Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: good faith

  • On the 50th Anniversary of the Non-Proliferation Treaty: An Exercise in Bad Faith

    On the 50th Anniversary of the Non-Proliferation Treaty: An Exercise in Bad Faith

    On July 1, the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) turned 50 years old. In that agreement, five nuclear weapons states— the US, Russia, UK, France, and China—promised, a half a century ago, to make “good faith efforts” to give up their nuclear weapons, while non-nuclear weapons states promised not to acquire them. Every country in the world agreed to join the treaty except for India, Pakistan, and Israel which then went on to develop their own nuclear arsenals. To sweeten the pot, the NPT’s Faustian bargain promised the non-nuclear weapons states an “inalienable right” to so-called “peaceful” nuclear power. Every nuclear power reactor is a potential bomb factory since its operation produces radioactive waste which can be enriched into bomb-grade fuel for nuclear bombs. North Korea developed its promised “peaceful” nuclear technology and then walked out of the treaty and made nuclear bombs. And it was feared that Iran was on its way to enriching their “peaceful” nuclear waste to make nuclear weapons as well, which is why Obama negotiated the  “Iran deal” which provided more stringent inspections of Iran’s enrichment activity, now under assault by the US with the election of Donald Trump.

    Despite the passage of 50 years since the NPT states promised “good faith” efforts to disarm, and the required Review and Extension conference 25 years ago, which since then has instituted substantive review conferences every five years as a condition for having extended the NPT indefinitely rather than letting it lapse in 1995, there are still about 15,000 nuclear weapons on our planet. All but some 1,000 of them are in the US and Russia which keep nearly 2,000 weapons on hair-trigger alert, poised and ready to fire on each other’s cities in a matter of minutes. Only this month, the Trump administration upped the ante on a plan developed by Obama’s war machine to spend one trillion dollars over the next ten years on two new nuclear bomb factories, new weapons, and nuclear-firing planes, missiles and submarines. Trump’s new proposal for a massive Pentagon budget of $716 billion, an increase of $82 billion, was passed in the House and now in the Senate by 85 Republicans and Democrats alike, with only 10 Senators voting against it! When it comes  to gross and violent military spending, bi-partisanship is the modus operandi! And the most radical aspect of the budget is a massive expansion of the US nuclear arsenal, ending a 15-year prohibition on developing “more usable” low-yield nuclear warheads that can be delivered by submarine as well as by air-launched cruise missiles. “More usable” in this case, are bombs that are at least as destructive as the atom bombs that wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki, since the subsequently developed hydrogen bombs in the US arsenal are magnitudes more devastating and catastrophic.

    Putin, in his March 2018 State of the Nation Address, also spoke of new nuclear-weapons bearing missiles being developed by Russia in response to the US having pulled out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and then planting missiles in eastern Europe. He noted that:

    Back in 2000, the US announced its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Russia was categorically against this. We saw the Soviet-US ABM Treaty signed in 1972 as the cornerstone of the international security system. Under this treaty, the parties had the right to deploy ballistic missile defence systems only in one of its regions. Russia deployed these systems around Moscow, and the US around its Grand Forks land-based ICBM base.

    Together with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the ABM Treaty not only created an atmosphere of trust but also prevented either party from recklessly using nuclear weapons, which would have endangered humankind, because the limited number of ballistic missile defence systems made the potential aggressor vulnerable to a response strike.

    We did our best to dissuade the Americans from withdrawing from the treaty. All in vain. The US pulled out of the treaty in 2002. Even after that we tried to develop constructive dialogue with the Americans. We proposed working together in this area to ease concerns and maintain the atmosphere of trust. At one point, I thought that a compromise was possible, but this was not to be. All our proposals, absolutely all of them, were rejected. And then we said that we would have to improve our modern strike systems to protect our security.

    Ironically, this week the US Department of State, under the heading “Diplomacy in Action”, issued a joint statement with US Secretary of State Pompeo and the Russian and UK Foreign Ministers, extolling the NPT as the “essential foundation for international efforts to stem the looming threat—then and now—that nuclear weapons would proliferate across the globe…and has limited the risk that the vast devastation of nuclear war would be unleashed.”

    All this is occurring against the stunning new development of the negotiation and passage of a new Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the culmination of a ten-year campaign by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which succeeded in lobbying for 122 nations to adopt this new treaty which prohibits nations from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. Just as the world has banned chemical and biological weapons, as well as landmines and cluster bombs, the new treaty to ban nuclear weapons closes the legal gap created by the NPT which only requires “good faith efforts” for nuclear disarmament, and doesn’t prohibit them.

