Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: David Krieger

The Legal Case for Nuclear Weapons Abolition

The legal case for abolishing nuclear weapons is only one of many that can and should be made. Nuclear weapons place the future of humanity, indeed of all life, in jeopardy. They are not even weapons in any traditional sense. They kill indiscriminately. They cause unnecessary suffering that affects present and future generations. They have no legitimate use in warfare. They are instruments of genocide that no sane person or society would contemplate using.

The questions that I will address are these: Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons illegal under international law? Is the United States under a legal obligation to eliminate its nuclear arsenal? The answer to both questions is Yes, and it seems to me remarkable that the U.S. media has been nearly silent with regard to these issues.

A small breakthrough in this area occurred in June 1998 when Max Frankel, the distinguished columnist and former editor of the New York Times, wrote in the New York Times Magazine: “If I and other observers had resisted the nuclear club’s double standard and exposed its hollow assumptions about human nature, the world might by now have devised more effective international controls over atomic weapons. The have-nots might have been appeased if they had been given a major voice in a strong international inspection agency and the right to pry even into the monopolists’ stockpiles — including ours. Instead we have wasted the half century since Hiroshima and provoked a chain reaction that is truly prolific.”

Let me offer a syllogism, an expression of logic: All states are subject to international law. The United States is a state. Therefore, the United States is subject to international law.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with the logic that our country is subject to international law. Senator Alfonse D’Amato, for example, was recently quoted in the Los Angeles Times as stating, “To hell with international law….You’ve got a choice to make. You’re either with us or against us, and I only hope for your sake you make the right choice.”

One choice is the rule of law. The other is the rule of force. I would argue that the right choice is international law. It is in the interests of our country and all countries to abide by the rule of law. Either way, we can be assured that other countries will follow our lead.

International law is made in two ways — by treaties, which require the agreement of nations, and by such widespread agreement on issues of law that the law is accepted as customary international law. Both means carry the force of law in the international system.

The treaty which is most relevant to the abolition of nuclear weapons is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was opened for signatures in 1968 and entered into force in 1970. This treaty seeks to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to states which did not possess them prior to January 1, 1967. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (U.S., Russia, UK, France and China) are the states recognized in the NPT as possessing nuclear weapons prior to this date.

In return for the non-nuclear weapons states promising not to acquire nuclear weapons, the five nuclear weapons states promised in Article VI of the NPT to pursue good faith negotiations for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and for nuclear disarmament.

When the NPT was extended indefinitely in 1995, the nuclear weapons states promised the “determined pursuit…of systematic and progressive efforts” to achieve nuclear disarmament. For most states in the world, as reflected in their votes in the UN General Assembly, the efforts of the nuclear weapons states in this regard have been far from satisfactory.

The customary international law most relevant to the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons is international humanitarian law. This is part of the law of armed conflict, and was developed to set limits on the use of force in armed conflict for humanitarian purposes. The basic premise is that the means of injuring the enemy are not unlimited. Put another way, all is not fair (or legal) in warfare.

Under international law, a state cannot use weapons that fail to discriminate between civilians and combatants. Nor can a state use weapons that cause unnecessary suffering to combatants such as dum-dum bullets.

In December 1994 the United Nations General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice, the highest judicial body in the world on matters of international law, for an advisory opinion on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. The exact question asked was: “Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance permitted under international law?”

The United States, joined by the UK, France, and Russia, argued to the Court that it should not hear the case because this was a political rather than legal issue. The Court, turning aside these arguments, issued its historic opinion on July 8, 1996. It was an opinion of great significance for humanity, but to date it has been largely ignored by the U.S. and its NATO allies. It has also been largely ignored by the U.S. media.

The Court began by unanimously finding that international law does not provide specific authorization of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the Court found that international law did not contain “any comprehensive and universal prohibition of the threat or use of nuclear weapons as such.” Three of the 14 judges — Judge Koroma of Sierra Leone, Judge Shahabuddeen of Guyana, and Judge Weeramantry of Sri Lanka — voted against this position, and issued powerful dissenting opinions.

The Court then went on to state unanimously that any threat or use of nuclear weapons for purposes other than self-defense, in accord with articles 2(4) and 51 of the United Nations Charter, was prohibited. It followed this statement with the unanimous conclusion that a threat or use of nuclear weapons must also meet the requirements of the principles and rules of international humanitarian law.

Earlier in its opinion, the Court had referred to “cardinal principles” of humanitarian law as follows: “The first is aimed at the protection of the civilian population and civilian objects and establishes the distinction between combatants and non-combatants; States must never make civilians the object of attack and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets. According to the second principle, it is prohibited to cause unnecessary suffering to combatants: it is accordingly prohibited to use weapons causing them such harm or uselessly aggravating their suffering. In application of that second principle, States do not have unlimited freedom of choice of means in the weapons they use.” The Court also made clear that if a use would be unlawful, the threat of such use would also be unlawful.

Based upon its findings with regard to the application of international law to nuclear weapons, the Court reached an unusual two-paragraph conclusion that began, “the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law.”

The Court continued with a second paragraph stating that the current state of international law and the elements of fact at its disposal did not allow the Court to “conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a state would be at stake.” This indetermination by the Court when “the very survival of a state would be at stake,” must be read in connection with the absolute prohibition of violating international humanitarian law. Thus, even in an extreme circumstance of self-defense, it would be necessary to avoid injuring a civilian population and causing unnecessary suffering to combatants. This would not be possible by means of using nuclear weapons for retaliation against a civilian population.

The vote on this two-paragraph conclusion was 7 to 7, with the President of the Court casting the deciding vote, according to the rules of the Court. However, when you analyze who voted against the conclusion you find that the three judges from Western nuclear weapons states were joined by the three judges who found an absolute prohibition on nuclear weapons. The Japanese judge also voted against this conclusion because he opposed the issue coming before the Court. Thus, a better reading of this vote would have ten supporting the conclusion or going further and arguing for an absolute prohibition, and only the judges from the U.S., UK and France opposing it because they found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would not be “generally” illegal.

The Court went on to state unanimously: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” In 1996 and 1997 the United Nations General Assembly passed resolutions urging the nuclear weapons states to fulfill this obligation.

In issuing the Court’s opinion, Judge Bedjaoui, the then president of the Court, referred to nuclear weapons as “the ultimate evil” and declared, “Nuclear weapons can be expected — in the present state of scientific development at least — to cause indiscriminate victims among combatants and non-combatants alike, as well as unnecessary suffering among both categories. The very nature of this blind weapon therefore has a destabilizing effect on humanitarian law which regulates discernment in the type of weapon used.”

Judge Bedjaoui also argued that it would be “quite foolhardy…to set the survival of a State above all other considerations, in particular above the survival of mankind itself.”

I will conclude with a few observations.

First, the threat or use of nuclear weapons is illegal in any conceivable circumstance. Therefore, current U.S. and NATO policies relying upon nuclear weapons are illegal under international law.

Second, the U.S. has not been fulfilling its obligation under international law to negotiate the complete elimination of nuclear weapons under strict and effective international control.

Third, the likely outcome of this failure of leadership by the U.S. is the breakdown of the Non-Proliferation Treaty at its year 2000 Review Conference. The nuclear testing by India and Pakistan can be linked to India’s strong opposition to what it has termed “nuclear apartheid,” that is the continued reliance on nuclear weapons by a small group of states that have failed to fulfill their obligations under international law.

Fourth, the U.S. media has not played a constructive role in analyzing this situation, and reporting on it to the American people.

Fifth, current U.S. policies make the American people and the U.S. media unwitting accomplices in policies that threaten the mass murder of hundreds of millions of innocent people. If these weapons are used ever again, by accident or design, history — if there is a history — will judge the American people harshly for not demanding the abolition of these weapons when the opportunity to do so presented itself with the end of the Cold War.

At the outset, I said that the legal case for abolishing nuclear weapons is only one of many that can be made. The legal case is important, but the most important case that can be made is the moral case. To abolish nuclear weapons is to uphold the sanctity of life. I will conclude by quoting Lee Butler, a former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command and an eloquent spokesman for abolishing these weapons. General Butler stated: “We cannot at once keep sacred the miracle of existence and hold sacrosanct the capacity to destroy it. It is time to reassert the primacy of individual conscience, the voice of reason and the rightful interests of humanity.” This cannot be done without the active participation of the media in analyzing and communicating the case for nuclear weapons abolition to the American people.

July 11, 1998
A Break in the Clouds

It is a great joy for my wife and I to return to Nagasaki. It has been more then 30 years since we last visited your beautiful city.

