Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: NPT

  • Pacta Sunt Servanda: Promises to Keep

    Jonathan GranoffOn United Nations Day, three years ago Secretary General Ban Ki-moon set forth a compass point for international cooperation to eliminate nuclear weapons and to make the world safer on the path to this achievement. In addition to calling for work on a nuclear weapons convention or a framework of instruments to achieve disarmament , he called for entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, negotiations of a fissile material treaty, entry into force of the Protocols to regional nuclear weapons free zones, and efforts to establish a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, as well as the development of new norms for space weapons, missiles and conventional arms.


    The Secretary General’s Five Point Proposal remains relevant today and can help inspire work in many different forums and levels of diplomacy and civil society. It upholds a clear goal and emphasizes the incremental steps needed to get there. Such bold leadership will be needed to fulfill the aspiration, expressed so eloquently by President Obama, as “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” which will constitute in the words of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, “a global public good of the highest order.” 


    Failure to achieve greater progress in fulfilling this moral and practical imperative will result in  cynicism toward the most important tool the world presently has to ensure peace — solemnly negotiated and agreed upon commitments. Without such explicit commitments — conventions, treaties — we rely upon ad hoc arrangements which are only as strong as short term perceived interests. With treaties norms are set and common purposes achievable. 


    But, these explicit arrangements are only as strong as the integrity of the parties and their adherence to them. The term in international law to remember is pacta sunt servanda – agreements must be kept and honored in good faith. Or, in the words of President Obama: “words must mean something.”


    The 2010 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review’s Final Statement, contains a reaffirmation of an “unequivocal undertaking to accomplish”, not just to aspire, but “to accomplish the total elimination of nuclear weapons.”


    It calls upon states “to undertake concrete disarmament efforts…” in fact “special efforts to establish the necessary framework to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons.” It highlights that this is a matter that requires our most committed actions by saying “there is an urgent need.”


     “Urgent”, “concrete”, “unequivocal” – These are strong words requiring the strongest of actions.


    Many of us were heartened by the attention paid to the progressive five point agenda of the Secretary General’s Five Point proposal and particularly reference to a convention or framework of instruments to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons.
    Without such clarity of purpose the dynamism required to achieve significant threat reducing steps will be difficult to obtain. Thus we are now  seeing how difficult it is just to achieve the very modest incremental steps, such as a fissile materials treaty or strengthening IAEA safeguards, needed to enhance everyone’s security. The galvanizing effect of collectively seeking the common goal of a nuclear weapons free world will make all the steps needed to move there so much easier.


    In the recent United States Nuclear Posture Review, there is a “commitment to a nuclear weapons-free world” and there is even a commitment “to initiate a comprehensive national research and development program to support continued progress toward a world free of nuclear weapons,” including, but not limited to, “expanded work on verification technologies.”


    What have we seen since these commitments were made?


    Nearly every state with nuclear weapons seems to be upgrading, expanding, or modernizing their weapons. For example in the United States, as part of the negotiations for obtaining the START treaty, a new commitment was made to allocate potentially over 200 billion dollars to modernize  the arsenal – modernizing delivery systems and modernizing weapons.  There may also be some commitment to initiating a comprehensive national research and development program, as called for in the Nuclear Posture Review, but if any funds have been allocated to this task,  they are dwarfed by the commitment to modernize the arsenal.


    The language of the final statement of the NPT Review Conference is very consistent with initiating a comprehensive research and development program at an international level. And if anything is needed now, it is a clear, unambiguous, unequivocal, irreversible, well-funded effort by like-minded states, or all states if possible, on laying out the framework necessary to obtain and maintain a nuclear weapons-free world. There is no ongoing forum in which nuclear disarmament is being discussed and advanced on a daily, regular, systematic basis. There is language, there are statements, but we don’t see the institutionalization, we don’t see the commitment being operationalized and that’s what’s really important.


    Without such a clear course of action, we become subject to backsliding. The ongoing debate should be about how to get rid of nuclear weapons. Yet, continually we are forced to return to the argument whether we should get rid of nuclear weapons. That argument should have been laid to rest in 2000, when the “unequivocal undertaking” to elimination was made at that NPT Review Conference.


    I assure you, we will again be faced with bureaucracies and think-tanks and politicians who will force us to revisit the argument whether we should get rid of nuclear weapons again and again unless we lay out the framework or proceed to negotiate the preparatory process for a nuclear weapons convention.


    Some people say working on a framework or convention is a distraction from the NPT. I very much disagree with that analysis. The NPT contemplates subsidiary instruments to fulfill its non-proliferation and disarmament purposes. Nobody argues that a test ban treaty is a distraction from the non-proliferation purposes of the NPT or that a  Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty is a distraction. The NPT contemplates subsidiary instruments. We need subsidiary instruments to achieve non-proliferation goals and likewise to achieve disarmament goals. It is to fulfill the disarmament pillar of the NPT that a framework of agreements or a convention is needed.


    Some people say there are many preconditions to beginning this process.  There seems to be a proliferation of preconditions. For some the precondition is the elimination of bad people. For others it’s the elimination of bad states. For others it’s a utopian world in utter harmony. But there is no language in the Final Statement of the NPT Review and there is no language in the Nuclear Posture Review that there are preconditions to beginning this process of making progress to move toward negotiating the elimination of nuclear weapons. There is no legal basis for that position.


    It is a political basis and it is for countries’ leaders, and all of us, to educate the public on the consequences of not commencing to more substantially work on nuclear disarmament now.


    There appear to be three paths before us:


    One is ad hoc incremental steps with numerous preconditions before actually commencing the real work of negotiating disarmament.


    Two is beginning the creation of a comprehensive framework that incorporates both incremental steps, but insures the clarity of purpose of disarmament, thus forming a basis to critique diversions from the disarmament process and a context to integrate many programs and approaches.


    Third is a fast-track toward a convention with prompt commencement of preparatory work, leading to negotiations as early as possible.


    I think the latter two are much preferred and the ad hoc incremental approach is proving to be too slow.


    I believe that what can drive this process is the understanding that nuclear weapons are morally, culturally, and humanly repugnant.


    Imagine if the Biological Weapons Convention said that no countries can use smallpox or polio as a weapon, but nine countries can use the plague as a weapon.  We would all say this is incoherent and utterly immoral.  We recognize that the plague is unacceptable.


    The weapon itself is unacceptable. It is not legitimate, legal, or moral for any country, good or bad, to use or threaten to use such a weapon. Such conduct would clearly violate our most basic universal civilized standards which are embodied in international humanitarian law. That is why in the final statement of the 2010 NPT Review Process one of the most important elements is the explicit, positive, and unambiguous commitment to the application of international humanitarian law in nuclear weapons policy.


    This is an area for nuclear disarmament advocacy that should be utilized very forcefully. International humanitarian law is the body of law that governs the use of force in war. It prohibits the use of weapons that are unable to discriminate between civilians and combatants. It necessitates that all weapons must be proportionate to specific military objectives. They must not cause unnecessary or aggravated suffering even to combatants. They must not affect states that are not parties to the conflict, and  they must not cause severe, widespread, or long-term damage to the environment. The International Court of Justice in its landmark advisory opinion on the legality of nuclear weapons highlighted the fact that it is impossible to control nuclear weapons in space and time.


    Indeed, one can with great imagination imagine certain uses that would be compliant with international humanitarian law. A depth charge in the high seas might do so. A small nuke in a desert might do so. But the vast majority of missions and deployments of nuclear weapons are not those exceptions. The vast majority of deployments and missions of nuclear weapons  violate those principles of international humanitarian law.  That highlights the need to operationalize creating the framework of instruments needed to eliminate nuclear weapons, begin the preparatory process for a convention and begin that process now.
    The threat covers everyone on the planet and thus every state, not just nuclear weapon states, have a responsibility to start this process.


