. Butler argued, “Feelings are the basis of the moral compass…. It is feelings that tell us what to do, what’s important, and what we care about.”

Finally, on the gender issue, Judith Lipton weighed in, stating, “Males and females can push buttons with launch codes. The reality of nuclear war is so painful that young or old, male or female, we watch cat videos rather than saving our poor planet.” In this way, she reminded us that we are all in this together, gender differences related to feelings notwithstanding. The truth is that most citizens of the planet are distracted by more immediate concerns than nuclear Armageddon and have an insufficient awareness of nuclear dangers to play an effective role in pressing for their elimination. There can be no doubt, though, that bringing feelings and passion to the endeavor is an important project for both men and women. Both are needed.

What needs to be done to abolish nuclear weapons? There are obviously no easy answers to this question. If there were, the goal would have been accomplished already. We continue to live in a world in which a small number of leaders in a small number of countries with nuclear arms are holding the world hostage to their perceptions of their own national security. A starting point would be to shift the public perceptions of nuclear weapons providing for their security. One way to do this is to debunk nuclear deterrence, as did David Barash, who concluded, “In short, deterrence is a sham, a shibboleth evoked by those seeking to justify the unjustifiable.” Aaron Karp also challenged nuclear deterrence theory, quoting from a 1999 essay in Resurgence, “Death by Deterrence,” written by General George Lee Butler, a former head of the U.S. Strategic Command.

Katyayani Singh pointed out one important difficulty in changing public perceptions, “We cannot expect our political leaders to pursue nuclear disarmament when public opinion is in favor of nuclear armaments.” This may not be universally true, but seems to be the case in both India and Pakistan. Singh suggested rightly that education, media and cinema are tools for raising consciousness on the nuclear issue. Of course, they can also be tools for maintaining the status quo.

Other commenters discussed the importance of building trust among states and of increasing cooperation among them. Some commenters, including Andreas Bummel and Chris Hamer, argued that it would be necessary for states to cede some of their sovereignty to international organizations and that strengthened international institutions would be needed. Bummel wrote, “What is required…is to relinquish sovereignty in this domain and to accept a global authority that would provide for enforcement and collective security.” Hamer also argued for campaigning “for a global parliament, which would be able to deal with all the extremely serious global problems which confront us….” That is, as a global parliament, it would be a global decision-making body.

The creation of new global institutions present us with a chicken and egg dilemma: can we afford to wait for such new institutions to form and be accepted given the urgency of the nuclear dangers confronting the world? Or, on the other hand, can we afford not to seek to create such new institutions, given the same urgency of nuclear dangers? What we can say with certainty is that national security is threatened, not enhanced, by nuclear arms, and it would be wise to shift the focus from national security to global security.

Yogi Hendlin found it a shortcoming in my essay that I did not discuss “how nuclear power generation schemes and nuclear weapons have worked as industries hand-in-hand.” Although I did not address it in my essay, I fully agree with Hendlin’s premise that nuclear power reactors and research reactors have often been a façade for developing nuclear weapons. Nuclear power has other serious problems, in addition to those related to preventing nuclear weapons proliferation. These include there being no adequate plan for long-term storage of high level radioactive wastes, which, in some cases, will remain dangerous for tens of thousands of years; a history of serious reactor accidents, such as those at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima; being potential targets for terrorists at any time or enemies in time of war; they are capital intensive; and, for all of the above reasons, starting with their relation to nuclear weapons proliferation, an extremely poor alternative to truly safe renewable energy sources.

I will conclude with three important quotes with which I strongly agree and which I believe carry deep seeds of wisdom.

The first is a quote, offered by Judith Lipton from T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

The second quote is by Richard Falk: “In such a time [as ours], it is itself an act of will to keep the flames of hope and possibility from being snuffed out.”

The third is a quote offered by David Barash from ancient Jewish wisdom: “It is not for you to finish the task, but neither is it for you to refrain from it.”

We must not lose sight of the fact that, as T.S. Eliot reminds us, with nuclear arms, everything could change in a moment’s time. That is the dangerous nature of the Nuclear Age. It is only by our commitment and acts of will that we may be able to keep hope alive, protect our world, and pass it on intact to future generations. We may not finish the task, but we must accept the challenge and engage in it with passion if we are to create the awareness, trust, cooperation and institutional framework to achieve the goal of nuclear zero.

I appreciate the work of the Great Transition Initiative, and the opportunity to share my thoughts with you and to receive yours in return.