I have often thought of the irony that Nagasaki should have entered the Nuclear Age as the second city to be bombed by an atomic weapon. When the U.S. B-29, Bock’s Car, left Tinian Island carrying its deadly cargo in the early morning hours of August 9, 1945, it was headed to another target, the city of Kokura. Were it not for the weather conditions that day — specifically, the cloud cover over Kokura — it would have been that city and not Nagasaki on which the bomb would have been dropped.

Not being able to bomb Kokura, the pilot of the B-29 headed toward his secondary target, Nagasaki. Even here, there was cloud cover, and only a small opening in the clouds allowed the pilot to release that second atomic bomb, causing such destruction to your city and its people. Were it not for the clouds over Kokura and the small opening in the clouds over Nagasaki, your city would have been spared, at least for that day. I can’t help thinking that even gentle, ephemeral clouds could prevent an atomic bombing from occurring. We humans are not so powerful as we might think — when we compare ourselves with the power of nature. Yet, we are capable of doing great harm to each other — as we have witnessed at Nagasaki and on occasions too numerous to mention.

The bombings of both Nagasaki and Hiroshima have taught us a simple lesson, perhaps the most basic lesson of the Nuclear Age: This must never happen again. Cloud cover must never again be the sole factor to save a city, or a break in the clouds provide an opening for nuclear devastation. Today’s missile technology, in fact, makes cloud cover irrelevant. Our task must be to make nuclear weapons — and all weapons of mass destruction — irrelevant. The only way to do this is to ban these weapons and abolish them forever.

The evil that occurred at Nagasaki and Hiroshima must never be repeated. No city and its people must ever again be subjected to attack with a nuclear weapon. Such an attack would exceed all bounds of morality. It would undermine every precept of human decency and human dignity.

Nuclear weapons, in the words of a former president of the International Court of Justice, are “the ultimate evil.” The description echoes Josai Toda’s reference to them more than forty years ago as “an absolute evil.”

In the past few years there has been a growing chorus of voices to abolish nuclear weapons. When a former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, General Lee Butler, can join the call for abolition, we are making progress. General Butler, who retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1994, has stated, “I think that the vast majority of people on the face of this earth will endorse the proposition that such weapons have no place among us. There is no security to be found in nuclear weapons. It’s a fool’s game.”

General Butler is not alone among military leaders calling for nuclear weapons abolition. Many generals and admirals from around the world have done so as well. In 1996 some 60 retired generals and admirals from 17 countries joined General Butler in stating:

“We have been presented with a challenge of the highest possible historic importance: the creation of a nuclear-weapons-free world. The end of the Cold War makes it possible.

“The dangers of proliferation, terrorism, and new nuclear arms races render it necessary. We must not fail to seize our opportunity. There is no alternative.”

The Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, composed of a distinguished group of experts, including General Butler, Joseph Rotblat and the late Jacques Cousteau, issued a report in 1996 that said: “The proposition that nuclear weapons can be retained in perpetuity and never used — accidentally or by decision — defies credibility. The only complete defence is the elimination of nuclear weapons and assurance that they will never be produced again.”

The International Court of Justice has also spoken on the issue of eliminating nuclear weapons. In issuing an opinion on the illegality of these weapons in 1996, the Court made clear that there is an obligation under international law to proceed with good faith negotiations for their elimination.

At the end of 1996 and again at the end of 1997 the United Nations General Assembly called upon all states to commence negotiations on a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons.

In February 1998 a statement calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons was released at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The statement was signed by 117 leaders from 46 countries, including 47 past or present presidents or prime ministers. Among the signers were former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, and five former prime ministers of Japan. The Statement concluded: “The world is not condemned to live forever with threats of nuclear conflict, or anxious fragile peace imposed by nuclear deterrence. Such threats are intolerable and such a peace unworthy. The sheer destructiveness of nuclear weapons invokes a moral imperative for their elimination. That is our mandate. Let us begin.”

The governments of some nuclear weapons states have been moving slowly in the direction of reducing the nuclear threat, but they have not yet demonstrated that they are committed to eliminating their nuclear arsenals. They treat their nuclear arsenals like security blankets when, in fact, they provide no security — only threat.

There is no security in threatening the mass annihilation of civilians. In truth, it is not only cowardly, but foolish beyond words. It places the population of the country possessing nuclear weapons in danger of retaliation.

It is important to keep in mind, that nuclear holocaust could occur not only by intention, but by accident or miscalculation as well. As recently as 1995 the Russians were poised to launch a nuclear response when they mistakenly believed that a missile launched from Norway was a nuclear attack aimed at Russia.

Nuclear holocaust could also occur if terrorists came into possession of a nuclear weapon, and we know that some nuclear weapons are small enough to be carried by a single individual in a large backpack.

We will be free of the threat of nuclear holocaust only when we are free of nuclear weapons. No group of people knows this better than the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It is the hibakusha, the survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, that remind us that the pain of nuclear weapons lingers. Radiation causes pain and suffering that continues to kill for decades, and genetically affects new generations.

I am convinced that if we want a world at peace, we must create it. There is no other choice. Governments will not succeed on their own in creating such a world. The power of the people must push governments — or, more accurately, the power of the people must lead governments. We will have a peaceful and just world when enough people are willing to commit themselves to creating such a world, and will make their voices heard.

The same is true of a world free of the threat of nuclear holocaust. We will have such a world when the people demand it. This process has begun. Here in Japan you have raised your voices, and the chorus of your voices will be heard around the world. I am overwhelmed that more than 13 million signatures for nuclear weapons abolition have been gathered in Japan in only a few months time. These signatures represent the power of an idea whose time is now. They also demonstrate the power of the people when they join together in common cause.

These signatures represent 13 million voices of hope for a world free of the threat of nuclear annihilation. These voices of hope have unleashed a power that will not be stopped until the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons is achieved.

I congratulate you on what you have accomplished. These signatures are enough to inspire, enough to move people everywhere to greater commitment. President Ikeda must be very proud of you, and I can only imagine how proud Josai Toda would be to know that you are working to carry out his vision of a nuclear weapons free world.

The more than 13 million signatures you have gathered are an important step on the road to abolition. But we must not rest. We must commit ourselves to continuing our activities to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons until the goal is accomplished and the last nuclear weapon in the world is destroyed. Will you join me in making this commitment?

The Abolition 2000 International Petition calls for three outcomes. First, ending the threat. Second, signing a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. Third, reallocating resources from military purposes to assuring a sustainable future.

Isn’t it crazy that the Cold War ended many years ago, and yet the nuclear weapons states continue to keep their nuclear arsenals on hair-trigger alert? There is no reason to continue this threat. These weapons must be taken off alert status immediately! There must be time to sort through all the facts, to consider the full consequences of what is being contemplated, and to avoid acting in a moment of passion.

Warheads can be separated from delivery vehicles. A no-first-use agreement can be achieved, in which each nuclear weapons state agrees that it will never under any circumstance be the first to use nuclear weapons. These steps will make the world far safer. They can be taken immediately, and will have a profound effect on the way nuclear weapons are viewed by their possessors.

The petition calls for signing a treaty by the year 2000 to eliminate all nuclear weapons within a fixed time period. This is the treaty called for by Abolition 2000, by the World Court, and by most nations in the world. It is absolutely reasonable that we should enter the 21st century with such a commitment in place.

The petition calls for reallocating resources from military purposes to meeting human needs. It says a great deal about our priorities that we are spending more for military forces in our world than we do for healthcare and education of our youth. We live in a world in which many thousands of children under the age of five die daily from starvation and preventable diseases. This totals to millions of children a year. It is outrageous, unacceptable, and must be ended. We must change our priorities.

What is at stake is no less than the future of humanity. Each of you who has signed the petition has taken a first step, but you must not stop with this step. You must continue to speak out and demand greater action from your own government, and from other governments of the world.

You can also help by asking the council of the municipality where you live or the student government where you go to school to support an Abolition 2000 Resolution. There are currently over 185 municipalities that have gone on record in support of Abolition 2000, but we need to increase this number to thousands around the world.

I urge you to continue to press the Japanese government to take a more responsible position on eliminating nuclear weapons. The Japanese government has not kept faith with the people of Japan on this issue. The government has placed Japan under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and reached secret nuclear agreements with the U.S. The Japanese government has also imported many tons of reprocessed plutonium 239, material suitable for making nuclear weapons. In fact, Japan could become a major nuclear weapons state in only a matter of days or weeks if it chose to do so.

The future of humanity demands that we succeed in ridding the world of nuclear weapons. If these weapons remain in the arsenals of the nuclear weapons states, there will be a time in the future when they will be used again. The retention of these horrible weapons provides an example that other states will look to and that will eventually lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. This, too, will make the world more dangerous.

