Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: NPT

  • The Time Is Now

    We hold these truths to be self-evident: No one should live under the threat of nuclear annihilation, and it is our responsibility to ourselves and future generations to end this threat.

    This vision has been at the heart of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s work for 27 years as we have waged peace for a world free of nuclear weapons.

    Now a remarkable window of opportunity has opened. It offers a real chance to make progress toward the goal of eliminating the nuclear threat. To take advantage of this unique, historical moment, I ask you to give the Foundation financial support now to further its mission.

    The time is now. It is unprecedented that world leaders have embraced the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. New international agreements are being negotiated. Public support is vital to ensure the potential is realized. A strong grassroots effort is essential. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is uniquely placed to provide leadership for a new movement based on education and advocacy.

    The time is now.  The Foundation has never been stronger. Our membership has tripled to 31,000. Our new DVD featuring President Obama is proving very popular. Our Action Alert Network has channeled thousands of emails to elected officials in Washington, DC. And our Peace Leadership Program, under the direction of former US Army Captain and West Point graduate, Paul Chappell, is making it easy for volunteers to spread the message of nuclear weapons abolition in their own communities.

    The time is now. With 27 years of experience, wide-ranging expertise and a record of nonpartisan international action, the Foundation has both the capacity and credibility to seize this moment and to lead toward a safer, saner tomorrow for all people. But we need your donation now to leverage this opportunity to protect the world for future generations.

    Ending the nuclear threat remains the most critical issue facing humanity. Your help can and will make a difference. The time is now!

  • Remarks to the United Nations Security Council

    President Obama delivered these remarks to the United Nations Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation on September 24, 2009

    The 6191st meeting of the Security Council is called to order. The provisional agenda for this meeting is before the Council in document S/Agenda/6191, which reads, “Maintenance of international peace and security, nuclear proliferation, and nuclear disarmament.” Unless I hear any objection, I shall consider the agenda adopted. Agenda is adopted.

    I wish to warmly welcome the distinguished heads of state and government, the General — the Secretary General, the Director General of the IAEA, ministers and other distinguished representatives present in the Security Council chamber. Your presence is an affirmation of the importance of the subject matter to be discussed.

    The Security Council summit will now begin its consideration of item two of the agenda. Members of the Council have before them document S/2009/473, which contains the text of a draft resolution prepared in the course of the Council’s prior consultations. I wish to draw Council members’ attention to document S/2009/463 containing a letter dated 16 September 2009 from the United States of America, transmitting a concept paper on the item under consideration. In accordance with the understanding reached earlier among members, the Security Council will take action on the draft resolution before it prior to hearing statements from the Secretary General and Council members. Accordingly, I shall put the draft resolution to the vote now. Will those in favor of the draft resolution contained in document S/2009/473 please raise their hand? The results of the voting is as follows: The draft resolution is received unanimously, 15 votes in favor. The draft resolution has been adopted unanimously as Resolution 1887 of 2009.

    I want to thank again everybody who is in attendance. I wish you all good morning. In the six-plus decades that this Security Council has been in existence, only four other meetings of this nature have been convened. I called for this one so that we may address at the highest level a fundamental threat to the security of all peoples and all nations: the spread and use of nuclear weapons.

    As I said yesterday, this very institution was founded at the dawn of the atomic age, in part because man’s capacity to kill had to be contained. And although we averted a nuclear nightmare during the Cold War, we now face proliferation of a scope and complexity that demands new strategies and new approaches. Just one nuclear weapon exploded in a city — be it New York or Moscow; Tokyo or Beijing; London or Paris — could kill hundreds of thousands of people. And it would badly destabilize our security, our economies, and our very way of life.

    Once more, the United Nations has a pivotal role to play in preventing this crisis. The historic resolution we just adopted enshrines our shared commitment to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. And it brings Security Council agreement on a broad framework for action to reduce nuclear dangers as we work toward that goal. It reflects the agenda I outlined in Prague, and builds on a consensus that all nations have the right to peaceful nuclear energy; that nations with nuclear weapons have the responsibility to move toward disarmament; and those without them have the responsibility to forsake them.