October 1, 2018
2013 Nagasaki Appeal

Although more than 50,000 nuclear weapons have been eliminated since 1986, more than 17,000 remain. It would only take a small number of these weapons of mass destruction to end civilization and most life on earth. Nine countries possess nuclear weapons, another five host U.S. nuclear weapons on their soil, and more still base their security on alliances with nuclear weapon states. Countless atomic bomb survivors worked hard until their last days for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The danger of nuclear annihilation, by accident, miscalculation or design continues to cast a dark shadow over humanity’s future. In addition, the failure of the nuclear weapon states to achieve more progress toward a nuclear weapons free world is undermining the legitimacy of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The nuclear weapon states’ repeated delays in fulfilling their “unequivocal” commitment to nuclear disarmament has discredited the nonproliferation regime and may destroy it. The massive and ongoing releases of radiation from the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima nuclear power plant which resulted from the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, demonstrated yet again the inability of human beings to control nuclear technology. The fear and suffering of Fukushima citizens for their health and life renewed our recognition of the danger of radioactivity, whether from nuclear weapons or nuclear energy. The experiences of Fukushima and the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima have shown us that the effects of nuclear disasters are uncontrollable in time and space. Despite the daunting challenges, there are reasons for hope. Among them, the renewed emphasis on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons use, which the hibakusha have been calling for for decades. In 1996, the International Court of Justice, in considering the uniquely destructive effects of nuclear weapons concluded that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal. The final document of the 2010 NPT review conference expressed “deep concern at the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons” and reaffirmed “the need for all States at all times to comply with applicable international law, including international humanitarian law.” Describing the inhumanity of nuclear weapons, the resolution adopted in November 2011 by the Council of Delegates of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement identified the need to “conclude … negotiations to prohibit the use of and completely eliminate nuclear weapons through a legally binding international agreement.” Since 2010, the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons have been discussed in the United Nations General Assembly and at preparatory committee meetings for the 2015 NPT Review Conference. In addition, an international conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, hosted by the government of Norway, was held in Oslo in March 2013. A follow-on meeting, will be hosted by the government of Mexico in February 2014. We welcome this trend and expect it to contribute to global efforts to achieve the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. The 2010 NPT Review Conference agreed: “All States need to make special efforts to establish the necessary framework to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons,” noting in particular “the Five-Point Proposal for Nuclear Disarmament of the Secretary-General of the United Nations,” including the call for negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention. The Open Ended Working Group to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons held meetings in Geneva for the first time in May, June and August of this year. It was a new situation in which representatives of government and civil society participated as equals. This prompted the Conference on Disarmament, following 17 years of inaction, to establish an informal working group on nuclear disarmament. In addition, the first High Level Meeting on nuclear disarmament in the United Nations General Assembly was held in September 2013. This is being followed up by the Non Aligned Movement proposal to establish 26 September as the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons and to hold a High Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament no later than 2018. We are encouraged by such efforts and hope they continue. We emphasize and reiterate that nuclear weapons are indiscriminate and inhumane weapons of mass destruction, and their use would be impermissible under any circumstances. The idea that nuclear deterrence can assure a country’s security is delusional. Another use of nuclear weapons would cause human death and suffering across national borders and generations. It would result in destruction of the environment and entire ecosystems. Even a relatively small regional nuclear exchange could result in a global “nuclear famine” leading to a billion deaths. Against this background, we appeal for the following concrete actions. 1. Negotiations on the comprehensive prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons should start on the earliest occasion. We call for negotiations to begin in 2014, and for these negotiations to be supported by the NPT Review Conference in 2015 and the High Level Conference proposed to take place no later than 2018. 2. The nuclear-armed countries, especially those with the largest arsenals, the U.S. and Russia, should make significant reductions in their strategic and non-strategic, deployed and undeployed nuclear stockpiles through bilateral or unilateral measures. All nuclear-armed countries should halt development and modernization of their nuclear weapons systems. The obscene amounts of money and scientific resources dedicated to these ends should be reallocated to meeting social and economic needs. 3. All nations should phase out the role and significance of nuclear weapons in their military and foreign policies. Nuclear-armed countries and those countries that rely on nuclear umbrellas have a special responsibility. Nuclear-free countries can also take steps to delegitimize and stigmatize nuclear weapons, such as enacting national legislation and divesting from nuclear weapons industries. 4. Governments and civil society should publicize the decision of the District Court of Tokyo in the Shimoda case: “The [atomic bomb] attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war,” especially following the 50th anniversary of the December 8, 1963 decision. 5. We encourage greater citizen participation in campaigns for the elimination of nuclear weapons, such as Mayors for Peace, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament (PNND), the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons (Abolition 2000), the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). We welcome the engagement of young people around the world. 6. We call for a redoubling of efforts to establish new nuclear weapon-free zones, including in the Middle East, Northeast Asia and the Arctic Circle. Nuclear weapon-free zones diminish the role of nuclear weapons in national security policies and reduce the risks of nuclear weapons use at the regional level. They also provide an achievable and more secure alternative to extended nuclear deterrence. 7. The nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant continues to cause immeasurable damage and suffering to the citizens of Fukushima Prefecture and beyond. Those responsible for the Fukushima accident should be held accountable. At the same time, civil society should support programs to assist displaced residents and restore, as much as feasible, the damaged areas in Fukushima. Information about the ongoing crisis should be transparent and publically available. Those exposed to radiation should be guaranteed long-term medical assistance. We must not let Fukushima be forgotten. 8. The accident at Fukushima has taught us that we cannot continue to rely upon nuclear energy. The hibakusha’s experience of the atomic bomb was brought to the United Nations in 1982 by Senji Yamaguchi, who declared: “No More Hiroshimas, No More Nagasakis, No more Hibakusha, No More War!” The accident at Fukushima requires the addition of “No More Fukushimas!” As the only nation that has experienced nuclear attacks in war, Japan has a special responsibility to lead in achieving a world without nuclear weapons. Therefore: 1. We welcome Japan joining 124 other governments in signing a joint statement on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons in the United Nations General Assembly First Committee on 21 October 2013. However, we regret the U.S. – Japanese joint security statement of 3 October 2013 which reaffirmed the Alliance’s commitment to the security of Japan “through the full range of U.S. military capabilities, including nuclear and conventional.” The Japanese government should change its policy of reliance on the U.S. nuclear umbrella in conformity with the joint statement that indicates clearly that the continued existence of all humanity depends on not using nuclear weapons “under any circumstances.” 2. We believe that the Japanese government should pursue the establishment of a nuclear weapon-free zone in Northeast Asia as a path to achieving security that does not rely upon nuclear deterrence. Leaders of 532 local authorities in Japan have expressed support for this idea, as did 83 Japanese and South Korean parliamentarians from across the political spectrum in a joint statement on 22 July 2010. In September 2013, the President of Mongolia indicated his country’s interest in exploring the establishment of a nuclear weapon-free zone in Northeast Asia at the United Nations General Assembly. We call upon the Japanese government to initiate a dialogue with the government of South Korea to achieve a Northeast Asia nuclear weapon-free zone. 3. We call upon the Japanese government to inform the world about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons as an imperative for the abolition of nuclear weapons. To demonstrate leadership, Japan should take advantage of the opportunity presented by the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative Foreign Ministers’ Meeting to be held in Hiroshima in April 2014. Japan should also urge political leaders and government officials who will participate in the G20 Summit that will be held in Japan in 2016 to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 4. We call on the Japanese government to seek and welcome independent, international expert assistance in stabilizing, containing and monitoring the radiological crisis at Fukushima. We, the participants in the 5th Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, heard again the voices of survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and their urgent appeal that the elimination of nuclear weapons becomes a reality while they are still alive. We also listened to hopeful voices of young people accepting responsibility for achieving and maintaining a world without nuclear weapons. The ties of mutual understanding and solidarity were deepened through three days of spirited interaction and discussion. We pledge to continue our utmost efforts to achieve a world without nuclear weapons, and we appeal to the people of the world: “Nagasaki must be the last A-bombed city.” by The 5th Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

November 4, 2013
Hubris vs. Wisdom

David Krieger delivered this speech in Nagasaki, Japan, on November 2, 2013.