Because we must succeed, we will succeed. But it will not be easy. There are still many obstacles to overcome. We must be strong in our dedication, unwavering in our commitment. I am heartened to know of your dedication and commitment. I will let others throughout the world know of your great accomplishment, and your continuing efforts.

I plan to inform the top leadership of the United Nations of your achievement. The United Nations Charter begins, “We, the Peoples….” We must put the people back into the United Nations. The elimination of nuclear weapons is too important to be left only to politicians and diplomats. They must hear the voices of the people — your voices.

In April, I will share with the delegates to the Non-Proliferation Treaty Conference in Geneva your achievement in gathering more than 13 million signatures for nuclear weapons abolition. I will also do everything I can to bring your message to President Clinton, who has the power — but thus far has lacked the vision — to lead the way to fulfilling the goals of the petition. I will also work with other citizens groups in Abolition 2000 to see that your message is brought to the leaders of all nuclear weapons states.

Let me conclude with a story about the sunflower. When Ukraine gave up the last of the nuclear weapons that it had inherited when the former Soviet Union split apart, there was an unusual celebration. The defense ministers of the U.S., Russia and Ukraine met at a former Ukrainian missile base that once housed 80 SS-19 nuclear armed missiles aimed at the United States. The defense ministers celebrated the occasion by planting sunflowers and scattering sunflower seeds. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry said, “Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil will ensure peace for future generations.”

Later I learned that protesters in the United States many years before had illegally entered missile sites in the U.S. and planted sunflowers above the missile silos. These protesters had been imprisoned for their courage.

Sunflowers have become the symbol of a nuclear weapons free world. They are bright, beautiful, natural, and even nutritious. They stand in stark contrast to nuclear armed missiles, which are costly, manmade instruments of genocide. Let us choose what is natural and healthy. Let us restore our Earth, our decency, our humanity.

We need to control our darker impulses. Nothing could be more representative of this than replacing missiles with sunflowers. If Ukraine can accomplish this, so can the rest of the world.

Please make the sunflower your symbol of a world free of nuclear weapons. In doing so, you will also make it a symbol of a better humanity, of bringing forth a greater humanness in each of us. Let the sunflower also symbolize your own deeper humanity as you continue to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Thank you for caring. Thank you for what you have done. Thank you for all you will do in the future to create a safer and more decent world. I look forward to sharing the day with you when we have succeeded in creating a world without nuclear weapons. Please never lose hope that such a world is possible, and never stop working and speaking out to create such a world.

February 12, 1998
Security and Sustainability in a Nuclear Weapons Free World
There is a danger that the contemplation of security and sustainability in a nuclear weapons free world will imply to some readers that nuclear weapons have in some way provided security and even sustainability. It is not my intention to imply this. I believe that nuclear weapons have never at any time provided security for their possessors, and that they make no contribution to sustainability.

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

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

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

Security

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

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

The process of nuclear weapons abolition will demand the creation of stronger systems of international security. Thus, achieving abolition will, by the nature of the process, coincide with strengthened international security arrangements. In order to have a security system that assures maximum protection against physical harm and access to resources to meet basic needs, it will be necessary to go even further in system design than the elements required to maintain security in a world without nuclear weapons. The main components of this security system would be:
- All states would be allowed to maintain only weapons for defence against territorial invasion, and no weapons with offensive capabilities.
- Each state would be subject to regular and challenge inspections by international teams to assure that it is neither maintaining nor creating any offensive weapons systems, particularly weapons of mass destruction.
- All states would be required to make periodic public reports of the types and numbers of weapons in their arsenals.
- An International Criminal Court would be responsible for holding individual leaders responsible for the most serious crimes under international law (crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, and international aggression), and for violations of the conditions specified in points 1 to 3 above.
- A United Nations Inspection Force would be created to conduct inspections and monitor states for violations of points 1 to 3 above.
- The United Nations Security Council would be responsible for enforcement of points 1 to 3 above, for apprehending serious violators of international law, and for assuring cooperation with the United Nations Inspection Force.
- The United Nations system — including the General Assembly, the World Bank, the UN Development Programme and other specialized agencies, and a UN Disaster Relief Force — would be charged with assuring that all peoples of all states have access to the necessary resources to meet their basic needs.
Sustainability

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

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

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

Beginning the Process

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

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

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

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

What is missing now is the political will to begin the process. Many actions of the nuclear weapons states suggest that they are more interested in “systematic and progressive efforts” to impede rather than achieve nuclear disarmament. There is only one way that this can change, and that is by the people making their voices heard. When the people of the world understand the extent to which their security and a sustainable future for their children and grandchildren is threatened by the continued reliance of the governments of the nuclear weapons states upon nuclear arsenals, they will demand that the promises of nuclear disarmament be kept. It is our job to bring about that understanding.
January 11, 1998
Nuclear Weapons: A Call for Public Protest

Nuclear weapons, which are instruments of genocide, incinerate human beings. The Peace Memorial Museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki display gruesome evidence of the atomic bombings of those cities; one can see walls where human shadows remain after the humans who cast those shadows were incinerated into elemental particles.

During World War II the Nazis put their victims into gas chambers and then incinerated them in ovens. While the Nazis took their victims to the incinerators, those who possess and threaten to use nuclear weapons plan to take these weapons, that are really portable incinerators, to the victims. Nuclear weapons eliminate the need for gas chambers. They provide a one-step incineration process — for those fortunate enough to die immediately.

The behavior of the Nazis leading up to and during World War II is universally condemned. The German people are often criticized for failing to oppose the atrocities of the Nazi regime. How much more culpable would be the citizens of the states that now possess nuclear weapons should these instruments of genocide be used again!

The German people lived in fear of the Nazis. The same cannot be said for the citizens of the nuclear weapons states, particularly the Western nuclear weapons states. Their silence in the face of their governments’ reliance upon these portable incinerators makes them virtual accomplices in planned crimes against humanity.

It is no excuse to say that these instruments of genocide exist only to deter an enemy. In the first place, there are no enemies among nuclear weapons states in the aftermath of the Cold War. More important, there is no justification for threatening to murder hundreds of millions of people in the name of national security. Deterrence is only a theory, and on many occasions, most famously the Cuban Missile Crisis, it has come close to breaking down.

The International Court of Justice has found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal, and that it would be virtually impossible to use nuclear weapons without violating the laws of armed conflict and particularly international humanitarian law. The Court in 1996 reaffirmed that all nuclear weapons states have an obligation under international law to achieve nuclear disarmament “in all its aspects.”

Given the immorality and illegality of using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, where is the public outrage at the continued reliance upon these weapons by the governments of nuclear weapons states in the aftermath of the Cold War? Many people seem to believe that the threat of nuclear holocaust ended with the end of the Cold War, but this is far from the actual situation. Despite some bilateral phased reductions in the U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons stockpiles, there are still some 36,000 nuclear weapons in the possession of the nuclear weapons states, with the largest number still stockpiled by the former Cold War enemies, the U.S. and Russia.

Worse yet, our nation’s foreign policy is still wedded to the threatened use of these weapons. In late 1997 President Clinton signed a Presidential Decision Directive reserving the right for the United States to be the first to use nuclear weapons, and giving the Pentagon increased flexibility to retaliate against smaller states that might use chemical or biological weapons against the U.S. or its allies. This Presidential Decision Directive was prepared in secret with no public discussion, and came to public light only because it was leaked to the press.

Another secret study that has recently come to light reveals a frightening approach to nuclear arsenals within the U.S. military command. The study, “Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence,” was prepared by the U.S. Strategic Command, and was released only after a freedom of information request by a non-governmental organization concerned with security issues.

The study states, “Because of the value that comes from the ambiguity of what the U.S. may do to an adversary if the acts we seek to deter are carried out, it hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed.” It continues, “The fact that some elements (of the U.S. government) may appear to be potentially `out of control’ can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts within the minds of an adversary’s decision makers. That the U.S. may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be part of the national persona we project to all adversaries.”

In effect, this study by the U.S. Strategic Command says that the U.S. should not only continue to base its national security on threatening to retaliate with nuclear weapons, but its decision makers should also act as though they are crazy enough to use them. One is left with the eerie feeling that these supposedly rational planners advocating irrationality may be just crazy enough to actually use these weapons if an opponent was crazy enough to call their bluff or appeared to them to do so.

Military leaders in the U.S. and other nuclear weapons states are not giving up their reliance upon their nuclear arsenals. There is little reassurance in their secret studies that argue for portraying themselves as “irrational and vindictive.”

