Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: catastrophic humanitarian consequences

  • A Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in February 2014

    On February 13 and 14, 2014, the government of Mexico will host a conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. The global peace movement must think carefully about how best to use the opportunities offered by the Mexico conference and by other recent breakthroughs in the struggle to eliminate the danger of a catastrophic thermonuclear war.

    The urgent need for nuclear disarmament:

    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 disastrous humanitarian and environmental consequences.

    The total explosive power of today’s weapons is equivalent to roughly half a million Hiroshima bombs. To multiply the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by a factor of half a million changes the danger qualitatively. What is threatened today is the complete breakdown of human society.

    Although the Cold War has ended, the dangers of nuclear weapons have not been appreciably reduced. Indeed, proliferation and the threat of nuclear terrorism have added new dimensions to the dangers. There is no defense against nuclear terrorism.

    There are 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world today, several thousand of them on hair-trigger alert. The phrase “hair trigger alert” means that the person in charge has only 15 minutes to decide whether the warning from the radar system was true of false, and to decide whether or not to launch a counterattack. The danger of accidental nuclear war continues to be high. Technical failures and human failures have many times brought the world close to a catastrophic nuclear war. Those who know the system of “deterrence” best describe it as “an accident waiting to happen”.

    A nuclear war would produce radioactive contamination of the kind that we have already experienced in the areas around Chernobyl and Fukushima and in the Marshall Islands, but on an enormously increased scale.

    Also, recent studies by atmospheric scientists have shown that the smoke from burning cities produced by even a limited nuclear war would have a devastating effect on global agriculture. The studies show that the smoke would rise to the stratosphere, where it would spread globally and remain for a decade, blocking sunlight, blocking the hydrological cycle and destroying the ozone layer. Because of the devastating effect on global agriculture, darkness from even a small nuclear war could result in an estimated billion deaths from famine. This number corresponds to the fact that today, a billion people are chronically undernourished. If global agriculture were sufficiently damaged by a nuclear war, these vulnerable people might not survive.

    A large-scale nuclear war would be an even greater global catastrophe, completely destroying all agriculture for a period of ten years. Such a war would mean that most humans would die from hunger, and many animal and plant species would be threatened with extinction.

    Recent breakthroughs:

    On 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. Representatives from many nations made strong statements advocating the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. The conference in Mexico in 2014 will be a follow-up to the Oslo Conference.

    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.

    On April 2, 2013, a historic victory was won at the United Nations, and the world achieved its first treaty limiting international trade in arms. Work towards the ATT was begun in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, which requires a consensus for the adoption of any measure. Over the years, the consensus requirement has meant that no real progress in arms control measures has been made in Geneva, since a consensus among 193 nations is impossible to achieve.

    To get around the blockade, British U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant sent the draft treaty to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and asked him on behalf of Mexico, Australia and a number of others to put the ATT to a swift vote in the General Assembly, and on Tuesday, April 3, it was adopted by a massive majority.

    The method used for the adoption of the Arms Trade Treaty suggests that progress on other seemingly intractable issues could be made by the same method, by putting the relevant legislation to a direct vote on the floor of the UN General Assembly, despite the opposition of militarily powerful states.

    According to ICAN, 151 nations support a ban on nuclear weapons, while only 22 nations oppose it. Details can be found on the following link: http://www.icanw.org/why-a-ban/positions/ Similarly a Nuclear Weapons Convention might be put to a direct vote on the floor of the UN General Assembly. The following link explores this possibility: http://www.cadmusjournal.org/article/issue-6/arms-trade-treaty-opens-new-possibilities-un.

    The key feature of these proposals is that negotiations must not be allowed to be blocked by the nuclear weapons states. Asking them to participate in negotiations would be like asking tobacco companies to participate in laws to ban cigarettes, or like asking narcotics dealers to participate in the drafting of laws to ban narcotics, or, to take a recent example, it would be like inviting big coal companies to participate in a conference aimed at preventing dangerous climate change.

    In 2013, the United Nations has established an Open Ended Working Group on Nuclear Disarmament, which consisted both of nations and of individuals. The OEWG met in the spring of 2013 and again in August, to draft a set of proposals to be sent to the UN General Assembly.