Mayor Taue, Dr. Tomonaga, people of Nagasaki, conference participants, I bring greetings from the 60,000 members of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and wish to express to you and the city of Nagasaki our deep appreciation for continuing this tradition of Nagasaki Global Citizens Assemblies for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. It is a great pleasure to be back in this beautiful city, and I am particularly happy to renew old friendships.

The steadfast commitment of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to nuclear weapons abolition for nearly seven decades is both admirable and honorable. Along with many millions of other thinking and caring people throughout the world, I share with you the hope and goal that Nagasaki will remain the last place on Earth where nuclear weapons are ever used in warfare.

It is evident that there is only one way to assure this goal, and that is to abolish nuclear weapons. To do so will require leadership and a massive demand from people throughout the world. As one who has worked toward this goal for more than four decades, I know that this is an extremely difficult challenge, but I also know that we are making progress.

In 1986, there were over 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Today there are just over 17,000. It is progress that the world has shed some 53,000 nuclear weapons in roughly the past quarter century, but we still have far too many. To assure that there are no more Hiroshimas or Nagasakis will require achieving a world with Zero nuclear weapons.

Hubris Versus Wisdom

In the Nuclear Age, humankind must not be passive in the face of the threat posed by nuclear weapons. The future of humanity and all life depends upon the outcome of the ongoing struggle between hubris and wisdom.

Hubris is an ancient Greek word meaning extreme arrogance. Wisdom is cautionary good sense.

Hubris is at the heart of Greek tragedy – the arrogant belief that one’s power is unassailable. Wisdom counsels that no human power is impregnable.

Hubris says some countries can hold onto nuclear weapons and rely upon them for deterrence. Wisdom says these weapons must be eliminated before they eliminate us.

Hubris says these terrible weapons are subject to human control. Wisdom says that humans are fallible creatures, subject to error.

Hubris repeats that we can control our most dangerous technologies. Wisdom says look at what happened at Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Hubris says the spread of nuclear weapons can be contained. Wisdom says that the only sure way to prevent the spread or use of nuclear weapons is to abolish those that exist.

Hubris says that political leaders will always be rational and avoid the use of nuclear weapons. Wisdom observes that all humans, including political leaders, behave irrationally at some times under some circumstances.

Hubris says we can play Russian roulette with the human future. Wisdom says we have a responsibility to assure there is a human future.

Hubris says that we can control nuclear fire. Wisdom says nuclear weapons will spark wildfires of human suffering and must be eradicated forever from the planet.

The Necessity of Wisdom

In the Nuclear Age, wisdom is the best antidote to hubris. I want to go back in time to the horrific opening of the Nuclear Age and explore the wisdom of three men who understood clearly that the creation and use of atomic bombs changed the world. These men were Albert Camus, Mohandas Gandhi and Albert Einstein. Their responses to the use of atomic weapons were very different from that of then-President of the United States Harry Truman, who, when he heard of the bombing of Hiroshima, is reported to have said, “This is the greatest thing in history.” He also thanked God that the bomb had come to the United States and not to its enemies.

Albert Camus was a great French novelist and existentialist who, during World War II, edited the underground French Resistance newspaper, Combat. Twelve years after the war, in 1957, he would receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. After learning of the bombing of Hiroshima, even before the second bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki, he wrote:

“Our technical civilization has just reached its greatest level of savagery. We will have to choose, in the more or less near future, between collective suicide and the intelligent use of our scientific conquests. Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only battle worth waging. This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments – a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.”

Camus recognized instantly that, after the atomic bomb was created and used, peace needed to be elevated to the top of our hierarchy of values and goals. It needed to be pursued actively, that is waged, with the same strategic thinking, discipline, commitment and courage as for waging war. For Camus, the new circumstance of nuclear weapons in the world required the people to wage peace and to lead their leaders.

Gandhi was the great proponent of satyagraha (truth-force) and nonviolence. He was leading India to independence from the British when the atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Gandhi recalled his reaction to the bombs: “I did not move a muscle when I first heard that the atom bomb had wiped out Hiroshima. On the contrary, I said to myself, ‘Unless now the world adopts nonviolence, it will spell certain suicide for humanity.’ Nonviolence is the only thing the atom bomb cannot destroy.” For Gandhi, the violence of the atomic bomb could only be overcome by the nonviolence of humanity.

Albert Einstein, the great scientist and humanitarian, wrote, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

Einstein saw that the old ways of thinking were a trap and that people must learn to think in new ways. I believe the most important new ways of thinking that are needed are species identification and solidarity, that is, we must think like members of one race, the human race. In doing so, we will learn to settle our differences peacefully and not through violence, and we will build institutions, such as the United Nations, that will support these ways of thinking. For Einstein, the critical factor brought about by atomic weaponry was the need for new modes of thinking if humankind is to avert “unparalleled catastrophe.”

Three great men; three powerful expressions of wisdom.

Ending the Nuclear Threat

The only number of nuclear weapons that makes sense is Zero and that must be our goal: a world with Zero nuclear weapons. This world is only as far away as our imaginations, our determination and our perseverance. To achieve Nuclear Zero, we must wage peace, take nonviolent actions, and change our modes of thinking to identify as members of the human species. The Nuclear Age demands of us that we conquer hubris with wisdom.

We must never give up on seeking the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. We can follow wisdom and live together as humans, seeking solutions to our common problems; or we can follow the path of hubris and perish together stuck in our apathy, our ignorance and our national allegiances.

The most important next step on the journey to a peaceful and non-killing world is ending the nuclear weapons era. This can be accomplished by the negotiation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons. Progress is being made toward this goal, but it seems unbearably slow.

Civil society and non-nuclear-weapon states must bring more pressure to bear upon the existing nuclear weapon states to negotiate the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. I would also encourage the countries participating in the upcoming Mexico conference to begin negotiations, with or without the nuclear weapons states, for a legal ban on the manufacture, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. The process must begin, and it must be approached with a sense of urgency.

Having identified the problem – that nuclear weapons endanger the human species and much of complex life – we should move rapidly toward eliminating the threat. In doing so, we will free up scientific and financial resources to deal with other pressing global threats, including climate change, development of renewable energy resources, pollution of the oceans and atmosphere, scarcity of potable water, food insecurity and loss of forests, biodiversity and arable land. For the future of humanity, we must also move forward to eliminate war as a human institution.