    Today, the Security Council endorsed a global effort to lock down all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. The United States will host a summit next April to advance this goal and help all nations achieve it. This resolution will also help strengthen the institutions and initiatives that combat the smuggling, financing, and theft of proliferation-related materials. It calls on all states to freeze any financial assets that are being used for proliferation. And it calls for stronger safeguards to reduce the likelihood that peaceful nuclear weapons programs can be diverted to a weapons program — that peaceful nuclear programs can be diverted to a weapons program.

    The resolution we passed today will also strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. We have made it clear that the Security Council has both the authority and the responsibility to respond to violations to this treaty. We’ve made it clear that the Security Council has both the authority and responsibility to determine and respond as necessary when violations of this treaty threaten international peace and security.

    That includes full compliance with Security Council resolutions on Iran and North Korea. Let me be clear: This is not about singling out individual nations — it is about standing up for the rights of all nations who do live up to their responsibilities. The world must stand together. And we must demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise, and that treaties will be enforced.

    The next 12 months will be absolutely critical in determining whether this resolution and our overall efforts to stop the spread and use of nuclear weapons are successful. And all nations must do their part to make this work. In America, I have promised that we will pursue a new agreement with Russia to substantially reduce our strategic warheads and launchers. We will move forward with the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and open the door to deeper cuts in our own arsenal. In January, we will call upon countries to begin negotiations on a treaty to end the production of fissile material for weapons. And the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in May will strengthen that agreement.

    Now, we harbor no illusions about the difficulty of bringing about a world without nuclear weapons. We know there are plenty of cynics, and that there will be setbacks to prove their point. But there will also be days like today that push us forward — days that tell a different story. It is the story of a world that understands that no difference or division is worth destroying all that we have built and all that we love. It is a recognition that can bring people of different nationalities and ethnicities and ideologies together. In my own country, it has brought Democrats and Republican leaders together — leaders like George Shultz, Bill Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, who are with us here today. And it was a Republican President, Ronald Reagan, who once articulated the goal we now seek in the starkest of terms. I quote:

    “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And no matter how great the obstacles may seem, we must never stop our efforts to reduce the weapons of war. We must never stop until all — we must never stop at all until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the Earth.”

    That is our task. That can be our destiny. And we will leave this meeting with a renewed determination to achieve this shared goal. Thank you.

    In accordance with the understanding reached among Council members, I wish to remind all speakers to limit their statements to no more than five minutes in order to enable the Council to carry on its work expeditiously. Delegations with lengthy statements are kindly requested to circulate the text in writing and to deliver a condensed version when speaking in the chamber.

    I shall now invite the distinguished Secretary General, His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, to take the floor.

  • North Korea Nuke Test Makes Nuclear Abolition More Important Than Ever

    This article was originally published by YES! Magazine

    North Korea’s nuclear testing heightens and underlines the dangers of a world in which nuclear arms are spreading.

    The news media treats the North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as a story of a bad actor threatening international security, giving it the sort of attention rarely given to calls for constructive action to eliminate the danger of nuclear weapons. In particular, the frayed Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is seldom mentioned, nor the obligation contained in the treaty for the nuclear powers, including the U.S., to eliminate nuclear stockpiles.

    The contrast hits home in Hiroshima, Japan, the first city attacked with an atomic bomb. Just eight days before the North Korean test, the city’s daily newspaper, the Chugoku Shimbun, released an appeal from 17 Nobel Peace Prize laureates for citizens and governments to act for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Outside of Japan, the laureates’ Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration has received almost no media attention.

    When North Korea held its nuclear test, however, Hiroshima immediately became a media stage, and legitimately so: Citizens gathered in an outdoor protest. At the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, a clock tracking the number of days since the world’s last nuclear test, which had been approaching 1,000, went back to one. Reporters sought out aging survivors for their comments. Suzuko Numata, an 85-year-old interviewed by Japan’s Mainichi newspaper from her bed at a home for the elderly, raised the real issue looming behind the North Korean test: a world in which nuclear weapons continue to be seen by some nations as something to be sought rather than as a threat to all humans.

    Just days before the Nobel Prize winners’ declaration, one of the signers, International Atomic Energy Authority head Mohamed ElBaradei, told the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper that existing agreements on nonproliferation are out of date and that he fears big growth in the number of nuclear powers. The story received at best limited attention, despite ElBaradei’s prominence and expertise.