    There are no good reasons to wait and there are many good reasons to seize this political moment, a moment where those states that possess nuclear weapons are not existential enemies.


    The global economy has become one fabric. Today, as never before, we are communicating ideas, passions, and art without borders. We share a common climate, common oceans, and it is time that we realized we share a common future. The security our children deserve requires global security with multinational cooperation based on the rule of law. When it comes to nuclear weapons, the pursuit of national self interest must not be distorted by the provincialism of national myopia. Realism requires common efforts. It is in the interest of every nation to work to eliminate nuclear weapons.  We live in one world. It is time that we started living in a civilized fashion. As the late Senator Alan Cranston used to say, “Nuclear weapons are unworthy of civilization.”  We have to get rid of them.  Thank you.

  • New Momentum for Nuclear Abolition: Opportunities and Obstacles

    On this tenth anniversary of the Indian Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, launched in the wake of India’s nuclear tests and Pakistan’s entry into the nuclear club as well, the world is facing ever new dangers in the nuclear age, even as these growing perils spark burgeoning new demands for nuclear disarmament across the globe. Perhaps the most unexpected call, which kicked off much of the current avalanche of new campaigns, initiatives, and projects for nuclear abolition, was an article in the Wall Street Journal, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons” in January 2007, when four rusty cold warriors, led by Henry Kissinger together with Sam Nunn, William Perry and George Schultz warned of the dangers of terrorism and nuclear proliferation and called for nuclear disarmament.


    Their article inspired a whole series of statements around the world by former military and government officials, echoing their call for a nuclear weapons free world, essentially providing  the political cover for President Obama’s Prague speech in April, 2009, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Obama pledged “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons”– although adding that it might not be reached “in my lifetime.” His Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton subsequently misquoted him, noting that “the President has acknowledged we might not achieve the ambition of a world without nuclear weapons in our lifetime or successive lifetimes.” And then Clinton pushed the ball even further down the road, speaking about the new START Treaty with Russia, foreseeing “a goal of a world someday, in some century, free of nuclear weapons.”


    After the initial statement of Kissinger and company, the group was tagged by various journalists and pundits as “the four horsemen”, perhaps ironically unaware that the biblical reference in the New Testament to the four horsemen of the apocalypse, is to a quartet of mythical marauders representing evil, war, famine and death.  The following year, in 2009, the world welcomed a Five Point Action Plan for Nuclear Disarmament urged by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon   which included the goal of a Nuclear Weapons Convention or framework of agreements to eliminate nuclear weapons.


    Ban Ki-moon’s proposal validated at last the largely unheralded efforts of civil society, which immediately after forming the Abolition 2000 Network at the 1995 Non-proliferation Treaty Review and Extension conference (NPT), extending the 25 year old  NPT’s expiration date indefinitely,  called for negotiations on a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons by the year 2000. The Network’s Working Group of lawyers, scientists, and policymakers drafted a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, submitted by Costa Rica to the UN as an official document. As the millennium approached, Abolition 2000 then enrolled over 2000 members in 95 countries and kept its name, despite the failure of negotiations to materialize. Fifteen years later, the nuclear weapons convention is an idea whose time has come, with calls for negotiations arising from every part of the globe.


    The Kissinger crew noted the growing power of campaigns and initiatives including grassroots pressure on America’s NATO allies, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway for NATO to remove U.S nuclear weapons now stationed in Europe under NATO’s “nuclear sharing” policy, calls to revive the Rajiv Gandhi Plan for Nuclear Disarmament, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Global Zero, the expanding Parliamentary Network for Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Disarmament, the Mayors for Peace approaching  5,000 member cities, together with leaders around the world clamoring for negotiations to begin on a treaty to ban the bomb.  They issued a second statement one year later in 2008, “Toward a Nuclear-Free World” .  Clearly walking back from their earlier call, they warned of a “nuclear tipping point” demanding better measures to prevent nuclear terrorism and more secure controls on nuclear material and the nuclear fuel cycle, while bemoaning the fact that:
    In some respects, the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons is like the top of a very tall mountain. From the vantage point of our troubled world today, we can’t even see the top of the mountain, and it is tempting and easy to say we can’t get there from here. But the risks from continuing to go down the mountain or standing pat are too real to ignore. We must chart a course to higher ground where the mountaintop becomes more visible.


    Of course, Civil Society had no difficulty seeing the top of the mountain and was proposing to reach it by urging that negotiations begin on a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons, just as the world had done for chemical and biological weapons, and landmines and cluster bombs as well.  It wasn’t as if the world had never banned a class of weapons before. With a third article this year by Kissinger and his colleagues, their lack of good faith is apparent. Titled “How to Protect Our Nuclear Deterrent”, they emphasize the importance of maintaining the credibility of the US nuclear deterrent by supporting  the Congressional drive to undercut, with a multi-billion dollar modernization program for the nuclear weaponeers, the modest START treaty  negotiated by Obama and Medvedev. 


    The treaty would cut deployed weapons in their massive arsenals of about 23,000 nuclear bombs, from 2,200 each to between 1,500 and 1,675. There are 1,000 nuclear bombs, in total, in the remaining nuclear countries—UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. START would also cut strategic bombers and land- and sea-based missiles from 1,600 each to 800. US mid-term elections with Republican control of the Congress and a diminished Democratic Senate majority,  may scuttle START’s ratification, leaving both countries without the ability to resume mutual inspections and verification of their nuclear activity which ended when the old START treaty expired in December 2009. Disturbingly, the international committee of the Russian Duma has rescinded its recommendation that Russia ratify START, pending US action, in light of the disappointing US elections results and the steep price tag the Republicans have attached to buy their votes for ratification.


    Since Russia and the US still have more than 10,000 weapons, START is only a modest step forward but one that is essential to demonstrate US and Russia willingness to tackle the unconscionable numbers of bombs in their arsenals. It was a difficult negotiation, hedged with caveats on missile defenses. The Russians are alarmed at US efforts to surround Russia with a ring of missile ”defenses”, seeking to site missile and radar bases in Poland, the Czech Republic, Rumania, Bulgaria and Ukraine, right up to the Russian border. Indeed, these START negotiations echoed the tragic lost opportunity at the Reagan-Gorbachev 1986 Reykjavik summit when negotiations for the total abolition of nuclear weapons collapsed because Reagan wouldn’t give up plans for a Strategic Defense Initiative to dominate space.


    Obama submitted START to the Senate for ratification attached to a Faustian bargain with the military-industrial-scientific-congressional complex for an additional $80 billion in new nuclear weapons testing and modernization and funding for a plutonium- pit bomb factory at Los Alamos, a uranium processing plant at Oak Ridge, and a new manufacturing facility for non-nuclear bomb parts in Kansas City—spreading the evil largesse across the whole continent– as well as an additional $100 billion for delivery systems—planes, submarines and missiles for launching nuclear bombs by air, sea and land.


    Obama also assured Congress that nothing in the START treaty would preclude the US from developing offensive missile “defenses” and its planned “prompt global strike” weapons systems,  an integral part of US plans to dominate and control the military use of space.  In October, the US and Israel were the only countries to abstain on a UN Resolution against the weaponization of space. This was actually an improvement in the US position since up to now it was the only country to vote NO on the resolution. The US has consistently blocked consensus on voting for negotiations on a draft treaty, submitted to the UN by Russia and China, to ban weapons in space.


    While the U.S. and its allies have been excoriating Pakistan for blocking consensus on proposed negotiations to cut off the production of fissile materials for “weapons purposes”, no countries are holding the U.S. to account for blocking consensus on keeping weapons out of space.  Pakistan is still playing catch up to produce nuclear materials while the other nuclear powers all have excess tons of highly enriched uranium(HEU) and plutonium(PU) from both military and civilian production. There are about 1600 tons of HEU and 500 tons of PU on our planet, enough to produce more than 120,000 nuclear weapons!