A Few Simple Truths

I will end with a short poem I wrote earlier this year. It is titled “A Few Simple Truths.”

A FEW SIMPLE TRUTHS

Life is the universe’s most precious creation.

    There is only one place we know of where life exists.

    Children, all children, deserve a full and fair chance.

    The bomb threatens all life.

    War is legitimized murder with collateral damage.

    Construction requires more than a hammer.

    The rising of the oceans cannot be contained by money.

    Love is the only currency that truly matters.

    One true human brings beauty to the earth.

This article was originally published by Truthout.

November 2, 2013
NAPF Congratulates Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) congratulates the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for receiving the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

OPCW is the body that enforces the Chemical Weapons Convention, the international treaty that prohibits the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons. Since the Convention came into force in 1997, it has been ratified by 189 states and the OPCW has conducted more than 5,000 inspections in 86 countries. According to its statistics, 81.1 percent of the world’s declared stockpile of chemical agents has been verifiably destroyed.

Syria is due to become the 190th member state to join the Chemical Weapons Convention on October 14, 2013. OPCW is the organization responsible for destroying its stockpiles of chemical weapons.

Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, said in his announcement of this year’s peace laureate that the award is a reminder to other nations, including the United States and Russia, to eliminate their own stockpiles of chemical weapons, “especially because they are demanding that others do the same, like Syria.” He added, “We now have the opportunity to get rid of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction… That would be a great event in history if we could achieve that.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said, “The conventions and the work of the OPCW have defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo under international law.” It also stated, “Disarmament figures prominently in Alfred Nobel’s will. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has through numerous prizes underlined the need to do away with nuclear weapons. By means of the present award to the OPCW, the Committee is seeking to contribute to the elimination of chemical weapons.”

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s vision is a just and peaceful world, free of nuclear weapons. The implementation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which would make the manufacture, testing, possession, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal under international law, would build on and expand what the OPCW has accomplished in enforcing the Chemical Weapons Convention, making the world a safer place.

October 11, 2013
Protecting Whistleblowers

The world urgently needs a system of international laws for protecting whistleblowers. There are many reasons for this, but among the most urgent is the need for saving civilization and the biosphere from the threat of a catastrophic nuclear war.

It is generally recognized that a war fought with nuclear weapons would be a humanitarian and environmental disaster, affecting neutral nations throughout the world, as well as combatants. For example, on 4-5 March 2013 the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Espen Barth Eide hosted an international Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.

The Conference provided an arena for a fact-based discussion of the humanitarian and developmental consequences of a nuclear weapons detonation. Delegates from 127 countries as well as several UN organisations, the International Red Cross movement, representatives of civil society and other relevant stakeholders participated.

The Austrian representatives to the Oslo Conference commented that “Austria is convinced that it is necessary and overdue to put the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons at the center of our debate, including in the NPT. Nuclear weapons are not just a security policy issue for a few states but an issue of serious concern for the entire international community. The humanitarian, environmental, health, economic and developmental consequences of any nuclear weapons explosion would be devastating and global and any notion of adequate preparedness or response is an illusion.”

China stated that “China has always stood for the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons, and [has] actively promoted the establishment of a world free of nuclear weapons. The complete prohibition and total elimination of nuclear weapons, getting rid of the danger of nuclear war and the attainment of a nuclear-weapon-free world, serve the common interests and benefits of humankind.”

Japan’s comment included the words: “As the only country to have suffered atomic bombings during wartime, Japan actively contributed to the Oslo Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in March. With strengthened resolve to seek a nuclear-weapons-free world, we continue to advance disarmament and non-proliferation education to inform the world and the next generation of the dreadful realities of nuclear devastation.” Many other nations represented at the Oslo Conference made similarly strong statements advocating the complete abolition of nuclear weapons.

Recently UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has introduced a 5-point Program for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In this program he mentioned the possibility of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, and urged the Security Council to convene a summit devoted to the nuclear abolition. He also urged all countries to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty.

Three-quarters of all nations support UN Secretary-General Ban’s proposal for a treaty to outlaw and eliminate nuclear weapons. The 146 nations that have declared their willingness to negotiate a new global disarmament pact include four nuclear weapon states: China, India, Pakistan and North Korea.

Nuclear disarmament has been one of the core aspirations of the international community since the first use of nuclear weapons in 1945. A nuclear war, even a limited one, would have global humanitarian and environmental consequences, and thus it is a responsibility of all governments,including those of non-nuclear countries, to protect their citizens and engage in processes leading to a world without nuclear weapons.

Now a new process has been established by the United Nations General Assembly, an Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) to Take Forward Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations. The OEWG convened at the UN offices in Geneva on May 14, 2013. Among the topics discussed was a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention.

The Model Nuclear Weapons Convention prohibits development, testing, production, stockpiling, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. States possessing nuclear weapons will be required to destroy their arsenals according to a series of phases.

The Convention also prohibits the production of weapons usable fissile material and requires delivery vehicles to be destroyed or converted to make them non-nuclear capable.

Verification will include declarations and reports from States, routine inspections, challenge inspections, on-site sensors, satellite photography, radionuclide sampling and other remote sensors, information sharing with other organizations, and citizen reporting. Persons reporting suspected violations of the convention will be provided protection through the Convention including the right of asylum.

Thus we can see that the protection of whistleblowers is an integral feature of the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention now being discussed. As Sir Joseph Rotblat (1908-2005, Nobel Laureate 1995) frequently emphasized in his speeches, societal verification must be an integral part of the process of “going to zero” ( i.e, the total elimination of nuclear weapons). This is because nuclear weapons are small enough to be easily hidden. How will we know whether a nation has destroyed all of its nuclear arsenal? We have to depend on information from insiders, whose loyalty to the whole of humanity promts them to become whistleblowers. And for this to be possible, they need to be protected.

In general, if the world is ever to be free from the threat of complete destruction by modern weapons, we will need a new global ethic, an ethic as advanced as our technology. Of course we can continue to be loyal to our families, our localities and our countries. But this must be suplemented by a higher loyalty: a loyalty to humanity as a whole.

John Avery is a leader in the Pugwash movement in Denmark.