    Then, there are the admirable efforts of some of the most prominent former U.S. national security leaders to generate momentum for a non-nuclear world. The group includes former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn. They did get space on the Wall Street Journal to write about their ideas, twice. Until recently, however, one was more likely to come across any details of their undertaking in a progressive magazine like YES! than in the main news media. But, as Shultz told YES! Magazine’s editor Sarah van Gelder for the summer 2008 edition, his group was engaging with leaders from all of the nuclear powers, including officially unacknowledged possessor Israel.

    Shultz said, “The Nonproliferation Treaty in Article 6 says that those who don’t have nuclear weapons will have access to nuclear power technology and they won’t try to get nuclear weapons, and those who do have nuclear weapons will phase down their importance eventually to zero. People are looking for governments to live up to that treaty.”

    More recently, though, the group received considerable media attention, because they met with President Barack Obama in the White House to endorse the vision for a nuclear-free world he unveiled in Prague earlier this spring. By speaking out, Obama has begun to make nonproliferation a more appealing story to a wider spectrum of the media.

    Certainly, the Nobel Peace Prize groups’s spearhead Mairead Maguire, ElBaradei, the Dalai Lama, Muhammad Yunus, and the rest of their group hope Obama can begin to make a difference. The head of Chugoku Shimbun’s Hiroshima Peace Media Center, Akira Tashiro, wrote the appeal, which was revised before publication to take account of Obama’s speech in Prague.

    The appeal’s timing was designed to fall a year ahead of a U.N. conference to review the treaty, including the duty of nuclear states to work towards disarmament. The 2005 review failed to produced substantive agreement, but observers say that the presence of the Obama administration has improved the atmosphere at a just-completed preparatory conference for 2010.

    For the treaty’s future, North Korea, Iran, or other states with nuclear ambitions are no more than half the problem. The Nobel laureates’ Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration says, “We are deeply troubled by this threat of proliferation to non-nuclear weapon states, but equally concerned at the faltering will of the nuclear powers to move forward in their obligation to disarm their own nations of these dreadful weapons.”

    In the same YES! edition as the Shultz interview, author Jonathan Schell wrote of the potential for a safer world if the nuclear powers would bargain to give up their bombs in exchange for enforceable promises by others to stay out of the nuclear business.

    In sorting through the likely reasons behind North Korea’s nuclear test this week, David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Peace Age Foundation, came to a related point: “North Korea’s nuclear testing is a manifestation of a deeper problem in the international system, that of continuing to have a small group of countries possess and implicitly threaten the use of nuclear weapons for deterrence or any other reason.”

    In an interview, Tashiro said he hoped that Americans would support nuclear disarmament on the grounds—expressed by Shultz, Kissinger, and others—of the threat created by proliferation and the potential for terrorists to acquire nuclear materials. But, to come to that conclusion, Americans need more information on the issue than they usually receive.

    Even with Obama talking about ending nuclear weapons, he and other nations’ leaders will need the support of an informed, engaged public if they are to create meaningful progress toward nuclear disarmament. In their conclusion, the declaration signers say, “As Nobel Peace laureates, we call on the citizens of the world to press their leaders to grasp the peril of inaction and summon the political will to advance toward nuclear disarmament and abolition.” That idea resonates in Hiroshima, a city that tries to make a better future out of horrible suffering. Perhaps as the world comes to terms with the dangerous possibilities of a nuclear-armed North Korea and Iran, the obligations of the current nuclear power to work towards abolition will get the attention required for action.

    Joe Copeland wrote this article for YES! Magazine. Joe, who is part of the online news startup Seattle PostGlobe, is a visiting researcher at the Hiroshima Peace Institute on a Fulbright grant for journalists. While in Japan, he has a blog at www.hiroshimastories.com. The views are his own.

  • Remarks to the Third Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 NPT Review Conference

    Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen,

    I am pleased to welcome you to the United Nations as we open this important third session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Review Conference of the States parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

    For too long, the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation agenda has been stagnating in a Cold War mentality.