    Enacting the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty now, without moving rapidly on nuclear disarmament as well, would give an advantage to older more technologically advanced nuclear weapons states which already have excessive surpluses of bomb making materials.  And it is also an exercise in futility. By calling for the cut- off of fissile materials production only for “weapons purposes” without cutting off the production of materials such as plutonium and highly enriched uranium for so called “peaceful purposes”, the treaty would be no more than a leaking sieve as hundreds of tons of bomb-making material would continually be churned out in civilian reactors in more than 40 countries around the world.


    India was well aware of discriminatory nuclear legislation when it refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970 because the treaty provided that five existing nuclear weapons states, the US, UK, Russia, France and China, need only negotiate in “good faith” for nuclear disarmament while all the other countries of the world had to promise not to acquire nuclear weapons.  India proposed unsuccessfully that a nuclear abolition treaty for all nations be negotiated and then went on to develop its own nuclear capabilities, acquiring the bomb in 1974. In 1988 Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi proposed “An Action Plan for Ushering In a Nuclear-Weapon Free and Non-Violent World Order” which was totally ignored by the U.S although Russia expressed some interest in the plan.


    Every year since 1996, the UN General Assembly votes on a resolution to commence negotiations leading to the conclusion of a Nuclear Weapons Convention based on the 1996 decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) 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”. At the 2010 NPT Review Conference, a host of countries spoke in support of negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention and proposed a meeting in 2014 to discuss the path forward. Although the meeting proposal was blocked in the final document, the nuclear weapons states for the first time agreed to include a reference to negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention although the language was watered down considerably from the first draft.  Significantly, a unique provision in the outcome document affirmed, for the first time, the need for all States to comply with International Humanitarian Law under which the ICJ held that nuclear weapons are generally illegal. This provides new possibilities for action by non-nuclear weapons states to shift from the usual “step by step” approach of arms control to legislating an outright prohibition of nuclear weapons as illegal under international law, as was done with landmines and cluster bombs.


    There were 140 nations who made statements supporting negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention at the NPT Review, including one nuclear weapons state —China.   And when the annual resolution came to a vote in the UN First Committee of the General Assembly this fall, three nuclear weapons states, China, India, and Pakistan supported the call for negotiations.   Once again, the U.S. attempted to put the brakes on when Rose Gotmoeller, US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Verification and Compliance, in remarks at the UN, belittled the prospects for a nuclear weapons treaty urging “a pragmatic step-by-step approach rather than the impractical leap of seeking to negotiate a nuclear weapons convention or the pointless calls for convening a fourth special session of the General Assembly devoted to disarmament, for which there is no international consensus.”


    In October, 2010, Obama test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile 5,000 miles away from California to Guam and conducted the first “sub-critical” nuclear test since 2006, 1,000 feet below the desert floor, exploding plutonium with chemicals, without creating a chain-reaction. This was the 24th test in a program started by Clinton who tried to buy the support of the military-industrial-scientific–congressional complex for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which they later reneged on anyway. There were seven billion dollars a year for computer-simulated nuclear tests coupled with sub-critical tests and new laboratory infrastructure, which the Doctor Strangeloves contended were essential to maintain the “safety and reliability” of the arsenal.  Which brings us back full circle to the justification Obama claims for his pay-off to Congress to get START ratified.  Furthermore, the UK and France, emulating the worst in US policy, have just announced a “cost saving” plan to combine efforts and build a brand new joint  nuclear weapons laboratory in France, to test– surprise, surprise– the “safety and reliability” of their arsenals.


    Small wonder that a new statement in October 2010 by a Russian quartet of military and government officials, led by Yevgeny Primakov, asserted that many countries, including “a widespread belief in Russia” believe that their “nuclear potential is a key element of great power status.” Asserting that nuclear disarmament requires “greater confidence among nations, along with greater international security and stability” and referring to inequalities in “armaments, anti-ballistic missile defense, conventional weapons, strategic non-nuclear weapons as well as space militarization plans”, they conclude that to achieve nuclear disarmament “we must reorganize international life on more civilized principles and according to the demands of a new century.”
    President Obama, in his Prague speech, characterized nuclear terrorism as “the greatest danger we face”. Yet Nobel economist Thomas Schelling, who applies game theory to the study of conflict and cooperation  recently described the exceedingly low probability of terrorists ever getting their hands on enough illicit nuclear material to build a bomb. Far more dangerous and terrifying is the more than 3500 nuclear bombs, mounted on missiles and ready to fire within minutes which the US and Russia still aim at each other. Just this year we had reports of computer failures in the US that put 50 nuclear weapons out of commission, a UK Trident nuclear submarine running aground in the mud off the coast of Scotland, and six nuclear bombs mistakenly flown without knowledge of the commanders across the country from North Dakota to Louisiana. A US Defense Department report noted that between 1950 and 1980 there were 32 airplane crashes with nuclear bombs aboard, Luckily none of them ever exploded, although two of them, in Palomares, Spain and Thule, Greenland, spewed plutonium on the ground which had to be cordoned off and contained. Not to mention the incredibly close call when a Norwegian weather satellite went off course in 1983  and was interpreted by the Russians as a possible nuclear attack which a wise commander, Stanislav Petrov, on duty in the nuclear bunker, decided heroically, against orders, and to the great good fortune of the world, to disregard.
    Furthermore, we are creating much greater danger in our efforts to secure and lock down radioactive bomb material.  Rather than containing the toxic poisons in sturdy, above-ground concrete casks, which last for hundreds of years, under guns, gates and guards, we are actually transporting our lethal legacy through populated areas over roads, rail and seas, from the four corners of the earth back to reprocessing facilities. The US and Russia are using the highly enriched uranium they transport, for example, which was spread around to 28 countries during the atoms for peace program for research reactors, in reprocessing facilities where they are blended down for fuel for so called “peaceful nuclear power plants” now in the planning stages for exponential growth in a “nuclear renaissance” around the planet, about to spread their radioactive poisons into the air, water, and soil, while giving ever more nations the reactor- generated capacity to make nuclear bomb material.  
    Even if these materials are never used in a nuclear bomb, they are already causing death, destruction and illness in the communities where the uranium is mined, milled, processed and in the environs surrounding nuclear power plants. A German study found an increased incidence of childhood cancer and leukemias in communities with nuclear reactors. A recent study by Russian scientists published by the New York Academy of Medicine found nearly one million people died from the 1986 Chernobyl accident,  contrary to corrupted reports from the World Health Organization which has a collusive agreement with the nuclear-industry dominated International Atomic Energy Agency to submit its health findings on radiation issues to the IAEA before they can be made public. The two agencies habitually underreport the true extent of the carnage caused by this lethal technology.


    Moreover, while the Non-Proliferation Treaty guarantees every member the right to the “peaceful” use of nuclear technology, the US and its allies are picking which countries can exercise that right—it’s OK for Japan, but not for Iran. In the past few years, there has been an explosion of planned  nuclear power plants in many new countries, including Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Syria, Turkey, Indonesia, Vienam Algeria, Burma, and others who want to get in under the wire before the nuclear “haves” preclude them from freely accessing the whole panoply of technology for the nuclear fuel cycle.  Indeed the US just made a deal with the United Arab Emirates that they would not enrich uranium in return for US technical assistance on civilian nuclear power, but Jordan is balking at making the same agreement. This is a recipe for chaos. The top of the mountain beckons.  It’s time for a moratorium on any further development of nuclear weapons or nuclear power. The sun, wind, tides, and geothermal heat can readily supply humanity with all its energy needs. In the words of the visionary thinker and architect, Buckminster Fuller:


    We may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire’s level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet’s daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million safe miles away from us.