    At the last NPT review in 2015, South Africa spoke eloquently about the state of nuclear apartheid created by the NPT where the nuclear “haves” hold the rest of the world hostage to their devastating nuclear threats which provided even more impetus for the successful negotiation of the ban treaty. ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize for their winning campaign and is now engaged in lobbying for ratification by the 50 states required by the ban treaty to enter into force. To date, 58 nations have signed the treaty, with 10 national legislatures having weighed in to ratify it (see www.icanw.org). None of the nine nuclear weapons states or the US nuclear alliance nations in NATO, as well as South Korea, Australia, and surprisingly, Japan, have signed the treaty and all of them boycotted the negotiations, except for the Netherlands because a grassroots campaign resulted in their Parliament voting to mandate attendance at the ban negotiations, even though they voted against the treaty. Grassroots groups are organizing in the five NATO states that host US nuclear weapons—Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Turkey—to remove these weapons from US bases now that they are prohibited.

    There is a vibrant new divestment campaign, for use in the nuclear weapons states and their allies sheltering under the US nuclear umbrella, www.dontbankonthebomb.com. There is also a parliamentary pledge for legislators to sign who live in nuclear weapons states or allied states at http://www.icanw.org/projects/pledge/ calling on their governments to join the ban treaty. In the US, there is a campaign to pass resolutions at city and state levels in favor of the new treaty at www.nuclearban.us. Many of these nuclear divestment campaigns (such as World BEYOND War) are working in cooperation with the new Code Pink Divest from the War Campaign.

    It remains to be seen whether the NPT will continue to have relevance in light of the evident lack of integrity by the parties who promised “good faith” efforts for nuclear disarmament, and instead are all modernizing and inventing new forms of nuclear terror.   The recent detente between the US and North Korea, with proposals to sign a peace treaty and formally end the Korean War, after a 65 year cease-fire since 1953, and the proposed meeting between the two nuclear gargantuans, the US and Russia, together with the new nuclear ban treaty, may be an opportunity to shift gears and look forward to a world without nuclear weapons if we can overcome the corrupt forces that keep the military-industrial-academic-congressional complex in business, seemingly forever!

    Alice Slater serves on the Coordinating Committee of World Beyond War.

  • Good Faith

    This article was originally published by NPT News In Review.

    A new paper by Judge Christopher G. Weeramantry looks deeply at the concept of good faith, an extremely important concept included in Article VI of the NPT and a central principle of international law. Judge Weeramantry, who served as Vice President of the International Court of Justice when it ruled on the illegality of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in 1996, is uniquely qualified to address this topic.

    The Court reinforced the importance of good faith in 1996 when it pronounced: “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.”

    According to Weeramantry, “No higher legal pronouncement on a question of international law is possible than the unanimous opinion of the world’s highest court. No greater issue can come to a court than one involving the survival of humanity. No more all-embracing and respected concept exists in international law than the concept of good faith. The obligation spelled out by the Court straddled all these aspects of fundamental importance.”

    Modernization of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, comprehensively detailed in Reaching Critical Will’s report Still Assuring Destruction Forever, brings front and center the concept of good faith. Weeramantry does not mince words when he identifies these modernization programs as breach of good faith. He asks readers to consider whether “there has been not merely a violation of good faith but an actual manifestation of bad faith in this matter.”

    This breach of good faith through modernization programs is a shameful endless circle, with one country’s actions prompting the other nuclear powers to do likewise, escalating the level of departures from the duty of good faith. Such action has also, according to Weeramantry, prompted non-nuclear powers to seek to acquire nuclear weapons.

    In the context of the NPT, good faith would start with an immediate halt to the modernization of nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Good faith efforts must continue until the obligation of nuclear disarmament is achieved. As Judge Weeramantry concludes, “There can be no basis for the disregard or incomplete performance of an obligation so deeply ingrained in international law, so clearly undertaken by the nuclear powers, so carefully pronounced by the International Court of Justice and so definitely determining whether humanity will flourish or perish.”

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s briefing paper by Judge Weeramantry, Good Faith: Essential to Nuclear Disarmament and Human Survival, is available online atwww.wagingpeace.org/goto/goodfaith

    Rick Wayman is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Director of Programs and Operations.

  • Putting U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policies on Trial in the Court of Public Opinion

    David KriegerThe International Court of Justice, the highest and most authoritative court in the world, has stated that the use of nuclear weapons would be illegal if such use violated international humanitarian law.  Failing to distinguish between civilians and combatants would be illegal, as would any use resulting in unnecessary suffering.  Additionally, the Court found that any threat of such use would also be illegal.  It is virtually impossible to imagine any use or threat of use that would not violate international humanitarian law.


    US nuclear weapons policy fails to meet the standards of international humanitarian law and to live up to its treaty obligations in the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Until the issue of US nuclear weapons policy can be properly litigated in in a US domestic court, US policies related to the threat or use of nuclear weapons need to be put on trial in the most important court in the world, the court of public opinion.  It is US citizens who may well determine the fate of the world, by their action or inaction on this most critical of all issues confronting humanity.


    The Charges 


    1. The US has failed to fulfill its obligation to engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament.


    The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligates the parties not only to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries, but also obligates good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament by the five nuclear weapons states parties to the treaty: the US, Russia, UK, France and China.  In interpreting this part of the treaty, the International Court of Justice stated in a 1996 Advisory Opinion, “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.”  It has not been the policy of the United States to pursue such negotiations despite the passage of more than 40 years since this treaty entered into force and more than 20 years since the Cold War came to an end.