A former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, General Lee Butler, has made many strong public pleas for nuclear weapons abolition since his retirement from the Air Force in 1994. He recently stated, “I think that the vast majority of people on the face of this earth will endorse the proposition that such weapons have no place among us. There is no security to be found in nuclear weapons. It’s a fool’s game.”

General Butler was also a member of a prestigious international commission organized by the Australian government, the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. This commission issued a report in 1996 stating, “The proposition that nuclear weapons can be retained in perpetuity and never used — accidentally or by decision — defies credibility. The only complete defence is the elimination of nuclear weapons and assurance that they will never be produced again.”

If the American people and the citizens of other nuclear weapons states want to end their role as unwilling accomplices to threatened mass murder of whole nations, they must make their voices heard. They must demand that their governments proceed with nuclear disarmament “in all its aspects,” as called for by the International Court of Justice.

If we fail to protest our reliance upon these instruments of genocide, and if these weapons are ever used, it will be “We, the People” who will stand culpable before history of even greater crimes than those committed by the Nazis. We will not have the excuse that we, like most Germans in the Nazi era, did not protest because we feared for our lives. It will be our indifference when we could have made a difference that will be the mark of our crime against humanity.

January 11, 1998
New U.S. Guidelines on Nuclear Warfare Should be Released to the Public
New guidelines for the use of U.S. nuclear weapons were signed by the president in November 1997. These guidelines, which are contained in a four-page Presidential Decision Directive (PDD), have not been released to the public. Aspects of the guidelines, however, were leaked to the press and confirmed by administration officials. What is known about the new guidelines include the following:
- they were developed entirely in secret without any public, or even Congressional, discussion;
- they replace guidelines developed in 1981 during the Reagan presidency;
- they provide that the U.S. will continue to rely on nuclear arms as the cornerstone of its national security for the indefinite future;
- they no longer include a plan to fight and “win” a protracted nuclear war;
- they reserve the right for the U.S. to be the first to use nuclear weapons;
- they retain the option of massive retaliation to a nuclear attack, including by launch on warning;
- they give the Pentagon increased flexibility to deter or retaliate against smaller states that might use chemical or biological weapons against the U.S. or its allies;
- they provide for the U.S. to maintain a triad of nuclear forces consisting of bombers, land-based missiles, and submarine-based missiles;
- they call for the U.S. to retain options to use nuclear weapons against Russia; and
- they provide for increasing the number of sites to be targeted in China.
On the positive side, the new guidelines have eliminated the foolish and hopeless idea that it was possible to fight and win a nuclear war. This is an idea that has been thoroughly discredited, even by President Reagan who stated publicly that “nuclear war cannot be won, and must never be fought.” It must also be considered positive that, due to the leak, we now know something about these guidelines, and can respond to what has been released. The negative aspects of these guidelines, however, are substantial. The fact that they were developed without involvement from the public and Congress is in the best tradition of a totalitarian state. On an issue of such major public importance as strategy for using nuclear weapons, it is reprehensible that no attempt would be made to solicit public or Congressional views.

By indicating that the U.S. will continue to rely for the indefinite future on nuclear weapons for its national security, the U.S. is demonstrating its hypocrisy in relation to its promise in 1995, when the Non-Proliferation Treaty was extended indefinitely, to pursue “systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of eliminating those weapons….” Further, the International Court of Justice ruled in 1996 that there was an obligation to “bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects….” Indefinite reliance upon these genocidal instruments is not consistent with their ultimate elimination, nor with the obligation to conclude negotiations for complete nuclear disarmament.

In China there was strong criticism of the new U.S. policy which increases U.S. targeting of China. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman stated, “Now that the Cold War is already over, the international situation has eased a lot. The United States still possesses a large arsenal of nuclear weapons. It stubbornly sticks to its policy of nuclear deterrence. It goes against the trends of peace, cooperation and development in our world.”

The new guidelines reflect the continuation of U.S. policy to rely upon nuclear weapons as a central instrument of national security. These guidelines have not changed our policies of threatened first use or massive retaliation, which at their core are policies of nuclear genocide. First use, when coupled with launch on warning, commits us to risky, hair-trigger deployment of our nuclear arsenal with potentially catastrophic consequences.

The Presidential Decision Directive demonstrates a lack of commitment to the elimination of our nuclear arsenal, as called for by international agreements and international law. The new guidelines will undoubtedly be heavily criticized by the international community, particularly by many of the other 185 parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty when they meet in Geneva in April and May 1998.

It would be appropriate for President Clinton to release in full the four-page Presidential Decision Directive so that the U.S. public can fully consider and debate the policy. U.S. citizens have a right to informed consent on decisions and policies that affect their security and well-being, as this policy surely does. The public and Congress should be involved in the process of determining whether or not the new policy is consistent with basic U.S. values as well as our obligations under international law and the new geopolitical reality brought on by the end of the Cold War. In the same vein, the public should be provided with targeting information for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. This information would allow U.S. citizens to be aware of what populations are being threatened with mass murder in our names.

While it may be appropriate and desirable for the President to keep details of his personal life from public view, the same cannot be said for policies related to nuclear arsenals that affect the life and future of every U.S. citizen as well as every other person in the world.
January 11, 1998
Human Rights, Wrongs, and Responsibilities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 11, 1998
Nuclear Weapons: The Global Dialogue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Halt production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 11, 1998
The Universal Declaration at Fifty: David Krieger interviews with Richard Falk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 1, 1998
Denuclearization of the Oceans: Linking Our Common Heritage with Our Common Future

Introduction

The oceans were nuclearized shortly after the era of nuclear weapons began in 1945. On July 1, 1946, while still negotiating the internationalization of atomic energy at the United Nations, the United States began testing nuclear weapons at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. Nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific continued through January 1996, when French President Jacques Chirac announced an end to French testing in the region.

In the 1950s, the United States again led the way in nuclearizing the oceans with the launching of a nuclear powered submarine, the Nautilus. The Nautilus and other nuclear submarines could stay submerged for long periods of time without refueling and cruise throughout the world. During the Cold War the U.S., former USSR, UK, France, and China developed nuclear submarine fleets carrying ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. Some of these nuclear powered submarines with their multiple-independently-targeted nuclear warheads were and remain capable of single-handedly attacking and destroying more than one hundred major cities. These shadowy creatures of mankind’s darkest inventiveness remain silently on alert in the depths of the world’s oceans, presumably ready and capable, upon command, of destroying the Earth.

Our oceans are a precious resource to be shared by all humanity and preserved for future generations. It carries the concept of “freedom of the seas” to absurd lengths to allow those nations with the technological capacity to destroy the Earth to use the world’s oceans in so callous a manner.

Accidents aboard nuclear submarines have caused a number of them to sink with long-term adverse environmental consequences for the oceans. In addition to accidents, many countries have purposefully dumped radioactive wastes in the oceans.

With regard to proper stewardship of the planet, it is time to raise the issue of denuclearizing the world’s oceans. To fail to raise the issue and to achieve the denuclearization of the oceans is to abdicate our responsibility for the health and well-being of the oceans and the planet.

Nuclearization of the Oceans

Nuclearization of the oceans has taken a variety of forms. The primary ones are:

1. the oceans have served as a medium for hiding nuclear deterrent forces located on submarines;

2. nuclear reactors have been used to power ships, primarily submarines, some of which have gone down at sea with their nuclear fuel and nuclear weapons aboard;

3. increasing use is being made of the oceans for the transportation of nuclear wastes and reprocessed nuclear fuels;

4. the oceans have been used as a dumping ground for nuclear wastes;

5. atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, particularly in the Pacific, has been a source of nuclear pollution to the oceans as well as the land; and

6. underground nuclear weapons testing, such as that conducted by France in the South Pacific, has endangered fragile Pacific atolls and caused actual nuclear contamination to the oceans as well as risking a much greater contamination should the atolls crack due to testing or future geological activity.

The problems arising from nuclearization of the oceans can be viewed from several perspectives.

From an environmental perspective, issues arise with regard to nuclear contamination in the oceans working its way up through the food chain. The biological resources of the oceans will eventually affect human populations which are reliant upon these resources.

The threat of nuclear contamination has diminished with regard to nuclear testing, which has not taken place in the atmosphere since 1980. Moreover, the nuclear weapons states have committed themselves to a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which they have promised to conclude by 1996. This treaty, if concluded, will end all underground nuclear testing.

The dumping of high-level radioactive waste material was curtailed by the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by the Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, which entered into force in 1975. A later amendment to this Convention prohibited ocean dumping of all radioactive wastes or other radioactive matter. However, exemptions authorized by the International Atomic Energy Agency and non-compliance remain a concern. Problems can be anticipated in the future when radioactive contaminants already dumped in canisters or contained in fuel or weapons aboard sunken submarines breach their containment.