    In 2005, the world experienced what might be called a disarmament depression. The NPT Review Conference that year ended in disappointment. The UN World Summit outcome contained not even a single line on weapons of mass destruction.

    Today, we seem to be emerging from that low point. The change has come in recent weeks. But it is unfolding against a backdrop of multiple threats that, while urgent, tend to obscure the urgency of the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda.

    The global economic crisis, climate change and the outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus are all reminders that we live in an interdependent world. They demand a full and forceful multilateral response. At the same time, nuclear weapons remain an apocalyptic threat. We cannot afford to place disarmament and non-proliferation on a backburner. Let us not be lulled into complacency. Let us not miss the opportunity to make our societies safer and more prosperous.

    Excellencies,

    I have been using every opportunity to push for progress. I discussed non-proliferation and disarmament with Russian President Medvedev and U.S. President Obama. I welcome the joint commitment they announced last month to fulfill their obligations under article VI of the NPT.

    I am particularly encouraged that both countries are committed to rapidly pursuing verifiable reductions in their strategic offensive arsenals by replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with a new, legally-binding pact. I hope their example will serve as a catalyst in inspiring other nuclear powers to follow suit.

    Other developments also merit attention.

    On Iran, I encourage the country’s leaders to continue their cooperation with the IAEA with a view to demonstrating the entirely peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.

    I also encourage them to re-engage in the negotiating process with the EU 3+3 and the EU High Representative on the basis of the relevant Security Council resolutions, and in line with the package of proposals for cooperation with Iran.

    With respect to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, despite the current serious challenges, I continue to believe that the Six-Party process is the best mechanism to achieve the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner.

    I therefore urge the DPRK to return to these talks so that everybody can resolve their respective concerns through dialogue and cooperation, based on the relevant Security Council resolutions as well as multilateral and bilateral agreements.

    I also urge all states to end the stalemate that has marked the international disarmament machinery for too long. To strengthen the NPT regime, it is essential that the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty enters into force without further delay, and that the Conference on Disarmament begins negotiations on a verifiable fissile material treaty. I commend President Obama’s commitment to ratify the CTBT, and urge all countries that have not done so to ratify the Treaty without conditions.

    Hopes for a breakthrough on the deadlocked disarmament agenda have been building. We have seen a cascade of proposals. Elder statesmen, leaders of nuclear-weapon states, regional groups, various commissions and civil society representatives have elaborated proposals for slaying the nuclear monster.

    Their voices may be varied, but they are all part of the same rising chorus demanding action on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Concerns about nuclear terrorism, a new rush by some to possess nuclear arms, and renewed interest in nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels have only heightened the need for urgent action.

    Excellencies,

    The work you do in the next two weeks will be critical. You must seize the moment and show your seriousness.

    This preparatory session must generate agreements on key procedural issues and substantive recommendations to the Review Conference.

    The Review Conference must produce a clear commitment by all NPT states parties to comply fully with all of their obligations under this vital Treaty.

    I urge you to work in a spirit of compromise and flexibility. I hope you will avoid taking absolute positions that have no chance of generating consensus. Instead, build bridges, and be part of a new multilateralism. People understand intuitively that nuclear weapons will never make us more secure.

    They know that real security lies in responding to poverty, climate change, armed conflict and instability.

    They want governments to invest in plans for growth and development, not weapons of mass destruction.

    If you can set us on a course towards achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world, you will send a message of hope to the world.

    We desperately need this message at this time. I am counting on you, and I am supporting all of your efforts to succeed, now and at the Review Conference in 2010.

    Thank you.

    Ban Ki-moon is Secretary-General of the United Nations. This address was delivered at the opening session of the Third Preparatory Committee of the 2010 NPT Review Conference at the United Nations in New York.

  • Not a Weapon of Choice

    This article was originally published in the Times of India

    On Sunday, North Korea launched a long-range missile which Pyongyang described as a success but US experts said had been a failure. Of greater historical significance was the speech delivered the same day in Prague by US president Barack Obama. During the Democratic primary campaign last year, Hillary Clinton famously declared that both Senator John McCain and she had actual job experience to qualify to be commander-in-chief. All that Obama had done, by contrast, was to deliver one speech in Chicago opposing the Iraq war.