    Building on the burgeoning support for a nuclear weapons convention, civil society, together with parliamentarians and Mayors are exploring possibilities for various governments to put together a like-minded group of governments to  begin an “Ottawa” or “Oslo” process, the way the world was able to ban landmines and cluster bombs. Blocked by consensus rules at the UN, the governments of Canada in the case of landmines, and Norway in the case of cluster bombs, joined in partnership with civil society and like-minded governments to negotiate those landmark treaties. Eventually many of the hold-out countries signed on.


    Who will take the lead for organizing the talks for a nuclear weapons convention? Over one hundred nations spoke in favor of the nuclear weapons convention at the NPT. And there are three nuclear weapons powers, China, India, and Pakistan on the record in support of those negotiations in a UN Resolution. Perhaps in the 21st century, it is time for Asia to take the lead. If a country like Norway, or Switzerland or Austria, which have spoken in favor of negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention, were to host such a conference, having the three Asian powers in attendance would send a powerful signal to the world that the time has come to ban the bomb. Certainly India, with the Rajiv Gandhi plan has already given much thought to this critical dilemma.  


    Even if the other nuclear weapons states were to sit out the negotiations, eventually world opinion would catch up with them and they would have to join in. In the meantime, the steps for moving forward, for dismantlement, verification, monitoring, inspection, handling of nuclear materials, insurance against breakout, additional research, and administration of the treaty could be discussed and debated. Much of this has already been proposed in the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, which can be reviewed, together with commentary on its various provisions, at http://www.icanw.org/securing-our-survival  NOW IS THE TIME FOR ACTION!


    After 65 years it’s time to retire the bomb.

  • Report on the Morning NGO Abolition Caucus: Insomniacs for Peace

    The NGO Abolition Morning Caucus met every day during the four week Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference starting on Tuesday, May 4th straight through to the last day of the UN meeting on May 28th. We gathered each day at 8:00 AM at the UN gates on First Avenue, waiting for the guards to unlock the chains on the UN fence and then proceeded through “security” to the temporary building on the North Lawn where a conference room had been reserved for the use of NGOs. Conference Room A was almost always in use, hosting the Abolition Caucus, the daily NGO government briefings organized by Reaching Critical Will, the plethora of NGO panels, films, testimony from Hibakusha, brainstorming and strategy sessions through the course of the Review. 

    Our Abolition Caucus began each morning by reviewing the day’s calendar, proposing a new agenda for each day, and then brainstorming to plan various actions during the course of the Conference. At the end of each meeting a new facilitator would volunteer to Chair the meeting for the following day, and volunteers sent out daily minutes of our work. In the first week, as many as 60 nuclear activists showed up at our morning meetings, hailing from every continent and united in our commitment to rid the world of the nuclear scourge. 

    We were encouraged by the many nations who called for negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention and all signed on to about 30 thank you notes that were presented to their Ambassadors at the Review conference.  The Ambassador from Switzerland was so moved by our message that he asked us to send another one to his Foreign Minister. We sent two letters from the caucus to Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon. One expressed our thanks and appreciation for his enthusiastic support of negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention and his Five Point Plan.The other was to express our dismay and urge mediation instead of the rude treatment we witnessed of Iran’s President, by the western powers who walked out on him during his speech on the first day of the Conference.

    We drafted statements in response to the Main Committee I and III reports, issued our own nuclear abolitionists preamble to the report, did a satirical take on the conference in The Scallion, a riff on The Onion, a US publication that writes spoofs of current events, and issued a final statement and critique of the weakened outcome document at the Conference. Usually our documents were inserted in the News in Review issued each day by Reaching Critical Will for distribution to the delegates.  The Abolition Caucus documents are on the web at http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/2010index.html under “Other Resources”.  We also networked with the Commission on Sustainable Development which was meeting concurrently with the NPT and addressing the catastrophic results of mining.  They held a heart-wrenching presentation on the havoc of uranium mining.   Our caucus was able to enroll the French government, represented at one of the morning briefings, to permit us to show the promo for a film on the evils of uranium mining at the closing of a French presentation on the benefits of “peaceful” nuclear power.

    At the close of the meeting we presented the delegates with fortune cookies, which when opened, said “Global Zero Now”. Most important, we now have a list of over 100 international participants who can continue the warm relationships and camaraderie that developed over the four weeks, newly energized and inspired by each other as we work together for a nuclear free world. Onward to June 5th and International Nuclear Abolition Day!!  See www.icanw.org.

  • The 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference

    The principal message from the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, which concluded on May 28, 2010, is that the nuclear weapon states are still on a Snail Plan for eliminating their nuclear arsenals – moving slowly and not recognizing the vulnerability of their thin shells.  If a sense of urgency is to be instilled in the nuclear disarmament process, the people will need to press their leaders from below. 

    At five-year intervals, the parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty meet for a Review Conference.  In 1995, on the 25th anniversary of the treaty, the parties extended the treaty indefinitely, with promises from the nuclear weapon states that they would pursue “systematic and progressive efforts” for nuclear disarmament.  Five years later, in 2000, the parties to the treaty agreed upon 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament.  These included an “unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament….” 

    Five years later, however, the parties were deadlocked, could not agree on a Final Document, and the 2005 NPT Review Conference ended in failure.  Since that time, the US has elected a new president, one who has expressed a vision of seeking “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”  President Obama’s vision brought hope to the non-nuclear weapon states that are parties to the treaty that the 2010 Review Conference would produce a positive outcome. 

    The treaty is often referred to as having three significant pillars: nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear disarmament, and assistance with peaceful nuclear energy.  The principal tension among the parties to the treaty is over whether the nuclear weapon states have made sufficient progress toward their nuclear disarmament obligations.

    The initial draft Report of Main Committee I (on nuclear disarmament), which was released on May 14, contained some very promising text.  It called for “the need to implement Article VI [requiring nuclear disarmament] within a timebound framework.”  It has long been a goal of the non-nuclear weapon states to achieve a timebound commitment to nuclear disarmament from the nuclear weapon states.  Further, the draft called for the nuclear weapon states to “convene consultations not later than 2011 to accelerate concrete progress on nuclear disarmament….”

    In addition, this draft contained a provision inviting the Secretary-General of the United Nations “to convene an international conference in 2014 to consider ways and means to agree on a roadmap for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons within a specified timeframe, including by means of a universal, legal instrument.” 

    These provisions raised hopes among representatives of non-nuclear weapon states and civil society organizations that real progress on nuclear disarmament would come from the NPT Review Conference.  Unfortunately, this was not to be.  The Final Document of the Review Conference requires consensus from all parties, and consensus agreements tend to result in a watering down of key provisions.  Many of the key disarmament provisions were diluted by the US, UK, France and Russia. 

    Instead of a commitment to nuclear disarmament within a timebound framework, the Final Document simply affirmed that “the final phase of the nuclear disarmament process should be pursued within an agreed legal framework, which a majority of States parties believe should include specified timelines.”  [Emphasis added.]  In fact, the belief of the majority of states was clearly overridden by the nuclear weapon states, which did not want to be bound by timelines. 

    Many of the main nuclear disarmament points in the Final Document involved no more than the conference taking note of something, without commitment.  For example, “The Conference notes the proposals for nuclear disarmament of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to inter alia consider negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention or agreement on a framework of separate mutually reinforcing instruments, backed by a strong system of verification.”  This strong proposal by the UN Secretary-General would seem worthy of strong support rather than simply taking note. 

    Instead of committing to convene an international conference for nuclear disarmament in 2014, the Final Document called upon the nuclear weapon states only to report back on their progress in achieving a series of steps in 2014.  It further called upon the 2015 NPT Review Conference “to take stock and consider the next steps of the full implementation” of the Article VI disarmament obligation. 

    The Final Document of the Review Conference gave strong affirmation to the spread of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.  While this is in accord with the treaty provisions referring to nuclear energy as an “inalienable right,” it would increase the possibilities of nuclear materials being used for weapons – as was the case with Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa – and would thus complicate the likelihood of actually achieving nuclear disarmament. 