    On 28 September, 2013, a High Level Meeting of the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly took place. It was devoted to nuclear disarmament. Although the nuclear weapon states attempted to label the new negotiations as “counterproductive”, the overwhelming consensus of the meeting was that nuclear abolition must take place within the next few years, and that the humanitarian and environmental impact of nuclear weapons had to be central to all discussions. The detailed proceedings are available on the following link: http://www.un.org/en/ga/68/meetings/nucleardisarmament/ .

    The opportunity presented by the conference in Mexico in February 2014 must not be wasted. We must use it to take concrete steps towards putting legislation for the abolition of nuclear weapons to a direct vote on the floor of the UN General Assembly.

  • Youth Program on the Humanitarian Dimensions of Nuclear Disarmament

    In early September 2012, with the generous support of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, students from Austria, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, Iran, Italy, Palestine, and Romania participated in the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Youth Program on the Humanitarian Dimensions of Nuclear Disarmament. These students met with members of civil society and representatives from different states. They further participated in a seminar on the humanitarian dimensions of nuclear disarmament and an informational workshop about the Ban All Nukes Generation’s tentative program, entitled “Claim your voice. Ban the Bomb,” a youth empowerment program that will be held during the conference in Oslo.


    Prior to the program, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation established an international coordinating group for this program. This international coordinating group assembled a background document, which contained references to reports from NGOs and statements by states, including Switzerland, about the humanitarian dimensions of nuclear disarmament.


    Participants in the humanitarian program


    When the students arrived to Geneva on September 4, 2012, they participated in a roundtable discussion with members of the NGO Committee for Disarmament, a substantive committee of the Conference of NGOs with Consultative relationship with the United Nations Committee, that is composed of Reaching Critical Will, International Peace Bureau, Mayors for Peace, World Council of Churches, Soka Gakkai International (SGI), Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. During this meeting, participants asked the members of the NGO Committee about the international disarmament machinery, the role of religious organizations in promoting nuclear disarmament, and the humanitarian dimensions of nuclear disarmament.


    After the roundtable discussion with members of the NGO Committee for Disarmament, Mr. Christian N. Ciobanu distributed information about different states’ views on nuclear disarmament to the students. He also underscored the importance of the Swiss joint statement on the humanitarian dimensions of nuclear disarmament to the participants.


    Once the participants received an adequate background on the humanitarian dimensions of nuclear disarmament, the participants met with representatives from Non-Nuclear Weapon States. Most of these representatives explained to them why their governments either supported or did not support the joint statement on the humanitarian dimensions of nuclear disarmament.


    In the afternoon of September 5, the participants attended the NGO Committee for Disarmament’s Seminar on the Humanitarian Dimensions of Nuclear Disarmament in which Mr. Colin Archer, the Secretary-General of the International Peace Bureau served as the moderator. During this seminar, the participants heard statements from Mr. Peter Herby, head of the legal division of the International Committee of the Red Cross; Dr. Daniel Plesch, Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies’ Center for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD); Mr. Magnus Lovold, a representative of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN); and Mr. Christian N. Ciobanu, Geneva Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Finally, based on the feedback from the participants, they enjoyed Lovold and Ciobanu’s views on how the humanitarian disarmament process can help raise awareness about the need for the international community to support a nuclear weapons convention and the devastating environmental impacts of nuclear weapons.


    On September 6, the final day of the program, the Ban All Nukes Generation convened an informational workshop about the “Claim your voice. Ban the Bomb.” In addition, as part of the workshop, the representatives of Ban All Nukes Generation underscored the need for young people to become empowered citizens and attend the program in Oslo in March 2013. The program would also tentatively give young European people an opportunity to make an impact at the conference in Oslo. Specifically, it will provide them with the methodological tools they need to become actively involved at the local, national and European levels to resolve both the global political and environmental impacts of nuclear weapons.

  • Report on the NGO Committee for Disarmament Seminar

    On September 5, 2012, with the generous support of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, the NGO Committee for Disarmament convened the “Seminar on the Humanitarian Dimensions of Nuclear Disarmament” at the Palais des Nations in which Mr. Colin Archer, Secretary-General of the International Peace Bureau, served as the moderator. 