July 30, 2013
Nuclear Abolition: New Opportunities and Old Obstacles
At the end of last year, the airwaves and internet were filled with chatter about the ancient Mayan calendar which was predicting the end of the world or a similar catastrophe. Some scholars argued that the Mayan prophecy related not to an impending disaster but to the end of a 5000 year cycle which would usher in a period of new consciousness and transformation. While our planet seems to have dodged a bullet and survived the more gloomy interpretations of the ancient prophecy, the Mayans may have been on to something as it appears we are actually seeing the breakup of a certain kind of world consciousness regarding nuclear weapons this year and it’s all for the good.

New initiatives for nuclear disarmament are springing up in both conventional and unconventional forums. Norway stepped up to the plate in February and convened an unprecedented international meeting to address the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war. In Oslo, 127 nations, plus UN agencies, NGOs, and the International Red Cross participated in a debate and discussion of the catastrophic potential of nuclear weapons. Two nuclear weapons states, India and Pakistan attended.

The five recognized nuclear weapons states under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, who also happen to wield the veto as permanent members of the Security Council (the P5) the US, UK, Russia, China and France, refused to attend. They spoke in one voice, as I learned on a conference call with Rose Gottemoeller, US Acting Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, who told us that the US decision not to attend the conference “was made in consultation with the P5. They all agreed not to attend” because “Oslo would divert discussion and energy from a practical step by step approach and non-proliferation work. The most effective way to honor the NPT.” Other P5 spokespeople characterized the Oslo initiative as a “distraction.” Of course it was a distraction from the P5 preferred methods of business as usual in the ossified and stalled NPT process, as well as in the procedurally stymied Conference on Disarmament in Geneva which has been paralyzed for 17 years because of lack of consensus, required by its rules to move forward on disarmament agreements—a recipe for nuclear weapons forever—with regular new breakout threats by nuclear proliferators.

Oslo was an end run around those institutions. Taking its model from the Ottawa Process that wound up with a treaty to ban landmines, working outside of the usual institutional fora, it held an electrifying new kind of discussion as testimony was heard about the devastating impacts of what would occur during a nuclear war and the humanitarian consequences, examining the need to ban the bomb. Prior to the Oslo meeting, more than 500 members of ICAN, a vibrant new campaign, met to work for negotiations to begin on a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons. At Oslo, the nations pledged to follow up with another meeting in Mexico.

Right before Oslo, The Middle Powers Initiative, working to influence friendly middle powers to put pressure on the P5 for more rapid progress for nuclear disarmament, held a Framework Forum for a Nuclear Weapons Free World in Berlin, hosted by the German government, under the new leadership of Tad Akiba, former Mayor of Hiroshima who oversaw the burgeoning Mayors for Peace Campaign grow to a network of some 5300 mayors in more than 150 countries calling for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. At that meeting, we were urged to organize Civil Society’s support for a new initiative promoted by the UN General Assembly’s First Committee establishment of a Geneva Working Group to meet for three weeks this summer to “develop proposals for taking forward multilateral negotiations on the achievement and maintenance of a world free of nuclear weapons.” And then in New York this September, for the first time ever, Heads of State will meet at a global summit devoted to nuclear disarmament!

Furthermore, thanks to the tireless organizing of the Parliamentarians for Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Disarmament,, nearly 1000 parliamentarians from approximately 150 parliaments, meeting at the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Ecuador last month chose the topic “Towards a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World: The Contribution of Parliaments” as a focus this year under their Peace and International Security work. IPU, which includes most of the nuclear weapons states in its 160 parliaments enables parliamentarians to engage on core issues for humanity. That they chose the issue of nuclear weapons ahead of seven other proposals indicates the rising interest and consciousness for nuclear abolition around the world.

And just before this meeting, Abolition 2000, the global network formed in 1995, at the NPT Review and Extension Conference, which produced a model nuclear weapons convention, now promoted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in his five point proposal for nuclear disarmament, held its annual meeting in Edinburg Scotland, supported by the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which is urging that after the referendum on Scottish independence from England, that England’s Trident nuclear submarine base at Faslane be closed, and that Scotland no longer house the British nuclear arsenal. The network joined with Scottish activists at Glasgow and Faslane supporting their call to “Scrap Trident: Let Scotland lead the way to a nuclear free world.”

Despite these welcome harbingers of a change in planetary consciousness in favor of nuclear abolition, we cannot ignore recent obstacles, setbacks and hardened positions in the old patriarchal and warlike paradigm. Disappointingly the Obama administration is proposing deep cuts in funding for nuclear non-proliferation programs so it can boost spending to modernize its massive stockpile of nuclear weapons adding another $500 million to the already bloated weapons budget, which includes spending for three new bomb factories at Oak Ridge, Los Alamos and Kansas City with programs for weapons modernization and new missiles, planes and submarines to deliver a nuclear attack which will come to more than $184 billion over the next ten years.

In the provocative US military “pivot” to Asia, war games with South Korea for the first time simulated a nuclear attack where the US flew stealth bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons over South Korea and sent two guided-missile destroyers off the coast of South Korea, announcing plans to deploy an advanced missile defense system to Guam in the next few weeks two years ahead of schedule.

This engendered an aggressive response from North Korea which moved a medium-range missile to its east coast and threatened to launch a nuclear attack on the US. The US put a pause on what it had called its step-by-step plan that laid out the sequence and publicity plans for US shows of force during annual war games with South Korea. But ominously, the New York Times reported on April 4, 2013, that the US and South Korea “are entering the final stretch of long-stalled negotiations over another highly delicate nuclear issue: South Korea’s own request for American permission to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel. Which raises another key obstacle to the surge of sentiment for moving boldly towards nuclear disarmament.
How can we tell Iran not to enrich uranium when we are negotiating that issue with South Korea as well as with Saudi Arabia?

If we are serious about nuclear abolition we cannot keep spreading nuclear bomb factories around the world in the form of “peaceful” nuclear power. That is why this new negotiating possibilities outside the NPT are so promising. In order to ban nuclear weapons we are not bound to provide an “inalienable right” to so-called “peaceful nuclear power, as guaranteed by the Article IV promise of the NPT.

The tragic events at Fukushima, have caused a time-out in the so-called nuclear renaissance that expected a massive increase of nuclear power worldwide. Just last week, we learned that all of Fukushima’s holding ponds for the toxic radiated water that is used to prevent a meltdown of the stored radioactive fuel rods by cooling them with a constant flow of water, the radioactive trash produced by the operation of nuclear power plants, are all leaking into the earth. We have not yet absorbed the full catastrophic consequences of Fukushima which is still perilously poised to spew more poisons into the air, water and soil; poisons which are traveling around the world. And as the Japanese people rose up to develop plans to phase out nuclear power, members of the Japanese military, acknowledging the significance of nuclear plants as military technology, succeeded in getting the parliament to amend Japan’s 1955 Atomic Energy Basic Law last year, adding “national security” to people’s health and wealth as reasons for Japan’s use of the nuclear power.