    One very positive outcome of the Review Conference was its endorsement of practical steps to achieve a Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone.  The Final Document called upon the UN Secretary-General, along with others, to convene a regional conference in 2012 for the establishment of a “Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction.”

    The 2010 NPT Review Conference resulted in a reaffirmation by the nuclear weapon states of their “unequivocal undertaking to accomplish…the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.”  In the end, the Final Document was largely aspirational.  It brought the parties back to where they stood in the year 2000, but provided few specific guidelines for success to measure progress in 2015.  One such measure, albeit a difficult one, will be progress toward the attainment of a Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone.

    Most of the people of the world view the need to eliminate nuclear weapons, weapons capable of destroying civilization and ending most complex life on Earth, as urgent.  Clearly, though, that sense of urgency has not reached the upper levels of political authority in the nuclear weapon states.  The people throughout the world, and particularly those in the nuclear weapon states, will have to continue speaking out ever more forcibly in an attempt to move their governments to serious action.

  • NAPF Report on the 2010 NPT Review Conference and Related Events

    The 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference comes at a key time for the future of nuclear disarmament. The 2005 NPT Review Conference ended in failure. The nuclear weapon states have yet to fulfill their Article VI obligations to negotiate in “good faith” for complete nuclear disarmament in the 40 years since the NPT entered into force in 1970.

    Despite these failures, there are signs of hope. The New START agreement recently signed by the US and Russia represents the beginning of a new era of bilateral cooperation. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly stated his uncompromising dedication to achieving the abolition of nuclear weapons. Most important, support for a world without nuclear weapons is gaining momentum among the people of the world, as represented by polling data and by the 1,700 NGO delegates attending NPT proceedings at the United Nations this year.

    David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and Rick Wayman, NAPF Director of Programs, traveled to New York to take part in many events around the 2010 NPT Review Conference.

    Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Conference

    On Friday, April 30, Rick Wayman attended the Second Conference of States Parties and Signatories to Treaties that Establish Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones and Mongolia. He attended as a NGO observer at the invitation of the Chilean UN Mission.

    Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZs) cover all of Antarctica, Latin America, the South Pacific, Africa, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Mongolia. A consistent theme throughout the conference was support for a Middle East NWFZ, which many believe will provide a needed measure of security in a volatile and dangerous region of the world.

    Speakers, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Sergio Duarte and Mayor of Hiroshima Tadatoshi Akiba affirmed their strong support for the continued expansion of NWFZs around the world as a welcome step toward the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

    International Conference for Peace and Disarmament

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, together with many organizations around the world, co-organized a weekend conference at historic Riverside Church in New York City. Over 1,000 people from 25 countries participated in workshops and plenary sessions designed to educate, inspire and build lasting partnerships among people dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    David krieger and randy rydell

    The Foundation organized a workshop on May 1 together with the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy entitled Debunking Nuclear Deterrence. The workshop, moderated by Acronym’s Executive Director Rebecca Johnson, featured NAPF President David Krieger; Randy Rydell, Senior Political Affairs Officer at the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs; and retired British Navy Commander Robert Green.

    David Krieger argued that nuclear deterrence is a theory that cannot be proven. The assumptions on which nuclear deterrence are based, such as leaders acting rationally at all times, are themselves irrational and dangerous. Randy Rydell encouraged members of the audience to examine the logic and rationality of nuclear deterrence proponents and the motivations they have for using this flawed concept. Commander Robert Green discussed the indoctrination that he experienced as a nuclear weapons commander in the British Navy. He called nuclear deterrence “state-sponsored nuclear terrorism,” “unlawful,” and detrimental to national and global security.

    UN secretary-general ban ki-moon speaks at riverside church

    In the afternoon, there was an emotional workshop featuring the testimony of survivors of nuclear weapon explosions. Junko Kayashige, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing who visited the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in 2008, recounted her experience of the atomic bombing and the great losses she suffered on August 6, 1945 and in subsequent years. Matashichi Oishi told the audience of over 300 people about his experience on a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean on March 1, 1954. His boat was in the vicinity when the United States conducted its massive Bravo nuclear test. Fourteen of the 20 crew members on the boat died from radiation-related conditions. Abbacca Anjain Madison of the Marshall Islands told of the devastation brought to the islands by the hundreds of nuclear weapon tests the United States conducted in the area. Countless Marshallese have lost their livelihoods, land and lives at the hands of these nuclear tests. Claudia Peterson, a resident of southern Utah, told a heart wrenching story about the effects US nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site have had on her family. Parents, siblings and even her children have died due to the radiation that came from hundreds of nuclear tests in Nevada. To conclude her tearful speech, she said, “My story never changes; I just add more loved ones to it each time I tell it.”

    Other workshops at the conference included “Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East,” “Youth Lobbying and Messaging,” “The Nuclear Cycle: The Negative Effects from Mining to Militarism,” “Modernization of the Nuclear Weapons Complex” and “Disarmament, Climate Change and Justice.”

    The evening plenary session featured a keynote address by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The Secretary-General opened his speech by thanking the grassroots activists and NGO representatives in the audience for their strong commitment and leadership for nuclear disarmament. Mr. Ban reminded the audience that “from my first day in office as Secretary-General, I made clear that nuclear disarmament is my top priority.” He lamented that “the world is over-armed and peace is under-funded.” The Secretary-General concluded his speech with words of encouragement for those in attendance. He said, “What I see on the horizon is a world free of nuclear weapons. What I see before me are the people who will help make it happen…We will rid the world of nuclear weapons. And when we do, it will be because of people like you. The world owes you its gratitude.” He was speaking to all of us committed to this goal.

    March and Rally for Nuclear Abolition

    David krieger and rick wayman distributed briefing booklets to hundreds of participants in the peace festival

    On Sunday, May 2, over 15,000 people gathered in New York’s Times Square for a rally calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. They then marched to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, across the street from the United Nations, for a peace festival.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation distributed hundreds of briefing booklets and DVDs and talked to many Foundation members who made the trip to New York for this inspiring event.

    Panel Discussion Inside the United Nations

    On Monday, May 3, the Foundation organized a panel discussion entitled From Omnicide to Abolition: Shifting the Mindset. The panel, which took place on the first day of the 2010 NPT Review Conference, was designed to set a progressive and positive tone for the four-week conference. It stressed the omnicidal dangers of nuclear weapons as a motivating force to achieve progress toward a Nuclear Weapons Convention, a new treaty for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.

    The event started out with a screening of the short video The Nuclear Family by Angela How. The video was the winner of the Foundation’s 2010 Swackhamer Disarmament Video Contest. All of the winning videos from the 2010 contest can be viewed here. 

    Speakers on the Foundation’s panel included NAPF President David Krieger, NAPF Associate Steven Starr, NAPF Associate Alice Slater, NAPF Associate Commander Robert Green and Kate Dewes. A report on the panel can be found here.

    Rick wayman listens as david krieger makes a presentation to the panel inside the united nations

    Action Inside the NPT Review Conference

    At the same time as our panel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke to the plenary session. Among the proposals he made are:

    • Evolve the NPT to the “DNPT” – the Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Treaty;
    • Establish an independent group to oversee the disarmament process outlined in Article VI of the NPT;
    • Introduce legally-binding comprehensive security guarantees to non-nuclear weapon states;
    • Terminate all research and production of nuclear weapons worldwide;
    • Explicitly outlaw the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons; and
    • Implement the Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone as agreed at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference.

    Ahmadinejad was also critical of the United States and Israel during his speech, which resulted in many delegates walking out on his talk. The full text of his speech is available here.