    As we know, Clinton fatally underestimated the power of speech. Obama at his best combines linguistic eloquence and powerful oratory with substance and gravitas. On Sunday, he addressed one of the most critically important topics of our day that literally has life and death implications for all of us, wherever we may be.

    The dream of a world free of nuclear weapons is an old one. It is written into the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which balances the prohibition on non-nuclear states acquiring these weapons with the demand on the five NPT-licit nuclear powers Britain, China, France, Russia and the US (N5) to eliminate their nuclear arsenals through good-faith negotiations. Considering that the NPT was signed in 1968 and came into effect in 1970, the N5 have not lived up to their bargain.

    The dream has been kept alive by many NGOs, a coalition of like-minded countries and a plethora of international blue ribbon commissions. A major difficulty is that the abundant “zero nuclear weapons” initiatives have been stillborn because of zero follow-up and a failure to address real security concerns.

    If we examine the geostrategic circumstances of the existing nuclear powers, the two with the least zero security justification for holding on to any nuclear weapons are Britain and France. Nor can North Korea justify nuclear weapons on national security grounds. It seems to play a nuclear hand as a bargaining chip, the only one it has. Israel’s security environment is harsh enough with many in its neighbourhood committed to its destruction to make its reliance on nuclear weapons understandable. Pakistan will not give up its nuclear weapons while India still has them. India’s main security benchmark is not Pakistan but China. Neither China nor Russia will contemplate giving them up for fear of the US. This is why the circuit-breaker in the global nuclear weapons chain is the US.

    Obama’s speech acknowledged this. The US cannot achieve the dream on its own, he said, but it is prepared to lead based on the acknowledgement of its special moral responsibility flowing from being the only power to have used atomic weapons. He thus lays down the challenge to others to follow. And he outlines concrete follow-up steps that are practical, measurable and achievable.

    Obama’s strategy is to map out a vision and then outline the roadmap to achieve it. These include ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty negotiated way back in 1997; a new treaty banning fissile material; reducing the role of nuclear weapons in US national security strategy; and a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia that is bold and legally binding. Washington will also host a global summit on nuclear security within one year.

    Such measures by the N5 must be matched by robust action against the proliferation threat. At the very least, Obama reclaims the moral high ground for Washington to pursue a vigorous and robust non- and counter-proliferation strategy. More resources and authority for institutions like the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Proliferation Security Initiative will be provided. Countries leaving or breaking the NPT must face real and immediate consequences. An international fuel bank could be created to assure supply to countries whose interest is limited to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. All vulnerable nuclear material around the world for example, loose nukes in Russia will be secured within four years. Black markets like A Q Khan’s will be broken up, trade in nuclear materials detected and intercepted in transit, and financial tools used to disrupt dangerous trade.

    Obama is right in saying that reaching the goal will require patience and persistence. But he may be wrong in saying that it may not be achieved in his lifetime. He should set down the marker for achieving it by the end of his second term if re-elected. Without a deadline, no one will work to make it happen; rather, they will retreat into the vague formula of “yes, some day, eventually”.

    Obama may also be mistaken in pinning faith on the global regime centred on the NPT which, he said, “could reach the point where the centre cannot hold”. The NPT is already a broken reed, with far too many flaws, anomalies, gaps and outright contradictions. For example, the promise that those who break the rules must be punished cannot be enforced against India. The India-US civil nuclear agreement, however justified and necessary, breaks NPT rules. A new clean nuclear weapons convention might be a better goal to pursue.

    That’s a minor quibble. More important is the broad sweep of Obama’s commitment, based on national interest and personal conviction, to freeing us from the fear of nuclear weapons.

    Ramesh Thakur is founding director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Canada.

  • Book Review- At the Nuclear Precipice: Catastrophe or Transformation?

    This book review appeared in the March 2009 edition of the Peace Magazine

    At the Nuclear Precipice: Catastrophe or Transformation? Richard Falk and David Krieger (Eds) Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 291pp.

    There has always been an ebb and flow of popular interest in eliminating nuclear weapons from the world, and currently, there seems to be a rising tide of activity. Men who did little to curb nuclear weapons when they were in power are now saying that something should be done: ‘The only sure way to prevent nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and nuclear war is to rid the world of nuclear weapons.’ Since peace-making depends on coalition building we cannot belittle these new-found friends.