Increased use of the oceans to transport nuclear wastes and reprocessed nuclear fuel (between Japan and France, for example) has substantially increased the risk of contamination. Coastal and island states that are on the route of the transportation of nuclear materials stand high risks of contamination in the event of an accident at sea. International law regarding the transportation of hazardous material must be strengthened and strictly enforced by the international community to prevent catastrophic accidents in the future.

From a human rights perspective, inhabitants of island states in the Pacific have suffered serious health effects and dislocation as a result of atmospheric and underground nuclear weapons testing. In response to assurances by France that their underground testing in the South Pacific is entirely safe, the islanders in Polynesia and throughout the Pacific have retorted: If it is so safe, why isn’t it being done in France itself? The response of the French government has been that French Polynesia is French territory, highlighting the arrogance and abuse that accompanies colonialism.

Human rights issues also arise with regard to maintaining a nuclear deterrent force that threatens the annihilation of much of humanity. The Human Rights Committee stated in November 1984 in their general comments on Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, i.e., the right to life, that “the production, testing, possession, deployment and use of nuclear weapons should be prohibited and recognized as crimes against humanity.” The deployment of nuclear weapons on submarines, therefore, arguably constitutes a crime against humanity, and thus a violation of the most fundamental human right, the right to life.

From a security perspective, the nuclear weapons states argue that having a submarine-based deterrent force assures their security. Thus, to varying degrees, each of the nuclear weapons states maintains strategic submarines capable of causing unthinkable destruction if their missiles were ever launched. (See Appendix.) Viewed from the self-interests of nearly all the world’s population-except the nuclear weapons states whose leaders appear addicted to maintaining their nuclear arsenals -the continued reliance on nuclear deterrence, at sea or on land, poses a frightening threat to continued human existence.

In 1972 the Seabed Agreement prohibited the emplacement of nuclear weapons on the seabed, ocean floor, or subsoil thereof. This agreement prohibited what was already deemed unnecessary by the nuclear weapons states; placing nuclear weapons on submarines made them less vulnerable to detection and destruction than placing them on or beneath the seabed or ocean floor. The oceans continue to be used by the nuclear weapons states as an underwater shadow world for their missile carrying submarines.

The United States alone currently has 16 Trident submarines, each carrying some 100 independently targeted nuclear warheads. Each Trident submarine has a total explosive force greater than all the explosive force used in World War II, including at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Britain, with the help of the United States, is replacing its older class of Polaris SSBNs with a fleet of four Trident submarines. France currently has five strategic missile submarines with four more of a superior class to be commissioned by 2005. Russia has over 35 strategic missile submarines with an estimated capacity of 2,350 nuclear warheads. China has two modern ballistic missile submarines. Its Xia class submarine carries twelve 200 kiloton nuclear warheads.

The total destructive force that day and night lurks beneath the oceans is a chilling reminder of our technological capacity to destroy ourselves. That this threat was created and is maintained in the name of national security suggests a collective madness that must be opposed and overcome if, for no other reason, we are to fulfill our obligation to posterity to preserve human life.

An ongoing responsibility resides with the nuclear weapons states to fulfill the obligations set forth in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), “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.” At the NPT Review and Extension Conference in April and May 1995, the treaty was extended indefinitely after extensive lobbying by the nuclear weapons states. At the same time the nuclear weapons states promised to enter into a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 1996, and to engage in a “determined pursuit” of the ultimate elimination of their nuclear arsenals.

Protecting the Common Heritage

The Law of the Sea Treaty enshrines the concept of the oceans as the common heritage of [hu]mankind. Maintaining the oceans as a common heritage demands that the oceans be protected from contamination by nuclear pollutants; that they not be used in a manner to undermine basic human rights, particularly the rights to life and to a healthy environment; and that the oceans not be allowed to serve as a public preserve for those states that believe their own security interests demand the endangerment of global human survival.

It is unreasonable to allow our common heritage to be used to threaten our common future. Deterrence is an unproven and unstable concept that is being tested on humanity by a small number of powerful and arrogant states that have turned nuclear technology to its ultimate destructive end. In order to link the common heritage with our common future, the large majority of the world’s nations advocating an end to the threat of nuclear annihilation should seek to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention by the year 2000 that eliminates all nuclear weapons in a time-bound framework. The prohibition and conversion of strategic ballistic missile submarines must be part of this accord. Perhaps this will be the final step in achieving a nuclear weapons free world.

Life began in the oceans and eventually migrated to land. We must not allow the oceans to continue to provide a secure hiding place for nuclear forces capable of causing irreparable damage to all life. This is an inescapable responsibility of accepting the proposition that life itself, like the oceans, is a common heritage that must be protected for future generations.

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APPENDIX: NUCLEAR POWER AT SEA*

A. Nuclear Weapons

UNITED STATES

Strategic Missile Submarines (SSBN)

Active: 16 Building: 2

Trident: 16 + 2

There are presently 16 Trident submarines in operation, eight at Sub-Base Bangor and eight at Sub-Base Kings Bay. The schedule is to complete one submarine per year for a total of 18 with the final one becoming operational in 1997.

In September 1994 it was announced in the Pentagon’s “Nuclear Posture Review” that the Trident force would be cut from 18 to 14. The submarines to be retired are still under review but are believed to be the four oldest in the fleet. They will be preserved, however, in mothballs until the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) II Treaty is fully implemented in 2003.

These submarines carry 24 missiles each. The submarines are armed with Trident-1 missiles (C-4) and the Trident-2 (D-5). In 1991 all strategic cruise missiles (Tomahawks) were removed from surface ships and submarines.

The C-4 can carry up to eight 100 kiloton Mark-4/W-76 Multiple Independently-targeted Reentry Vehicles (MIRV). There are currently 192 Trident-1 missiles deployed in eight Trident submarines based at Bangor, Washington with a total of 1,152 Mk-4 warheads. Four of these submarines are to be deactivated and the remaining four are to be converted to carry Trident-2 missiles. Plans are to then base seven of the 14 submarines on each coast.

The D-4 can carry up to 12 MIRV with Mark-4/W-76 100-kT warheads, or Mark-5/W-88 300-475-kT warheads each. Under START counting rules, a limit of 8 reentry vehicles (RV) was set, but this may be further reduced to four or five if START II is implemented. About 400 Mk-5/W-88 warheads for the Trident-2 missiles were produced before they were canceled because of production and safety reasons. Two new Trident subs fitted with D-4 missiles will be delivered by 1997.

Under the START Treaties, warheads that are reduced do not have to be destroyed. According to the Nuclear Posture Review the current plan is to remove three or four warheads per missile from Trident Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) to meet the START II ceiling of 1,750 SLBM warheads. Plans are to reduce the C-4 to 1,280 warheads and the D-4 to 400. These warheads will be kept in storage and if it is determined that the SLBMs need to be uploaded, the Pentagon can reuse them.

RUSSIA

Strategic Missile Submarines (SSBN)

Active: 39 Building: 0

The Russian navy is divided into four fleets: the Baltic, Northern, Black Sea and the Pacific. In the Northern and the Pacific fleets, the primary issue is of what to do with the estimated 85 retired nuclear submarines. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, it is believed that over half of their nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine fleet has been withdrawn from operational service. These ships are currently moored at various bases with their reactors still on board. The number is growing faster than the money available to remove and store the fuel elements and decontaminate the reactor compartments. Since 1991, there has been a lack of funds to operate the fleet. Consequently, few of the submarines listed as active have actually been at sea.

In response to President Bush’s September 27, 1991 decision to remove tactical nuclear missiles from ships, President Gorbachev announced that six SSBNs with 92 SLBMs (presumably five Yankee Is and a single Yankee II) were to be removed from operational forces. Russian Fleet Commander Adm. Oleg Yerofeev reports that as of October 20, 1991 all tactical nuclear weapons were removed from the Northern and Pacific fleet ships and submarines.

The January-February, 1993 issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reports that Russia intends to stop building submarines in its Pacific yards within the next two to three years. Russian President Boris Yeltsin made this announcement during a November 1992 visit to South Korea.

The Russian (CIS) SLBM stockpile is estimated to be at: 224 SS-N-18 Stingray armed with three warheads at 500-kT, 120 SS-N-20 Sturgeon with ten 200-kT warheads, and 112 SS-N-23 Skiff missiles with four 100-kT warheads. Total warheads are believed to be about 2320.

According to Pentagon officials, Russia has already reduced its patrols to a single ballistic missile submarine. In contrast, the U.S. Navy continues to patrol with a dozen or so submarines at a time.

NATO names are used in this listing. Russian names are given in parentheses.