    On the afternoon of the first day of the Review Conference, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke. She was strong on non-proliferation initiatives such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, and promised further bilateral reductions with Russia. Clinton indicated that the US would seek to ratify the nuclear weapon-free zones in Africa and the South Pacific and was now ready to consult with other parties on the nuclear weapon-free zones in Central Asia and Southeast Asia. For the first time, the US revealed that the exact number of nuclear weapons in its deployed and reserve arsenal is 5,113 (plus “several thousand” more awaiting dismantlement). The full text of Secretary Clinton’s speech is available here. The document outlining the number of US nuclear weapons is available here.

    The US delegation interacted much more with NGOs this year than in years past. They gave a major briefing on May 5 with Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher and other senior administration officials and answered questions after the briefing. David Krieger asked three questions:

    1. How much plutonium and highly enriched uranium exists in the world, and how much remains “loose” after the accomplishments you described?
    2. You describe the need for the US nuclear arsenal to be “safe, secure and effective.” I can understand the terms “safe” and “secure,” but what do you mean by the term “effective?”
    3. Would you consider conducting an Environmental Impact Statement on the use of nuclear weapons to increase awareness among Americans of the potential damage that would be caused in order to increase support for the president’s goal of zero nuclear weapons?

    Their answers were as follows, with Thomas D’Agostino responding to the first two questions and Assistant Secretary of State Tauscher responding to the third:

    1. There is more nuclear material out there. That is why we need the rest of the world to join us in securing it.
    2. “Effective” means that the weapon will work as designed.
    3. We have no intention of doing this.

    UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made himself available to various NGO events and was very strong in his commitment to nuclear disarmament. Mr. Ban spoke at events by Mayors for Peace, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization and hibakusha (survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings). As mentioned earlier, he also delivered the keynote address at the conference that the Foundation co-sponsored on May 1.

    The Foundation’s NPT briefing booklet was distributed to all UN country missions one month before the start of the Review Conference. We also distributed copies of the briefing booklet to delegates during events and plenary meetings inside the UN during the Review Conference.

    Greenwich Forum on War & Peace

    David krieger speaks to the greenwich forum

    On Wednesday, May 5, David and Rick traveled to Greenwich, CT at the invitation of the Greenwich Forum on War & Peace. To begin the evening, David and Rick met at an informal dinner with Board members of the Greenwich Forum to get to know one another and talk about issues of mutual interest. After the dinner, approximately 45 people at the Greenwich Library came to hear a lecture by David entitled Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament: Changing Our Modes of Thinking.

    The lecture was followed by a lively question and answer session, which focused in part on perspectives on the decision to drop atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. David challenged the conventional way the atomic bombings are taught in American schools; he said that typically Americans are taught to think of the bombs from above – that is, as a technological innovation that resulted in ending World War II in the Pacific. The Japanese, on the other hand, view the bombings from below – that is, the massive death and severe physical, psychological and environmental effects wrought upon those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the US atomic bombings in August 1945. David also encouraged greater US leadership to achieve a world without nuclear weapons.

    Nearly everyone in attendance picked up copies of Foundation materials, including the NPT briefing booklet, the 2009 annual report and the DVD.

    Other Notable Events

    A key outcome of the trip to New York for the Foundation was strengthening the ties we have with other NGOs. We strengthened our existing ties with groups such as the Middle Powers Initiative, Mayors for Peace, Abolition 2000, INES, INESAP, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and the World Future Council. We created stronger ties with many key NGOs including Peace Action, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament and the Disarmament & Security Centre.

    David krieger moderates a panel on us nuclear weapons in europe

    On May 5, David served as moderator on a panel organized by INES on nuclear weapons in Europe. Panelists included Dave Webb (UK), Peter Becker (Germany) and Yves-Jean Gallas (France).

    On May 6, David and Rick had lunch with Foundation representatives Vernon Nichols and Masako London. The lunch was sponsored by Foundation supporters and UN representatives Frank and Nancy Colton, who were unable to attend due to health reasons.

    On May 6, David participated in a meeting of the International Steering Committee of the Middle Powers Initiative. Rick represented the Foundation at the Abolition 2000 Global Council dinner and the Abolition 2000 Annual General Meeting.

    During the conference, David did a television interview with NPT-TV, which can be viewed here and here.

    The Foundation strengthened its ties with Commander Robert Green, a retired member of the British Royal Navy who was in charge of nuclear weapons. Green was a panelist at the Foundation’s workshop during the May 1 conference and again at the Foundation’s panel discussion at the UN on May 3. His new book, Security Without Nuclear Deterrence, was released during the first week of the Review Conference. Commander Green accepted the invitation to become an Associate of the Foundation.

    Foundation Associates Jonathan Granoff, Alice Slater and Steven Starr were also active participants in panels and other activities at the 2010 Review Conference.

    Conclusion

    The NPT Review Conference will continue through May 28. There is no strong sense yet of the outcome, but there is a general sense of hopefulness that the outcome will be more positive than the failed 2005 Review Conference, and that perhaps countries will return to the 13 practical steps for nuclear disarmament agreed to at the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

    During the first week of the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty
    (NPT) Review Conference there was a much more positive tone than in previous
    such conferences. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon participated in
    many civil society events during the conference, continuing to shine a light on
    the need for a concrete plan for nuclear disarmament. The United States was
    also more forthcoming with information on its nuclear arsenal, specifically in
    releasing details of the size of its nuclear arsenal (5,113 nuclear weapons
    deployed and in reserve plus several thousand awaiting dismantlement).

    The draft of the final document, to be released at the
    conclusion of the conference on May 28, contains some highly promising
    provisions. The draft document states, “The nuclear-weapon states shall convene
    consultations not later than 2011 to accelerate concrete progress on nuclear
    disarmament in a way that promotes international stability and is based on the
    principle of undiminished security for all.”

    The draft document continues, “Based on the outcome of these
    consultations, the Secretary-General of the United Nations is invited to
    convene an international conference in 2014 to consider ways and means to agree
    on a roadmap for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons within a specified
    timeframe, including by means of a universal legal instrument.”

    If these provisions make it into the final document of the
    NPT conference, they could pave the way for a new treaty, a Nuclear Weapons
    Convention, for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent
    elimination of nuclear weapons – one of the goals long sought by the Nuclear
    Age Peace Foundation and other civil society organizations.

  • Review of From Omnicide to Abolition: Shifting the Mindset

    This article was originally published in Reaching Critical Will’s News In Review.

    Organized by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) and moderated by Rick Wayman, the panel consisted of five speakers who discussed the goal of shifting paradigms on nuclear weaponry and energy.

    David Krieger, NAPF President, defined “omnicide,” as the ability to destroy humanity and other complex life forms, calling it the most compelling reason to abolish nuclear weapons. He argued that because of the possibility for total destruction, nuclear weapons are not useful for war, only for political uses such as dominance and prestige.

    Mr. Krieger and fellow panelist Steven Starr both challenged nuclear deterrence in their statements. Mr. Starr pointed out that deterrence involves the assumption that leaders are rational, and Mr. Krieger added that omnicide was an incredibly high risk to take when tested against that assumption. Mr. Krieger also pointed out that there have been numerous near misses at nuclear war. Mr. Starr noted that deterrence has to work perfectly to justify nuclear weapons, and that it has to fail only once to cause a worldwide catastrophe.

    Mr. Starr and Alice Slater also discussed the environmental effects of nuclear technology. Mr. Starr concentrated upon the effects of usage of nuclear weapons, noting that a scientific modeling of a possible nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan using only low-yield weapons found that atmospheric pollution would block sunlight, lowering temperatures in North America by 2.5-4 degrees Celsius; this would limit crop viability in Canada and the United States. Mr. Starr argued that even the low-yield weapons used would cause the starvation of nearly one billion people.

    In addition to the 32 states with plutonium and highly-enriched uranium, states with nuclear power programs are also able to develop weapons in months without significant technological adaptation.