    David Krieger and Richard Falk, long-time activists for the abolition of nuclear weapons within the framework of world law, have edited a book which will be useful in the new debates and strategy making, although many of the issues have been discussed before. There have always been at least two major aspects of nuclear issues — the one is to prevent the proliferation to new states, the other is to reduce the number of warheads among the existing nuclear-weapon states. The long chapter on Iran by Asli Bali is the most action oriented and will be useful as policy toward Iran is debated. The reduction of the number of warheads seems to be on the table of new US-Russia negotiations.

    A second theme which has colored popular action on nuclear weapons has been whether to place an emphasis on the goal of total abolition or on partial steps such as the ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Those working for partial measures have always said that abolition was the ultimate aim, but in practice, the partial measures always became the focus of action. I recall that when I was in college, I used to walk to relax and would meet from time to time Albert Einstein walking from his office to his home. I would say ‘Good Evening, Prof Einstein, and he would reply ‘Good Evening, Young Man’. Although I had no idea then or now what his theories were about, I knew that they had something to do with atoms, and he had come out early for nuclear control. ‘One World or None’ was the slogan of the late 1940s. Einstein’s final appeal shortly before his death, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955) with its call to think “not as members of this or that nation, continent or creed, but as human beings” is reprinted in the book.

    When I used to see Einstein, I was already active on the partial measures of the time — an end to testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. I had followed the lead of Senator Estes Kefauver who was the first US political leader to attack actively nuclear testing. As Kefauver had taken on the link between politics and organized crime, he could take on also the US Atomic Energy Commission which was deaf to all calls to prevent nuclear fallout from entering the food chain. It took till 1963 to get the tests to move below ground, but the mid-1950s nuclear testing campaign was the entry point of my generation into nuclear issues.

    I tend still to stress limited steps within the framework of regional settlements of disputes. There seems to me to be three opportunities to press ahead, and there are ideas throughout the book which will be helpful in developing position papers.

    1) The first and easiest because it involves two states without major conflict issues is a reduction in the number of nuclear warheads of the USA and Russia — the number of 1000 each seems to be on the table. It is still too many and strategic thinking in the two countries is not very clear what they are for, but this is a case where ‘fewer is better’, so let us push for this sharp reduction while we try to see what role the USA and Russia can usefully play in the world society.

    2) The second opportunity is for a nuclear-weapon free zone in the Middle East. The elimination of Israeli nuclear weapons and no nuclear-weapon development in Iran would help reduce Middle East tensions. Mohammed ElBaradei of the IAEA has been calling for this Middle East nuclear weapon free zone for some time and has a useful chapter in the book. However, there will have to be strong popular pressure for such a zone as neither the Israeli nor the Iranian government seems to be moving fast in the direction.

    3) The third opportunity for non-governmental suggestions is the 2010 review conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The Review conferences every five years have been the most NGO-friendly of the arms control negotiations. I had chaired the NGOs attending the 1975 and 1980 reviews and with the help of Ambassador Garcia Robbles of Mexico, the NGOs had the ability to distribute proposals and to interact fully, though not to address the conference. Our proposals were widely discussed and even presented by one government as its own. At the 1980 review when no government text could be agreed upon, the NGO draft was seriously discussed at a midnight meeting of the Conference Bureau, but wording was not the real issue. After the 1985 Review I gave up, having repeated Article VI even in my sleep. However 2010 could be the time to pull together NGO new thinking on the issues and make a real effort during the preparatory phase.

    Falk and Krieger have produced a good background document to help in drafting a comprehensive set of proposals.

     

    René Wadlow is the representative of the World Association of Citizens to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

  • Doomsday Clock May Finally Stop Ticking

    This article was published by InterPress Service and appeared on Commondreams.org

    UNITED NATIONS – The Barack Obama administration’s apparent resolve to take U.S. foreign policy in a new direction is creating ripples of hope for an enhanced U.N. agenda on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.
    Observers and diplomats who are due to take part in a major meeting to discuss progress on the implementation of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) told IPS they had never before so optimistic about the U.N.-led negotiation process.