We were warned from the beginning of the atomic age that nuclear power was a recipe for proliferation. President Truman’s 1946 Acheson-Lilienthal Report on policy for the future of nuclear weapons, concluded that “the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes and the development of atomic energy for bombs are in much of their course interchangeable and interdependent” and that only central control by a global authority controlling all nuclear materials, starting at uranium mines could block the proliferation of nuclear weapons.[i] Nevertheless, President Eisenhower, seeking to counter public revulsion at the normalization of nuclear war in US military policy, was advised by the Defense Department’s Psychological Strategy Board that “the atomic bomb will be accepted far more readily if at the same time atomic energy is being used for constructive ends.”[ii] Hence his Atoms for Peace speech at the UN in 1953, in which he promised that the US would devote “its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life” [iii] by spreading the peaceful benefits of atomic power across the globe.

The fallout from the 1954 Bravo test of a hydrogen bomb contaminating 236 Marshall Islanders and 23 Japanese fisherman aboard the Lucky Dragon and irradiating tuna sold in Japan resulted in an eruption of rage against the atomic bombings which were forbidden to be discussed after 1945 by a ban instituted by US occupation authorities. For damage control, the US NSC recommended that the US wage a “vigorous offensive on the non-war uses of atomic energy,” offering to build Japan an experimental nuclear reactor and recruiting a former Japanese war criminal, Shoriki Matsutaro, who ran the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and Nippon TV network to shill for nuclear power by getting him released from prison without trial. The benefits of nuclear power were aggressively marketed as miraculous technology that would power vehicles, light cities, heal the sick. The US made agreements with 37 nations to build atomic reactors and enticed reluctant Westinghouse and General Electric to do so by passing the Price Anderson act limiting their liability at tax-payer expense. Today there is a cap of $12 billion for damages from a nuclear accident. Chernobyl cost $350 billion and Fukushima estimates are as high as one trillion dollars.[iv]

Ironically, Barack Obama is still peddling the same snake oil. During the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit, designed to lock down and safeguard nuclear materials worldwide, Obama extolled the peaceful benefits of nuclear power while urging “ nations to join us in seeking a future where we harness the awesome power of the atom to build and not to destroy. When we enhance nuclear security, we’re in a stronger position to harness safe, clean nuclear energy. When we develop new, safer approaches to nuclear energy, we reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism and proliferation.”

The Good News: We don’t need nuclear power with all its potential for nuclear proliferation

Following Fukushima, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Japan have announced their intention to phase out nuclear power.
- Kuwait pulled out of a contract to build 4 reactors.
- Venezuela froze all nuclear development projects.
- Mexico dropped plans to build 10 reactors.[v]
- Bulgaria and the Philipines also dropped plans to build new reactors.
- Quebec will shut down its one reactor.
- Spain is closing down another.
- Belgium shut down two reactors because of cracks.
New research and reports are affirming the possibilities for shifting the global energy paradigm. Scientific American reported a plan in 2009 to power 100% of the planet by 2030 with only solar, wind and water renewables.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) also issued a 2010 Report 100% Renewable Energy by 2050.[vi]

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that the world could meet 80% of its energy needs from renewables by 2050.

In 2009 the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), was launched and now has 187 member states.[vii]

We mustn’t buy into the propaganda that clean safe energy is decades away or too costly. We need to be vigilant in providing the ample evidence in its favor to counter the corporate forces arguing that it’s not ready, it’s years away, its’ too expensive—arguments made by companies in the business of producing dirty fuel.

Here’s what Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to say about similar forces in 1936

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.[viii]

These are the enormous forces we must overcome. The eco-philosopher Joanna Macy, describes these times as ”the great turning”. In shifting the energy paradigm we would essentially be turning away from “the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization”, foregoing a failed economic model which “ measures its performance in terms of ever-increasing corporate profits–in other words by how fast materials can be extracted from Earth and turned into consumer products, weapons, and waste.”[ix] Relying on the inexhaustible abundance of the sun, wind, tides, and heat of the earth for our energy needs, freely available to all, will diminish the competitive, industrial, consumer society that is threatening our planetary survival. By ending our dependence on the old structures, beginning with the compelling urgency to transform the way we meet our energy needs, we may finally be able to put an end to war as well.

[i] http://www.nci.org/06nci/10/Acheson-Lilienthal%20report%20excerpt.htm

[ii] www.japanfocus.org/-yuki-tanaka/3521#

[iii] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1439606/Atoms-for-Peace-speech

[iv] www.japanfocus.org/-yuki-tanaka/3521#

[v] http://progressive.org/fukushima_nuclear_industry.html

[vi] http://www.worldwildlife.org/climate/energy-report.html

[vii] http://www.irena.org/Menu/Index.aspx?mnu=Cat&PriMenuID=46&CatID=67

[viii] http://millercenter.virginia.edu/scripps/digitalarchive/speeches/spe_1936_1031_roosevelt

[ix] http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/great-turning

Alice Slater is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s New York Representative.
May 20, 2013
Lessons from the U.S.-Korea Nuclear Crisis

The high-profile nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, pitting the reigning heavyweight nuclear champion, the United States, against the bantamweight nuclear contender, North Korea, is not finished and is deadly serious. The posturing and exchanges that the world has been witnessing are capable of spiraling out of control and resulting in nuclear war. Like the Cuban Missile Crisis more than half a century ago, this crisis demonstrates that nuclear dangers continue to lurk in dark shadows across the globe.

This crisis, for which the fault is shared by both sides, must be taken seriously and viewed as a warning that nuclear stability is an unrealistic goal. The elimination of nuclear weapons, an obligation set forth in the Non-Proliferation Treaty and confirmed by the International Court of Justice, must be a more urgent goal of the international community. The continued evasion of this obligation by the nuclear weapon states makes possible repeated nuclear crises, nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and nuclear war.