    During the seminar, Mr. Peter Herby, Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross` Mines-Arms Unit; Dr. Daniel Plesch, Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies` Center for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD); Mr. Magnus Lovold, a representative of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN); and Mr. Christian N. Ciobanu, Geneva Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, provided important perspectives about the humanitarian dimensions of nuclear disarmament to students, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Non-Nuclear Weapon States, Nuclear Weapon States, and officials from the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.


    The following is a brief description of what each speaker discussed at the seminar.


    Peter Herby


    Mr. Herby explained the bombings of Hiroshima caused thousands of civilian deaths, including 270 doctors, 16 nurses, and 112 pharmacists in Hiroshima. He also described the devastating health effects of nuclear weapons on the hibakusha, such as the ionizing effects of Uranium-235 and genetic complications caused by the highly enriched Uranium-235. These effects prompted the ICRC to publicly vocalize its position in favor of nuclear disarmament in late 1945.


    Mr. Herby further touched upon the three core principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), including the principle of distinctions between civilians and combatants, the principle of proportionality, and the principle of precaution of attack. He further elaborated upon the International Court of Justice’s 1996 Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons.  Finally, he touched upon the ICRC’s decision to affirm its position on nuclear disarmament in 2011.


    Daniel Plesch


    Dr. Plesch provided a concise historical overview of the evolution of International Humanitarian Law to the participants of the seminar. He described how the results of the Nuremberg Trials and the Commission of the Universal Declaration established the basis of IHL. He further discussed the international community’s views on IHL during the period of the Cold War.  Finally, he elaborated upon the ICJ’s 1996 Advisory Opinion and the Nuclear Weapons States’ nuclear deterrence doctrines to illustrate how the Nuclear Weapon States are violating IHL by investing in and modernizing their nuclear arsenals.


    Dr. Plesch also mentioned that the international community should engage in discussions on disarmament within the context of the Open Skies Agreement as illustrated in CISD’s Strategic Concept for Removal of Arms and Proliferation. This process will help the international community to evaluate disarmament within a new context.


    As part of his concluding remarks, Dr. Plesch suggested that the international community should develop a framework, which would be similar to the Iraqi Weapons Inspection Regime, to pressure the Nuclear Weapon States to dismantle their nuclear weapons.


    Magnus Lovold


    As a representative of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Mr. Magnus Lovold explained that “the humanitarian aspects of nuclear disarmament provide an opportunity to take the issue down from the high shelves of international security, and turn it into something that everyone can understand.” Moreover, he argued that the humanitarian approach enables key actors in the disarmament movement to form linkages between the humanitarian dimensions of nuclear disarmament and other humanitarian disarmament processes, including the process leading to the treaty banning landmines and the treaty banning cluster bombs. Finally, by forming linkages between different disarmament processes, ICAN can form the necessary relationships with new organizations to encourage the international community to agree to a treaty that bans nuclear weapons.


    Christian N. Ciobanu


    Mr. Ciobanu, Geneva Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, said that states must support the humanitarian dimensions of nuclear disarmament to avoid the possibility of a nuclear war that would directly contribute to a nuclear famine in the world. He remarked that a nuclear war anywhere in the world, using as few as 100 weapons, would disrupt the global climate and agricultural production so severely that the lives of more than a billion people would be at risk. Finally, he contended that leading atmospheric scientists warned that the effects of a regional war between neighboring states could cause nuclear famine.


    To illustrate his point that a regional war between neighboring states can contribute to nuclear famine, Mr. Ciobanu described that scientists modeled a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan in which each side detonates 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons on the other side’s cities. He noted that smoke from the burning cities would rise into the stratosphere, where it would reduce sunlight for up to ten years, dropping temperatures on Earth to the lowest levels in the past 1,000 years and shortening growing seasons across the planet. The result would be crop failures and a nuclear famine, which could result in the deaths of hundreds of millions to a billion people globally.


    Mr. Ciobanu underscored that states should support Article 51 and Article 54 of the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention. Finally, he emphasized that states must support the principles of IHL and produce tangible political results to create a world that is free of nuclear weapons.