Typhoon (Akula) Class: 6

The Typhoon carries 20 SS-N-20 Sturgeon missiles, with six to nine MIRV 200-kT nuclear warheads. The Typhoon can hit strategic targets from anywhere in the world. There are plans to modernize the Typhoons to carry an SS-N-20 follow-on missile which would have improved accuracy. All the Typhoons are stationed in the Northern Fleet at Nerpichya. One was damaged by fire during a missile loading accident in 1992, but has since been repaired.

Delta IV (Delfin) Class: 7

The Delta IV carries 16 SS-N-23 Skiff missiles, with four to ten MIRV 100-kT nuclear warheads. These ships are based in the Northern Fleet at Olenya.

Delta III (Kalmar) Class: 14

The Delta III is armed with 16 SS-N-18 Stingray missiles. There are three possible modifications for the Stingray. (1) three MIRV at 200-kT, (2) a single 450-kT, (3) seven MIRV at 100-kT. Nine ships are in the Northern Fleet and five are in the Pacific Fleet.

Delta II (Murena-M) Class: 4

The Delta II has 16 SS-N8 Sawfly missiles with two possible modifications. The first is with a single 1.2 MT nuclear warhead, the other is with two MIRV at 800-kT. This class of submarine is no longer in production. All four are stationed in the Northern fleet at Yagelnaya and are believed to have been taken off active duty.

Delta I (Murena) Class: 8

The Delta I carries 12 SS-N-8 Sawfly missiles, armed with either a single 1.2 MT nuclear warhead or two MIRV 800-kT. Three ships are stationed in the North and the other five are in the Pacific. One of these ships may be converted into a rescue submarine. As with the Delta II’s, all of these ships are believed to have been taken off active duty.

UNITED KINGDOM

Strategic Missile Submarines (SSBN)

Active: 4 Building: 2

Vanguard Class: 2 + 2

The Vanguard-class is modeled on the United States Trident submarine. It carries 16 Trident II (D-5) missiles with up to eight MIRV of 100-120-kT nuclear warheads. The D-5 can carry up to 12 MIRV but under plans announced in November 1993 each submarine will carry a maximum of 96 warheads. The U.K. has stated that it has no plans to refit their Tridents with conventional warheads, insisting on the nuclear deterrent.

Resolution Class: 2

The Resolution-class was initially fitted with 16 Polaris A3 missiles with three multiple reentry vehicles of 200-kT each. Beginning in 1982, the warheads were replaced under the “Chevaline Program.” The Chevaline is a similar warhead, but contains a variety of anti-ballistic missile defenses. The two remaining submarines in this class are both scheduled for decommission.

CHINA

Strategic Missile Submarines (SSBN)

Active: 1 Projected: 1

Intelligence on Chinese nuclear submarines is extremely limited. Experts disagree on whether there is one or two SSBNs in the Chinese fleet. A new class of SSBN is expected to begin construction in 1996 or 1997.

Xia Class: 1 or 2

The Xia carries 12 Julang or “Giant Wave” CSS-N-3 missiles armed with a single 200-300-kT nuclear warhead. Approximately 24 of these missiles have been deployed. An improved version of this missile is currently being developed.

Golf Class (SSB): 1

Although the Golf is not nuclear driven, it is armed with ballistic missiles. The submarine is outfitted with two Julang missiles.

FRANCE

Strategic Missile Submarines (SSBN)

Active: 5 Building: 3 Projected: 1

In 1992 France announced that it would cut the number of new Triomphant-class SSBNs under construction from 6 to 4. Robert Norris and William Arkin of the Natural Resource Defense Council estimate that France will produce 288 warheads for the fleet of four submarines, but with only enough missiles and warheads to fully arm three boats. It is estimated that France has 64 SLBMs with 384 warheads.

Triomphant Class: 0 + 3(1)

The first submarine of its class, Le Triomphant, recently began conducting trials in the sea and is scheduled to depart on its first patrol in March 1996. The other ships are expected to be operational by 2005. The Triomphant-class is armed with 16 M45 missiles with 6 multiple reentry vehicles (MRV) at 150-kT. There are plans to later refit the submarines with the more powerful M5 with 10-12 MRV around 2010. Testing for these new missiles were recently conducted at the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls.

L’Inflexible Class: 5

L’Inflexible is armed with 16 Aerospatiale M4B missiles with six MRV at 150-kT. The French navy has 80 SLBMs deployed on its five submarines. This class of ships is based at Brest and commanded from Houilles. They patrol in the Atlantic Ocean and the Norwegian and Mediterranean Seas. The minimum number of submarines always at sea has been reduced from three to two.

B. OTHER NUCLEAR POWERED SHIPS

UNITED STATES

Attack Submarines (SSN)

Active: 86 Building: 4 Projected: 1

Permit Class: 1
Benjamin Franklin Class: 2
Narwhal Class: 1
Los Angeles Class: 57 + 2
Sturgeon Class: 25
Seawolf Class: 0 + 2(1)

The Seawolf was launched in July 1995, and is scheduled to be commissioned in May 1996.

Aircraft Carriers (CVN )

Active: 6 Building: 3

Nimitz Class: 6 + 3

Guided Missile Cruisers (CGN)

Active: 5

Virginia Class: 2
California Class: 2
Brainbridge Class: 1

RUSSIA

Cruise Missile Submarines (SSGN)

Active: 19 Building: 1 Projected: 1

Echo II Class (Type 675M): 3
Oscar I (Granit) Classes: 2
Oscar II (Antyey): 10 + 1(1)
Charlie II (Skat M) Class: 3
Yankee Sidecar (Andromeda) Class: 1

Attack Submarines (SSN)

Active: 51 Building: 6 Projected: 1

Severodvinsk Class: 0 + 3(1)
Sierra II (Baracuda) Class: 2
Akula I (Bars) Class: 4
Akula II (Bars) Class: 8 + 3
Sierra I (Baracuda I) Class: 2
Alfa (Alpha) Class: 1
Victor III (Shuka) Class: 26
Victor II (Kefal II) Class: 3
Victor I (Kefal I) Class: 2
Yankee Notch (Grosha) Class: 3

Battle Cruisers (CGN)
Active: 4

Kirov Class: 4

UNITED KINGDOM

Attack Submarines (SSN)

Active: 12 Projected: 5

Trafalgar Class: 7 + (5)
Swiftsure Class: 5

CHINA

Attack Submarines (SSN)

Active: 5 Building: 1
Han Class: 5

Nuclear attack submarines are believed to be a high priority for the Chinese, but due to high internal radiation levels, production has been suspended.

FRANCE

Attack Submarines (SSN)

Active: 6 Projected: 1

Rubis Class: 6 + (1)

The nuclear attack submarine Rubis collided with a tanker on July 17, 1993 and has had to undergo extensive repairs. On March 30, 1994 the Emeraude had a bad steam leak which caused casualties amongst the crew.

Aircraft Carriers (CVN)

Active: 0 Building: 1 Projected: 1

The nuclear powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle was launched in 1994, it is expected to be commissioned in July 1999.

March 12, 1996
On the Abolition 2000 Statement

Introduction

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference in April and May 1995 provided an opportunity for the nuclear weapons states to commit themselves to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. These states, however, were unwilling to make this commitment, and were intent only on the indefinite extension of the NPT.

Many citizen action groups gathered at the Conference viewed the position of the nuclear weapons states on indefinite extension as the equivalent of an indefinite extension of the status quo, one that provided special nuclear status to the five declared nuclear weapons states (U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China). These citizen action groups from throughout the world formed themselves into an Abolition Caucus. From this Caucus came the Abolition 2000 Statement calling for “definite and unconditional abolition of nuclear weapons.”

This Statement became the founding document of the Abolition 2000 Network. This Network has now grown to over 600 citizen action groups on six continents. These groups are actively working in ten working groups to accomplish the 11-point program. The Statement is set forth below.

Abolition 2000 Statement

A secure and livable world for our children and grandchildren and all future generations requires that we achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and redress the environmental degradation and human suffering that is the legacy of fifty years of nuclear weapons testing and production.

Further, the inextricable link between the “peaceful” and warlike uses of nuclear technologies and the threat to future generations inherent in creation and use of long-lived radioactive materials must be recognized. We must move toward reliance on clean, safe, renewable forms of energy production that do not provide the materials for weapons of mass destruction and do not poison the environment for thousands of centuries. The true “inalienable” right is not to nuclear energy, but to life, liberty and security of person in a world free of nuclear weapons.

We recognize that a nuclear weapons free world must be achieved carefully and in a step by step manner. We are convinced of its technological feasibility. Lack of political will, especially on the part of the nuclear weapons states, is the only true barrier. As chemical and biological weapons are prohibited, so must nuclear weapons be prohibited.