Lessons can be drawn from this most recent crisis about the dangerous reliance by nuclear-armed states on nuclear deterrence and the unrealistic quest for security through nuclear deterrence and nuclear crisis management. Here are ten lessons:

1. Nuclear deterrence encourages threatening words and actions that can escalate into a full-blown crisis. For nuclear deterrence to be effective between nuclear-armed countries, each country must believe that the other is prepared to actually use nuclear weapons against it in retaliation for behavior considered prohibited (and this may not be clear). Thus, the leader of each country must convince the other side that he is irrational enough to retaliate against it with nuclear weapons, knowing that the other will then retaliate in kind. For each side to convince the other, threatening words and actions are employed.

2. Nuclear deterrence requires leaders to act rationally, but also makes it rational to behave irrationally. This is a conundrum inherent in nuclear deterrence. A leader of a nuclear-armed country must be sufficiently rational to be deterred by a threat of nuclear retaliation; but he also must behave sufficiently irrationally to make the other side believe he is actually prepared to use nuclear weapons in retaliation against it.

3. While deterrence theory requires that leaders be perceived as irrational enough to retaliate with nuclear weapons, they cannot be perceived as so irrational that they would mount a first-strike attack with nuclear weapons. Should leaders of Country A be perceived by Country B as being ready to launch a preventive nuclear attack, it could lead to an earlier preventive attack by Country B.

4. “War games” by Country B, held near Country A’s borders, are not-so-subtle threats, particularly when they involve nuclear capable delivery systems. The US and South Korea conducted joint war games near the border of North Korea. North Korean leaders became angry and threatening, escalating the crisis. If a country conducted “war games” near the US border, one can only imagine the response. To demonstrate how little countries appear to learn from such crises, the US cancelled a Minuteman III missile test in April at the height of the crisis, but has now rescheduled the provocative test for a date in May.

5. When a nuclear crisis escalates, it can spin out of control. In an environment of escalating threats, one side may believe its best option is to launch a preventive attack, thus setting in motion a nuclear war.

6. Nuclear weapons are military equalizers; they provide greater benefit to the militarily weaker country. A relatively small and weak country, such as North Korea, can hold a much more powerful country, such as the US, at bay with the threat to use nuclear weapons against it, its troops, and/or its allies. On the other hand, when countries such as Iraq and Libya gave up their nuclear weapons programs, they were attacked by the US and its allies, their regimes were overthrown and their leaders killed.

7. Nuclear power plants are attractive targets, since they can be turned into radiological weapons. South Korea has 23 nuclear reactors within striking range of North Korea. These plants could be intentionally or accidentally destroyed, leading to reactor and spent-fuel meltdowns, and the spread of radiation throughout the Korean Peninsula and beyond.

8. The value of nuclear weapons, to the extent they have value, lies only in the bluff to use them. If the nuclear bluff is called, it may lead to catastrophic results – “Game Over.” That dangerous potential is always present in the bluff to use nuclear weapons.

9. Cutting off communications increases the risks of misinterpreting an act or intention of the other side. The two sides stopped speaking to each other except in the language of threat. North Korea shut down the Crisis Hot Line, a communications device set up to prevent misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the acts of the two Koreas.

10. Leaders in a nuclear crisis situation need to talk to each other and demonstrate rationality to reverse the escalation. Leaders on both sides of the crisis should be making overtures to talk through their differences and resolve them rather than continuing to posture in threatening ways at a distance.

One final lesson that applies to all nuclear crises is that the only way to assure that nuclear weapons are not used again is to abolish them.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

May 6, 2013
H.R. 1650 – Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act of 2013

113th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 1650

To provide for nuclear weapons abolition and economic conversion in accordance with District of Columbia Initiative Measure Number 37 of 1992, while ensuring environmental restoration and clean-energy conversion.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

April 18, 2013

Ms. NORTON introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL

To provide for nuclear weapons abolition and economic conversion in accordance with District of Columbia Initiative Measure Number 37 of 1992, while ensuring environmental restoration and clean-energy conversion.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act of 2013′.

SEC. 2. REQUIREMENT FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION AND ECONOMIC AND ENERGY CONVERSION.

(a) In General- The United States Government shall–

(1) provide leadership to negotiate and enter into a multilateral treaty or other international agreement by the date that is three years after the date of the enactment of this Act that provides for–

(A) the dismantlement and elimination of all nuclear weapons in every country by not later than 2020; and

(B) strict and effective international control of such dismantlement and elimination;

(2) redirect resources that are being used for nuclear weapons programs to use–

(A) in converting all nuclear weapons industry employees, processes, plants, and programs smoothly to constructive, ecologically beneficial peacetime activities, including strict control of all fissile material and radioactive waste, during the period in which nuclear weapons must be dismantled and eliminated pursuant to the treaty or other international agreement described in paragraph (1); and

(B) in addressing human and infrastructure needs, including development and deployment of sustainable carbon-free and nuclear-free energy sources, health care, housing, education, agriculture, and environmental restoration, including long-term radioactive waste monitoring;

(3) undertake vigorous, good-faith efforts to eliminate war, armed conflict, and all military operations; and

(4) actively promote policies to induce all other countries to join in the commitments described in this subsection to create a more peaceful and secure world.

(b) Effective Date- Subsection (a)(2) shall take effect on the date on which the President certifies to Congress that all countries possessing nuclear weapons have–

(1) eliminated such weapons; or

(2) begun such elimination under established legal requirements comparable to those described in subsection (a).

Eleanor Holmes Norton represents Washington, DC in the U.S. House of Representatives.

April 18, 2013
Nuclear Weapons Must Be Eradicated for All Our Sakes

This article was originally published by The Guardian.

We cannot intimidate others into behaving well when we ourselves are misbehaving. Yet that is precisely what nations armed with nuclear weapons hope to do by censuring North Korea for its nuclear tests and sounding alarm bells over Iran’s pursuit of enriched uranium. According to their logic, a select few nations can ensure the security of all by having the capacity to destroy all.

Until we overcome this double standard – until we accept that nuclear weapons are abhorrent and a grave danger no matter who possesses them, that threatening a city with radioactive incineration is intolerable no matter the nationality or religion of its inhabitants – we are unlikely to make meaningful progress in halting the spread of these monstrous devices, let alone banishing them from national arsenals.