    2. The US has failed to fulfill its obligation to engage in good faith negotiations to achieve a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date.


    The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty also obligates parties to the treaty to engage in good faith negotiations for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date.  But rather than negotiating to bring an end to the nuclear arms race, the US has continued to modernize its nuclear weapons, their delivery systems and the infrastructure that keeps the arms race alive.  Doing so has been costly, provocative and illegal under international law.


    3. The US threatens the mass annihilation of the human species (omnicide).


    The consequence of a large-scale nuclear war could be the extinction of most or all of the human species, along with other forms of complex life.  This would be a most egregious violation of international humanitarian law.  In fact, it would undermine the very foundation of the law, which is the protection of innocent individuals from harm.  The indiscriminate nature of nuclear weapons and policies that threaten their use, such as nuclear deterrence policy, cannot be made to conform to the law, since any use of these weapons would cause a humanitarian disaster beyond our capacity to respond to the ensuing suffering and death.


    4. The US is recklessly endangering life.


    Certain policies of the United States may be viewed as recklessly endangering life on the planet.  These policies include reliance on its land-based missile force, maintaining nuclear weapons on high-alert status, launch-on-warning and first use of nuclear weapons.  Land-based missiles are attractive targets for attack in a time of tension between nuclear powers.  Maintaining the weapons on high alert and a policy of launch-on-warning could result in a launch in response to a false warning, with all attendant consequences of retaliation and nuclear war.  Although not well known to US citizens, their government has always maintained a policy of possible first use of nuclear weapons, rather than a policy of no first use. 


    5. The US is committing crimes against the environment (ecocide).


    The effects of nuclear war and its preparations cannot be contained in either time or space.  Radiation knows no boundaries and will affect countless future generations by poisoning the environment that sustains life.  The effects of nuclear war on the environment would be severe and long lasting and would include – in addition to blast, fire and radiation – global nuclear famine, even from a regional nuclear war.


    6. The US is committing crimes against future generations.


    The future itself is put at risk by nuclear weapons policies that could lead to nuclear war, and where there are nuclear weapons the possibility of nuclear war cannot be dismissed.  A nuclear war would, at best, deprive new generations of the opportunity for a flourishing and sustainable life on the planet.  At worst, such a war would end civilization and foreclose the possibility of human life on Earth.


    7. The US has contaminated indigenous lands.


    Nuclear weapons production, testing and the storage of long-lived nuclear waste have largely taken place on the lands of indigenous peoples.  The Hanford Nuclear Reservation, located on the reservation of the Yakama Indian Nation, is where the US produced the plutonium for some 60,000 nuclear weapons.  It is one of the most environmentally contaminated sites on the planet and the Yakama Indians, who were granted hunting and fishing rights in perpetuity in an 1855 treaty, have suffered disproportionately.  The US has also contaminated the lands of the Western Shoshone Nation and the Marshall Islands with nuclear and thermonuclear weapons tests.


    8. The US has breached the trust of the international community.
     
    The Marshall Islands were the Trust Territory of the United States from the end of World War II until they gained their independence in 1986.  Between 1946 and 1958, the US tested 67 nuclear and thermonuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands with the equivalent explosive power of one-and-a-half Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons every day for 12 years.  The people of the Marshall Islands who endured these tests and their offspring have suffered grave injuries, premature deaths, and displacement from their island homes, which can only be construed as a most serious breach of trusteeship of these islands.  The US continues to test nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, which is on the land of the Chumash Indians, and targets most of these missiles at the Ronald Reagan Missile Defense Test Range in the Marshall Islands.


    9. The US has conspicuously wasted public funds.


    The public funds used to develop, manufacture, test, deploy and maintain the US nuclear arsenal and its delivery systems have been estimated to exceed $7.5 trillion.  Even now, more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the government continues to spend $60 to $70 billion annually and plans to maintain this level for the next decade.  These funds have been taken from the resources that could have been used to feed the hungry, house the homeless, provide education for our children and help restore our infrastructure and our economic well-being. 


    10. The US has conspired to commit international crimes and to cover them up by silence.


    US nuclear weapons policy threatens each of the three major Nuremberg Tribunal crimes: crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.  The US government and major US media have conspired to prevent a full and open public discussion of nuclear weapons crimes.  Why are the US government and US mainstream media silent about these crimes?  Why is the mainstream media so accepting of US nuclear weapons policy, which threatens the destruction of civilization?  This conspiracy of silence has helped to assure the complacency of the American people.


    Conclusion


    Current US nuclear weapons policy is illegal, immoral and runs a high risk of resulting in nuclear catastrophe.  We cannot wait until there is a nuclear war before we act to rid the world of these weapons of mass annihilation.  The US should be the leader in this effort, rather than an obstacle to its realization.  It is up to the court of public opinion to assure that the US asserts this leadership.  The time to act is now.