    Ms. Slater quoted former CIA Director George Tenet, who noted that the difference between a power program and a weapons program is “time and intent, not technology.” Ms. Slater, who argued against nuclear energy altogether, noted that renewable energy sources were sufficient to power the planet without usage of nuclear, coal or oil-based power. She noted that while there was an “inalienable right” to nuclear power in Article IV of the NPT, it could be overruled in future agreements as renewable power arrangements such as the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) replaced nuclear power.

    Panelist Rob Green, who served as a commander in the British Navy before authoring Security Without Nuclear Deterrence, focused on the ‘indoctrination’ of military personnel and diplomats into the fallacy of nuclear deterrence. Green turned away from military leaders as a pilot in the 1960s, when he carried nuclear weapons until he realized that he would “destroy myself if I dropped it […] I was ordered to become a suicide bomber.”

    Multiple panelists noted the risk to democracy that nuclear weapons pose. Mr. Green warned that deference to leaders was a major obstacle to challenging the status quo and achieving total nuclear disarmament. Ms. Slater noted that the military and conservative allies in parliaments have provided universal “push-back” to disarmament, which limits debate and democratic decision-making.

    The final panelist, Kate Dewes, focused on current initiatives. Ms. Dewes, the Co-Director of the Disarmament and Security Centre, highlighted the Secretary-General’s 5-Point Plan on elimination of nuclear weapons and called upon civil society to continue pressuring the UN to proceed on the plan, which includes negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) and creation of Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones. Joining Ms. Dewes in calling for negotiations to create a NWC, Mr. Starr also recommended that nuclear weapon states conduct health and environmental assessments. Mr. Green called for openness in discussion of nuclear weapons as a way of continuing this discussion. All five of the panelists highlighted the present NPT Review Conference as one of many places to continue the discussion, including delegates of governments, civil society and peace activists in the process.

  • Shifting the Paradigm: Time to Replace Article IV of the Non-Proliferation Treaty

    Shifting the Paradigm: Time to Replace Article IV of the Non-Proliferation Treaty with Universal Membership in the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)

    These are the remarks prepared by Alice Slater for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s panel discussion at the United Nations on May 3, 2010.

    While the world applauds the growing recognition that the abolition of nuclear weapons seems to be an idea whose time has finally  come—from the calls by rusty cold warriors and former statesmen and generals to eliminate nuclear weapons—to the recent modest START negotiated by President Obama and Medvedev to cut nuclear arsenals under new verifications procedures, there are appalling countervailing forces, born from the old 20th century paradigm of war and terror, that undercut the growing positive pressures to end the nuclear scourge.   In addition to the pushback from the military and the Republican party in the US Congress to hold the START agreement hostage to billions of new dollars for the weapons labs to build new plutonium cores for the atom bombs, continue sub-critical explosions of plutonium and chemicals at the Nevada test site,  and erect new buildings in the weapons complex, as well as continued expansion of destabilizing missile “defenses” and space warfare programs, there is a growing global proliferation of so-called “peaceful” nuclear reactors, metastasizing around the planet and spreading their lethal technology as incipient bomb factories.  

    Ironically as new calls come from the nuclear sophisticated “haves” to control the nuclear fuel cycle, there has been an explosion of interest from nations that never sought “peaceful” nuclear power before to achieve the technical know-how that will allow them to play in the nuclear club with the big boys.   Thus we see  countries like El Salvador, Ghana, Burma and Indonesia  declaring their intention to build nuclear power plants as well as hearing expressions of interest from Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman Qatar, Saudi Arabia Sudan Syria Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen!   

    Fueled by commercial interests, the western patriarchal network of industrialized nations is now vigorously promoting a “nuclear renaissance” of civilian power. There has been an explosion of interests in licensing new uranium mines around the world, in Africa, Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, India, the United States—even at the very the rim of the sacred land surrounding the awesome Grand Canyon, despite the known tragic consequences of mining on the health of indigenous peoples who bear the brunt of the toxic activity with higher birth defects, cancer, leukemia and mutations in every community where uranium is mined.  

    The nuclear crisis we face today is a direct result of the export of peaceful nuclear technology to countries such as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Indeed, every nuclear reactor enables a country to develop its own nuclear weapons, as we have seen in the case of India, Pakistan, and Israel, who never joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty and now North Korea, which exploited the fruits of “peaceful” technology and then quit to develop its own deterrent against US bullying. Under the guise of “peace”, other countries, such as South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, and Libya were also well on their way to developing nuclear bombs, which they later abandoned. Former IAEA Director, Mohammed ElBaradei stated “We just cannot continue business as usual that every country can build its own factories for separating plutonium or enriching uranium. Then we are really talking about 30, 40 countries sitting on the fence with a nuclear weapons capability that could be converted into a nuclear weapon in a matter of months.”

    The signers of the CTB were well aware that by having a nuclear reactor, a nation had been given the keys to a bomb factory and would need to be included in any effort to ban nuclear tests, regardless of whether they proclaimed any intention to develop weapons. And former US CIA Director, George Tenet, said, “The difference between producing low-enriched uranium and weapons-capable high-enriched uranium is only a matter of time and intent, not technology.”

    There are nearly 200 million kilograms of reactor wastes in the world—with only 5 kilograms needed to make one nuclear bomb. The US is planning to build 50 more reactors by 2020; China plans 30; with 31 more now under construction–to churn out more toxic poisons; on tap for bomb-making, with no known solution to safely containing the tons of nuclear waste that will be generated over the unimaginable 250,000 years it will continue to threaten life on earth. Countless studies report higher incidences of birth defects, cancer, and genetic mutations in every situation where nuclear technology is employed—whether for war or for “peace.” A National Research Council 2005 study reported that exposure to X-rays and gamma rays, even at low-dose levels, can cause cancer. The committee defined “low-dose” as a range from near zero up to about… 10 times that from a CT scan. “There appears to be no threshold below which exposure can be viewed as harmless,” said one NRC panelist.  Tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste accumulate at civilian reactors with no solution for its storage, releasing toxic doses of radioactive waste into our air, water and soil and contaminating our planet and its inhabitants for hundreds of thousands of years.

    A recent study released by the New York Academy of Sciences, authored by noted Russian scientists concludes that based on records now available, some 985,000 people died of cancer caused between 1986 by the Chernobyl accident through 2004. The industry-dominated IAEA, has been instrumental in covering up the disastrous health effects of the Chernobyl tragedy, understating the number of deaths by attributing only 50 deaths directly to the accident.  This cover-up was no doubt due to the collusive agreement between the IAEA and the World Health Organization, which under its terms provides that if either of the organizations initiates any program or activity in which the other has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult with the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement. Thus our scientists and researchers at the WHO are required to have their work vetted by the industry’s champion for “peaceful” nuclear technology, the IAEA.

    The industrialized nations have the hubris to think they can manage a whole new regime of nuclear apartheid, despite their recent and most welcome acknowledgement by their leadership of the breakdown of the nuclear weapons arms control regime.  They’re planning a top-down, hierarchical, central control of the nuclear fuel cycle, in a mad plan to reprocess the irradiated fuel rods in the “nuclear have” countries, such as the US, Russia, China, UK, France, Japan and India, who are to be members of a new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.  The Partnership will ship toxic bomb-ready materials to the four corners of the world and back, in a nightmare scenario of plutonium in constant transit, subject to terrorist theft and negligent accidents on land and on sea, while creating a whole new class of nuclear “have nots” who can’t be trusted not to turn their “peaceful” nuclear reactors into bomb factories.  It’s just so 20th century!  Time for a paradigm shift to safe, sustainable energy.