Why, for instance, would a proliferating state pay heed to the exhortations of the US and Russia, which retain thousands of their nuclear warheads on high alert? How can Britain, France and China expect a hearing on non-proliferation while they squander billions modernising their nuclear forces? What standing has Israel to urge Iran not to acquire the bomb when it harbours its own atomic arsenal?

Nuclear weapons do not discriminate; nor should our leaders. The nuclear powers must apply the same standard to themselves as to others: zero nuclear weapons. Whereas the international community has imposed blanket bans on other weapons with horrendous effects – from biological and chemical agents to landmines and cluster munitions – it has not yet done so for the very worst weapons of all. Nuclear weapons are still seen as legitimate in the hands of some. This must change.

Around 130 governments, various UN agencies, the Red Cross and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons are gathering in Oslo this week to examine the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons and the inability of relief agencies to provide an effective response in the event of a nuclear attack. For too long, debates about nuclear arms have been divorced from such realities, focusing instead on geopolitics and narrow concepts of national security.

With enough public pressure, I believe that governments can move beyond the hypocrisy that has stymied multilateral disarmament discussions for decades, and be inspired and persuaded to embark on negotiations for a treaty to outlaw and eradicate these ultimate weapons of terror. Achieving such a ban would require somewhat of a revolution in our thinking, but it is not out of the question. Entrenched systems can be turned on their head almost overnight if there’s the will.

Let us not forget that it was only a few years ago when those who spoke about green energy and climate change were considered peculiar. Now it is widely accepted that an environmental disaster is upon us. There was once a time when people bought and sold other human beings as if they were mere chattels, things. But people eventually came to their senses. So it will be the case for nuclear arms, sooner or later.

Indeed, 184 nations have already made a legal undertaking never to obtain nuclear weapons, and three in four support a universal ban. In the early 1990s, with the collapse of apartheid nigh, South Africa voluntarily dismantled its nuclear stockpile, becoming the first nation to do so. This was an essential part of its transition from a pariah state to an accepted member of the family of nations. Around the same time, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine also relinquished their Soviet-era atomic arsenals.

But today nine nations still consider it their prerogative to possess these ghastly bombs, each capable of obliterating many thousands of innocent civilians, including children, in a flash. They appear to think that nuclear weapons afford them prestige in the international arena. But nothing could be further from the truth. Any nuclear-armed state, big or small, whatever its stripes, ought to be condemned in the strongest terms for possessing these indiscriminate, immoral weapons.

Desmond Tutu is Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and a member of the NAPF Advisory Council.

March 6, 2013
Outlawing Nuclear Weapons: Time for a New International Treaty?
Is it time for a new international treaty that would outlaw nuclear weapons? The short answer to this question is, Yes, it is time. Actually, it is past time. The critical question, however, is not whether we need a new international treaty. We do. The critical question is: How do we achieve the political will among the nuclear weapon states to begin negotiations for a new international treaty to outlaw and eliminate all nuclear weapons?

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Is Failing

The NPT has reciprocal obligations. The nuclear weapon states seek to hold the line against proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries. In return, the non-nuclear weapon states rely upon Article VI of the NPT to level the playing field. Article VI contains three obligations:

“Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

None of these obligations have been fulfilled. Negotiations in good faith have not been pursued on any of the three obligations.

It has been 42 years since the treaty entered into force, and the nuclear arms race continues. All of the NPT nuclear weapon states are modernizing their arsenals. They have not negotiated in good faith to end the nuclear arms race at an early date.

Nor have the NPT nuclear weapon states negotiated in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament. They have not acted with a sense of urgency to achieve the goal of nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. They have not made a commitment to zero nuclear weapons.

Finally, the NPT nuclear weapon states have not negotiated in good faith on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. Since the NPT entered into force in 1970, there have been no negotiations on general and complete disarmament.

The NPT nuclear weapon states seem perfectly comfortable with their failure to fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the NPT. Given this lack of political will to achieve any of the three Article VI obligations, the prospects for a new international treaty are dim if states continue with business as usual. That is why the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation called for bold action by the non-nuclear weapon states in its Briefing Paper for the 2012 Preparatory Committee Meeting for the 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. The Briefing Paper concluded:

“It is necessary to ensure that nuclear weapons will not be used again as instruments of war, risking the destruction of civilization, nuclear famine and the extinction of most or all humans and other forms of complex life. Exposing the dangers of launch-on-warning nuclear policies and the dysfunctional and counterproductive nature of nuclear deterrence theory is essential for awaking policy makers and the public to the imperative goal of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. It is a goal that demands boldness by all who seek a sustainable future for humanity and the planet. The non-nuclear weapon states that are parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty have both the right and the responsibility to assert leadership in assuring that the nuclear weapon states fulfill their obligations for good faith negotiations for complete nuclear disarmament.”

The Premises of Bold Action

Bold action by the non-nuclear weapon states would be based upon the following premises:
1. There needs to be a sense of urgency to eliminate the risks posed by nuclear weapons, nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism.
What Would Constitute Bold Action?

The non-nuclear weapon states need to demonstrate to the nuclear weapon states that they are serious about the need for a new international treaty, which would be the means to fulfill the NPT Article VI obligations. UN General Assembly Resolutions are not getting the job done. They are not being taken seriously by the nuclear weapon states; nor are exhortations by the UN Secretary-General and other world leaders. Bold action by non-nuclear weapon states, in descending order of severity, could include these options:
1. Declaring the NPT null and void as a result of the failure of the nuclear weapon states to act in good faith in fulfilling their Article VI obligations.
Conclusion

At the outset, I posed this question: How do we achieve the political will among the nuclear weapon states to begin negotiations for a new international treaty to outlaw and eliminate all nuclear weapons? The answer is that the non-nuclear weapon states must unite and pressure the nuclear weapon states by bold action.

Fifty years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, we are approaching a critical time in the Nuclear Age. Our technological genius threatens our human future. Too much time has passed and too little has been accomplished toward achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.

Bold action is needed to move the nuclear weapon states to fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the NPT. I favor the first two actions listed above: a boycott and legal action. I fear that, unless such actions are taken soon by non-nuclear weapon states to pressure the nuclear weapon states to act in good faith, the likelihood is that business as usual will continue, and states will end up choosing the more extreme remedies of the third and fourth actions listed above: withdrawal from the NPT or deeming it null and void. Should this be the case, we will lose the only existing treaty that obligates its members to nuclear disarmament and also the likelihood of achieving a new international treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.
November 26, 2012