We call upon all states particularly the nuclear weapons states, declared and de facto to take the following steps to achieve nuclear weapons abolition. We further urge the states parties to the NPT to demand binding commitments by the declared nuclear weapons states to implement these measures:

1) Initiate immediately and conclude by the year 2000 negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Abolition Convention that requires the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.*

2) Immediately make an unconditional pledge not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons.

3) Rapidly complete a truly comprehensive test ban treaty with a zero threshold and with the stated purpose of precluding nuclear weapons development by all states.

4) Cease to produce and deploy new and additional nuclear weapons systems, and commence to withdraw and disable deployed nuclear weapons systems.

5) Prohibit the military and commercial production and reprocessing of all weapons-usable radioactive materials.

6) Subject all weapons-usable radioactive materials and nuclear facilities in all states to international accounting, monitoring, and safeguards, and establish a public international registry of all weapons-usable radioactive materials.

7) Prohibit nuclear weapons research, design, development, and testing through laboratory experiments including but not limited to non-nuclear hydrodynamic explosions and computer simulations, subject all nuclear weapons laboratories to international monitoring, and close all nuclear test sites.

8) Create additional nuclear weapons free zones such as those established by the treaties of Tlatelolco and Raratonga.

9) Recognize and declare the illegality of threat or use of nuclear weapons, publicly and before the World Court.

10) Establish an international energy agency to promote and support the development of sustainable and environmentally safe energy sources.

11) Create mechanisms to ensure the participation of citizens and NGOs in planning and monitoring the process of nuclear weapons abolition.

A world free of nuclear weapons is a shared aspiration of humanity. This goal cannot be achieved in a non-proliferation regime that authorizes the possession of nuclear weapons by a small group of states. Our common security requires the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Our objective is definite and unconditional abolition of nuclear weapons.

* The Convention should mandate irreversible disarmament measures, including but not limited to the following: withdraw and disable all deployed nuclear weapons systems; disable and dismantle warheads; place warheads and weapon-usable radioactive materials under international safeguards; destroy ballistic missiles and other delivery systems. The Convention could also incorporate the measures listed above which should be implemented independently without delay. When fully implemented, the Convention would replace the NPT.

Analysis

The Abolition 2000 Statement was a major achievement of the citizen action groups supporting the elimination of nuclear weapons at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference. It has provided a point of focus and agreement for these citizens groups from throughout the world.

The 11-point program to be implemented by the nuclear weapons states is discussed below.

1. Initiate immediately and conclude by the year 2000 negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Abolition Convention that requires the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework, with provisions for verification and enforcement.

Entering into a Nuclear Weapons Convention by the year 2000 is the key point in the Statement. This doesn’t mean that all nuclear weapons will be eliminated by the year 2000. It means that the commitment to their total elimination will be made in the form of a treaty, similar to the treaties that have outlawed biological weapons (Biological Weapons Convention, 1972) and chemical weapons (Chemical Weapons Convention, 1995) by the year 2000. The opportunity should not be missed to begin the new millennium with a commitment to a nuclear weapons free world. The year 2000 is a turning point for humanity, a point by which we should leave behind us forever the threat of nuclear annihilation.

In a footnote to the Abolition 2000 Statement, some direction for the proposed Convention is provided: “The Convention should mandate irreversible disarmament measures, including but not limited to the following: withdraw and disable all deployed nuclear weapons systems; disable and dismantle warheads; place warheads and weapon-usable radioactive materials under international safeguards; destroy ballistic missiles and other delivery systems. The Convention could also incorporate the measures listed above [that is, points 2 through 11 of the Statement] which should be implemented independently without delay. When fully implemented, the Convention would replace the NPT.”

Joseph Rotblat, the 1995 Nobel Peace Laureate, has been calling for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, similar in form to the Chemical Weapons Convention, for many years. In his Nobel Lecture, he argued, “Entering into negotiations does not commit the parties. There is no reason why they should not begin now. If not now, when?”1

The nuclear weapons states did not begin negotiations toward a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons in 1995. Instead, they succeeded in having the Non-Proliferation Treaty extended indefinitely with very few conditions. It is not too late, however, to complete negotiations for a new treaty by the year 2000. We must encourage them to begin; we must demand that they begin. As Professor Rotblat states with simple eloquence: “If not now, when?”

Professor Rotblat continued his Nobel Lecture with an appeal to the nuclear weapons states: “So I appeal to the nuclear powers to abandon the out-of-date thinking of the Cold War and take a fresh look. Above all, I appeal to them to bear in mind the long-term threat that nuclear weapons pose to humankind and to begin action towards their elimination. Remember your duty to humanity.”2

2. Immediately make an unconditional pledge not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons.

It has been argued by distinguished military leaders and security analysts that nuclear weapons have no other purpose than to deter a nuclear attack.3 If nuclear weapons states accept this position, then it should not be difficult for them to make a pledge not to be first to use nuclear weapons. If all states agreed not to use nuclear weapons first, this would be equivalent to a pledge not to use these weapons. Yet, at present, only China has made an unconditional pledge not to use nuclear weapons first.

A similar point was also made by Professor Rotblat in his Nobel Lecture. “Several studies, and a number of public statements by senior military and political personalities, testify that except for disputes between the present nuclear states all military conflicts, as well as threats to peace, can be dealt with using conventional weapons. This means that the only function of nuclear weapons, while they exist, is to deter a nuclear attack. All nuclear weapons states should now recognize that this is so, and declare in Treaty form that they will never be the first to use nuclear weapons. This would open the way to the gradual, mutual reduction of nuclear arsenals, down to zero.”4

The Abolition 2000 Statement calls for nuclear weapons states to go beyond a no first use pledge, and make an unconditional pledge not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons. However, even if nuclear weapons states would agree to an unconditional “no first use” pledge, that would be an important step forward.

3. Rapidly complete a truly comprehensive test ban treaty with a zero threshold and with the stated purpose of precluding nuclear weapons development by all states.

The nuclear weapons states promised a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty. This promise was made again in the non-binding agreement that supplemented the decision to extend the NPT indefinitely in 1995. This agreement committed the nuclear weapons states to completing a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 1996. On September 10, 1995 the CTBT was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, and was opened for signatures on September 24, 1956. It has been signed by over a hundred countries including the five declared nuclear weapons states. India, however, has said that it will not sign the Treaty until the nuclear weapons states commit themselves to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, and India’s ratification of the Treaty is required for the Treaty to enter into force.

The Treaty agreed upon will still allow for laboratory and sub-critical tests. Thus, it cannot be expected to be fully successful in “precluding nuclear weapons development by all states.” To do this, the Treaty would have had to go beyond prohibiting underground nuclear weapons tests, and have prohibited testing in all environments, including the nuclear weapons laboratories.

4. Cease to produce and deploy new and additional nuclear weapons systems, and commence to withdraw and disable deployed nuclear weapons systems.

In the Non-Proliferation Treaty the nuclear weapons states promised to pursue good faith negotiations for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date. Clearly, to produce and deploy new and additional nuclear weapons systems at this point would be in violation of that promise. It would also be unnecessary and provocative. The nuclear weapons states have already begun the process of withdrawing and disabling nuclear weapons systems. Missiles have been removed from their silos, and destroyed with much fanfare. This process needs to continue, and should not be undermined by the deployment of any new or additional nuclear weapons systems.

5. Prohibit the military and commercial production and reprocessing of all weapons-usable radioactive materials.

Far too much weapons-usable nuclear material already exists in the world. It takes only a few pounds of plutonium to produce a nuclear weapon, and perhaps 20 pounds of highly enriched uranium. While the required amounts of weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium needed to make nuclear weapons can be measured in pounds, the stockpiles of these materials can now be measured in metric tonnes.

As of 1990, globally there was some 250 metric tonnes of plutonium in the military sector, of which 178 tonnes was in nuclear warheads. There was some 1300 metric tonnes of highly enriched uranium in the military sector, including 810 tonnes in warheads. In the civilian sector, there was over 600 metric tonnes of plutonium and 20 tonnes of highly enriched uranium. Of the civilian sector plutonium, 532 tonnes was in spent reactor fuel, and thus not readily converted to weapons use without reprocessing.5

A study by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War pointed out that “Operation of nuclear power plants is rapidly increasing the world’s stocks of civilian plutonium. The cumulative stock of plutonium discharged from reactors worldwide is projected to reach about 1,400 metric tonnes at the end of the year 2000 and about 2,100 metric tonnes at the end of 2010.”6

If we are to have any hope of ending the nuclear weapons era, we must gain control of all weapons-grade radioactive materials. The first step in doing this is to halt the production and reprocessing of such materials. To be effective, this must be done in both the military and civilian sectors.