    Every 30 minutes, enough of the sun’s energy reaches the earth’s surface to meet global energy demand for an entire year.  Wind can satisfy the world’s electricity needs 40 times over, and meet all global energy demands five times over.  The geothermal energy stored in the top six miles of the earth’s crust contains 50,000 times the energy of the world’s known oil and gas resources. Tidal, wave and small hydropower, can also provide vast stores of energy everywhere on earth, abundant and free for every person on our planet, rich and poor alike.    We can store hydrogen fuel in cells, made from safe, clean energy sources, to be used when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.  When hydrogen fuel is burned, it produces water vapor, pure enough to drink, with no contamination added to the planet.  Iceland plans to be completely sustainable by 2050, using hydrogen in its vehicles, trains, busses and ships, made from geothermal and marine energy.

    Last year the governments of Germany, Spain and Denmark launched the International Renewal Energy Agency, IRENA, which would empower developing countries with the ability to access the free energy of the sun, wind, marine, and geothermal sources, would train, educate, and disseminate information about implementing sustainable energy programs, organize and enable the transfer of science and know-how of renewable energy technologies, and generally be responsible for helping the world make the critical transition to a sustainable energy future. IRENE is the Greek word for peace, so this new initiative is especially well named.

    While the NPT purports to guarantee to States who agree to abide by its terms an inalienable right to so-called peaceful nuclear technology, it is highly questionable whether such a right can ever be appropriately conferred on a State.  Inalienable rights are generally distinguished from legal rights established by a State because they are moral or natural rights, inherent in the very essence of an individual. The notion of inalienable rights appeared in Islamic law and jurisprudence which denied a ruler “the right to take away from his subjects certain rights which inhere in his or her person as a human being” and “become Rights by reason of the fact that they are given to a subject by a law and from a source which no ruler can question or alter”.   John Locke, the great Enlightenment thinker was thought to be influenced in his concept of inalienable rights by his attendance at lectures on Arabic studies.

    During the Age of Enlightenment natural law theory challenged the divine right of kings.  The US Declaration of Independence spoke of “self-evident truth” that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights …life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  Where does “peaceful nuclear technology” fit in this picture?  Just as the Comprehensive Test Ban cancelled the right to peaceful nuclear explosions in Article V of the NPT, a protocol to the NPT mandating participation in IRENA would supercede the Article IV right to “peaceful” nuclear technology.  There are now 143 nations participating in IRENA.  www.irena.org  We urge you to insure that your nation joins as well.

  • Statement by Iranian President to the NPT Review Conference

    2010_05_03_iran_npt.pdf

  • Statement by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the NPT Review Conference

    2010_05_03_clinton_npt.pdf

  • Speech to the International Conference for Peace and Disarmament

    This is the transcript of a speech delivered by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the peace and disarmament conference co-organized by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and many other organizations around the world on May 1, 2010 at Riverside Church in New York City.

    Ladies and gentlemen,

    Reading the list of organizations and individuals with us this evening, I want to say what an honour it is to be here. I know of your hard work and dedication. I know how much you have sacrificed in standing for your principles and beliefs. I know how much courage it takes to speak out, to protest, to carry the banner of this most noble human aspiration … world peace. And so, most of all, I am here tonight to thank you.

    Let me begin by saying how humbling it is to speak to you in this famous place, Riverside Church. It was here that Martin Luther King Junior spoke against the war in Vietnam. Nelson Mandela spoke here on his first visit to the United States after being freed from prison. Standing with you, looking out, I can see what they saw: a sea of committed women and men, who come from all corners to move the world. It reminds us that of what matters most in life… is not so much the message from the bully pulpit, but rather the movement from the pews. From people like you. And so I say: keep it up.

    Our shared vision is within reach … a nuclear-free world. On the eve of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference … beginning on Monday … we know the world is watching. Let it heed our call: Disarm Now!

    Ladies and gentlemen,

    From my first day in office, I have made nuclear disarmament a top priority. Perhaps, in part, this deep personal commitment comes from my experience as a boy in Korea, growing up after the war. My school was rubble. There were no walls. We studied in the open air.

    The United Nations rebuilt my country. I was lucky enough to receive a good education. But more than that, I learned about peace, solidarity and, above all, the power of community action. These values are not abstract principles to me. I owe my life to them. I try to embody them in all my work.

    Just a few weeks ago, I travelled to Ground Zero — the former test site at Semipalatinsk, in Kazakhstan, where the Soviet Union detonated more than 450 nuclear explosions. It was strangely beautiful. The great green steppe reached as far as the eye could see. But of course, the eye does not immediately see the scope of the devastation. Vast areas where people still cannot go. Poisoned lakes and rivers. High rates of cancer and birth defects.

    After independence, in 1991, Kazakhstan closed the site and banished nuclear weapons from its territory. Today, Semipalatinsk is a powerful symbol of hope … it is a new Ground Zero for disarmament, the birth-place of the Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone.

    In August, I will travel to another Ground Zero — Mayor Akiba’s proud city of Hiroshima. There, I will repeat our call for a nuclear free-world. The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – and especially the hibakusha – know too well the horror of nuclear war. It must never be repeated!

    Yet 65 years later, the world still lives under a nuclear shadow. How long must we wait to rid ourselves of this threat? How long will we keep passing the problem to succeeding generations?

    We here tonight know that it is time to end this senseless cycle. We know that nuclear disarmament is not a distant, unattainable dream. It is an urgent necessity, here and now. We are determined to achieve it. We have come close in the past.

    Twenty-four years ago, in Reykjavik, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev came within a hair’s breath of agreeing to eliminate nuclear weapons. It was a dramatic reminder of how far we can go — as long as we have the vision and the will.

    Today’s generation of nuclear negotiators must take a lesson from Reykjavik: Be bold. Think big … for it yields big results.

    And that is why, again, we need people like you. People who understand that the world is over-armed and that peace is under-funded. People who understand that the time for change is now.

    Ladies and gentlemen,

    The NPT entered into force 40 years ago. Ever since, it has been the foundation of the non-proliferation regime and our efforts for nuclear disarmament. To quote you, Mr. Gerson: It is one of the seminal agreements of the 20th century. Let’s not forget. In 1963, experts predicted that there could be as many as 25 nuclear powers by the end of the last century. It did not happen, in large part because the NPT guided the world in the right direction.

    Today, we have reason for renewed optimism. Global public opinion is swinging our way. Governments are looking at the issue with fresh eyes. Consider just the most recent events:

    • Leading by example, the United States announced a review of its nuclear posture … forswearing the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, so long as they are in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
    • In Prague, President Obama and President Medvedev signed a new START treaty, accompanied by serious cuts in arsenals.
    • In Washington, the leaders of 47 nations united in their efforts to keep nuclear weapons and materials out of the hands of terrorists.
    • And on Monday, we hope to open a new chapter in the life of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    In 2005, when leaders gathered for the last review of the NPT, the outcome did not match expectations. In plainer English, it failed — utterly. We cannot affor d to fail again. After all, there are more than 25,000 nuclear weapons in the world’s arsenals. Nuclear terrorism remains a real and present danger. There has been no progress in establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East. The nuclear programs of Iran and the DPRK are of serious concern to global efforts to curb nuclear proliferation…

    To deal with these and other issues, I have set out my own five-point action plan, and I thank you for your encouraging response. I especially welcome your support for the idea of concluding a Nuclear Weapon Convention. Article VI of the NPT requires the Parties to pursue negotiations on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under international control. These negotiations are long overdue. Next week, I will call on all countries – and most particularly the nuclear-weapon states – to fulfil this obligation. We should not have unrealistic expectations for the conference. But neither can we afford to lower our sights.

    What I see on the horizon is a world free of nuclear weapons. What I see before me are the people who will help make it happen. Please keep up your good work. Sound the alarm, keep up the pressure. Ask your leaders what they are doing – personally – to eliminate the nuclear menace. Above all, continue to be the voice of conscience.

    We will rid the world of nuclear weapons. And when we do, it will be because of people like you. The world owes you its gratitude.

    Thank you.