6. Subject all weapons-usable radioactive materials and nuclear facilities in all states to international accounting, monitoring, and safeguards, and establish a public international registry of all weapons-usable radioactive materials.

To end the nuclear weapons era, all weapons-usable nuclear materials must be accounted for, monitored, and protected against diversion. The study by the International Physicians on this subject stated, “Present arrangements for controlling fissile material are clearly inadequate. They place no limits on any of the fissile material activities of the nuclear-weapons states. They limit the civilian fissile material activities of some small and relatively weak states on a discriminatory, ad hoc basis, while allowing more powerful states to accumulate large amounts of fissile material.”7

To be effective in controlling weapons-usable fissile materials, all states must be subject to international accounting, monitoring, and safeguards. The most powerful states, including the nuclear weapons states, can no longer reserve for themselves the special “privilege” of keeping their nuclear weapons materials outside the bounds of international inspections and controls.

7. Prohibit nuclear weapons research, design, development, and testing through laboratory experiments including but not limited to non-nuclear hydrodynamic explosions and computer simulations, subject all nuclear weapons laboratories to international monitoring, and close all nuclear test sites.

To stop the further development of new nuclear weapons systems will require an end to researching, designing, developing and testing nuclear weapons in every way, including in laboratory experiments. When the French conducted a series of nuclear tests in the South Pacific in 1995 and early 1996, the reason they gave for doing so was to gather information for future laboratory tests. The U.S. has said all along that it is planning to conduct non- nuclear tests and, in fact, is planning to spend many billions of dollars in building new, sophisticated, and expensive equipment for future nuclear testing. The only way to close this loophole is by international agreement and international monitoring of nuclear weapons laboratories and test sites. The test sites themselves should be closed down. The former Soviet test site in Kazahkstan, and the French test site in Polynesia have both been closed. The only remaining test sites are in Novaya Zemlya (Russia), Lop Nor (China) and Nevada (U.S. and Britain).

8. Create additional nuclear weapons free zones such as those established by the treaties of Tlatelolco and Raratonga.

Since the Abolition 2000 Statement was adopted in April 1995, nuclear weapons free zones have been established for Southeast Asia and Africa. Following the completion of a series of six French nuclear weapons tests on the Pacific atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa, the U.S., U.K. and France have all agreed to abide by the South Pacific Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. A treaty signed in December 1995 by Southeast Asian countries declares an area stretching from Myanmar to the west, Philippines in the east, Laos and Vietnam in the north and Indonesia in the south as a nuclear free zone. The Treaty of Pelindaba, signed in Cairo in June 1996, made Africa a nuclear weapons free zone. These zones, covering most of the Earth’s southern hemisphere, prohibit the development, manufacturing, acquisition, possession, testing, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons within the designated areas. What they have not prohibited is transit of nuclear weapons by submarines and surface ships through international waters in their regions.8

9. Recognize and declare the illegality of threat or use of nuclear weapons, publicly and before the World Court.

On July 8, 1996, the International Court of Justice in the Hague rendered its opinion on the illegality of nuclear weapons.9 The Court concluded that “the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles of humanitarian law.” It also declared that “there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

The Court found, however, that in “view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal,” that it was unable to reach a definitive conclusion with regard to “an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of a state would be at stake.” Thus, the Court left open only the slimmest possibility of an exception to the general illegality of threat or use of nuclear weapons.

Based on the Court’s decision, Commander Robert Green, a retired Officer of the British Royal Navy and a member of the World Court Project that promoted the World Court decision, said, “With this remarkable decision, I could never have used a nuclear weapon legally. This places a duty on the military to review their whole attitude toward nuclear weapons, which are now effectively in the same category as chemical and biological weapons.”

10. Establish an International Energy Agency to promote and support the development of sustainable and environmentally safe energy sources.

One of the important missing agencies in the international system is an International Sustainable Energy Agency that promotes and supports development of sustainable and environmentally safe forms of energy. The sun provides a virtually inexhaustible source of energy. Further development of the technology to harness the sun’s energy in a cost-effective manner must become a major international priority as well as technologies to develop wind, tidal, and biomass resources. An International Sustainable Energy Agency could oversee these efforts.

If such an Agency succeeds in its mission, it will not be necessary for states to rely upon the continued use of energy from nuclear reactors, thereby eliminating a major source of the radioactive materials that endanger human and other life forms and that could be reprocessed for use in the creation of nuclear weapons.

11. Create mechanisms to ensure the participation of citizens and NGOs in planning and monitoring the process of nuclear weapons abolition.

Citizens and non-governmental organizations have a role to play in planning and monitoring the process of eliminating nuclear weapons. This is not a job for governments alone. Citizens and citizen action groups have been active and creative in calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. There will undoubtedly be ways in which individual citizens and groups of citizens can play a role in advancing the cause of a nuclear weapons free world.

The President of the NPT Review and Extension Conference, Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, praised the work of NGOs in that Conference and called for a more active role by these groups in the three preparatory meetings leading up to the next NPT Review Conference in the year 2000.

Citizen groups from all over the world could begin now to inventory all nuclear materials in their country or region, thereby educating themselves about local hazards and providing a genuine service to the international community.

The Nuclear Weapons Convention working group of the Abolition 2000 Network has been meeting to draft a treaty that takes into consideration all of the elements enumerated in the Abolition 2000 Statement.

Joseph Rotblat has called for an active role for citizens from throughout the world in monitoring compliance with a Nuclear Weapons Convention. In addition to technological verification of compliance, he has called for what he calls “societal verification.” Professor Rotblat has the following to say about “Societal verification”:

As the name implies, all members of the community would be involved in ensuring that a treaty signed by their own government is not violated. The main type of societal verification is what we call `citizen reporting.’ Underthis, every citizen would have the right and the duty to notify an office of theinternational authority in the country about any attempt to violate the treaty. In order to be effective, this right and duty would have to be written into the national law of the country.

“We propose that whenever we have an international treaty but particularly relating to nuclear weapons it should contain a specific clause demanding that all the signatory states enact this type of law, and so make it the obligation of the citizens to carry out this task. We believe that this would be particularly effective in the case of nuclear weapons, partly because people instinctively abhor nuclear weapons, and partly because in almost every country there are anti-nuclear campaigns. We are convinced there will be enough people in every country who will make sure that the treaty is not being violated.10

Conclusion

The Statement concludes, “A world free of nuclear weapons is a shared aspiration of humanity. This goal cannot be achieved in a non-proliferation regime that authorizes the possession of nuclear weapons by a small group of states. Our common security requires the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Our objective is definite and unconditional abolition of nuclear weapons.”

This conclusion juxtaposed the demand of the nuclear weapons states for an indefinite and unconditional extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty with the need for a definite and unconditional commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons states prevailed at the NPT Review and Extension Conference in getting an indefinite extension of the Treaty. Whether the initiators of the Abolition 2000 Statement will prevail in attaining the “definite and unconditional abolition of nuclear weapons” will depend upon how many committed individuals throughout the world will work together to achieve this goal.

The Abolition 2000 Statement provides a guideline for actions to be taken to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons. The primary responsibility for taking these actions lies with the nuclear weapons states, but the responsibility for assuring that the nuclear weapons states take these actions lies with citizens. Each of us has a role to play.

__________________

Notes

1. Rotblat, Joseph, “The Nobel Lecture Given by the Nobel Peace Laureate 1995 Joseph Rotblat,” The Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, 1995.

2. Ibid.

3. See, for example, “A Four-Step Program to Nuclear Disarmament” by the Henry L. Stimson Center, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 52, No. 2, March/April 1996, pp. 52-55.

The report states: “The only necessary function for nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear threats to the population and territory of the United States, to U.S. forces abroad, and to certain friendly states.”

Members of the Stimson Center project include General Andrew J. Goodpaster, General William F. Burns, General Charles A. Horner, and General W. Y. Smith.

4. Rotblat, Op. cit.

5. Albright, David, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker, World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1992, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 197.

6. Thompson, Gordon, “Opportunities for International Control of Weapons-Usable fissile Material,” International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, ENWE Paper #1, January 1994, p. 7.

7. Thompson, op. cit. p. 10.

8. See, Krieger, David, “Denuclearization of the Oceans: Linking Our Common Heritage with Our Common Future,” Global Security Study, No. 21, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, March, 1996.

9. Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, “Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons,” July 8, 1996.

10. Rotblat, Joseph, “The Feasibility of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World,” Global Security Study, No. 16, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, August 1993.

January 12, 1996