    “I think he [Obama] is sincere about what he is saying,” said David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, an advocacy group that works closely with the U.N. “I think he is willing to stand up against the vested interests.”

     

    Many peace activists, like Krieger, believe that the threat of a possible nuclear catastrophe is not going to go away so long as the major nuclear powers remain reluctant to take drastic steps towards dismantling their nuclear arsenals.

    Countries that rolled back their weapons programs, as well as those that never produced such arms, have long been calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons, but the response they received from the major nuclear powers has always been disappointing. In addition to actions against the spread of nuclear weapons, the NPT requires the five declared nuclear states – the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China – to engage in “good faith” negotiations for disarmament. Until now that task has remained elusive.

    The United States and Russia are the world’s largest nuclear weapon states. They possess no less than 93 percent of the total number of nuclear weapons in the world, according to Sipri, a Sweden-based think tank that tracks weapon production and export worldwide.

    Among others, China has 400 warheads, France 348, and Israel and Britain about 200 each. India is believed to have more than 80 and Pakistan about 40 nuclear weapons.

    Critics see the United States as the most irresponsible member of the nuclear club, for it not only failed to meet the NPT obligations, but also contributed, at great length, to block, and even derail, the international discourse on nuclear disarmament.

    The Ronald Reagan administration, for example, looked the other way when Pakistan was developing its illegal nuclear program in the 1980s. Similarly, the George W. Bush administration decided to make a nuclear trade deal with India that remains outside the fold of the NPT.

    The Bush administration is held responsible by many for sabotaging the U.N. agenda on disarmament by its decision to abrogate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and to install controversial missile defenses in countries located next to Russia’s borders.

    During the past eight years, the former U.S. administration also refused to endorse the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which is considered by experts an integral part of the international framework to achieve the goal of disarmament.

    “We have been through the dark ages,” Krieger told IPS. “It was a death plan for humanity.”

    During his two terms, Bush never spoke of nuclear disarmament. He rather fully supported the move to generate new kinds of nuclear weapons. In March 2007, his administration declared plans to make new kinds of nukes, a move considered as controversial by many.

    Bush argued that the existing warheads had become obsolete, but many experts saw his line of reasoning as out of step with reality because in their conclusion, the U.S. stockpile was already ‘safe and reliable’ for at least 50 years.

    At the time, many independent think tanks in Washington warned that such a move would prove provocative and counter-productive because countries like Iran and North Korea would use it as justification to possess nuclear weapons.

    In contrast to the Bush administration, however, the message from the new administration in Washington appears to be radically different.

    “A world without nuclear weapons is profoundly in America’s interest and the world’s interest,” said the new U.S. president in a recent statement. “It is our responsibility to make the commitment, and to do the hard work to make this vision a reality.”

    Currently, a coalition of peace advocacy groups is running a nationwide signature campaign to press Obama to take immediate, effective, and practical measures for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

    “Nuclear weapons could destroy civilization and end intelligent life on the planet,” said the campaign in a letter to Obama. “The only sure way to prevent nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and nuclear war is to rid the world of nuclear weapons.”

    Krieger told IPS that so far over 50,000 people, including some Noble laureates, have signed the letter. He expects that by next month when the letter is due to be delivered to the White House, at least one million people would have endorsed it.

    An international group, known as “Global Zero,” is proposing deep cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, a verification and enforcement system, and phased reduction leading to the elimination of all stockpiles.

    Supporters of the Global Zero campaign includes many distinguished international figures and former statesmen, such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter; former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger; former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci; former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev; and Shaharyar Khan, a former Pakistani foreign minister.

    The launching in Paris follows 18 months of consultations among diplomats and military leaders and in effect established Global Zero as a participant in mobilizing efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons.

    Last July Obama said, “as long as nuclear weapons exist we will retain a strong deterrent,” but added in the same breath:” We will make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy.”

    According to unconfirmed reports, the Obama administration is already engaged in negotiations on the proposal to reduce the number of nuclear weapons to 1,000 in the first phase and that it is possible that the reaction from Moscow is likely to be positive.

    However, in Krieger’s view, that would happen only if the Obama administration takes a different position on the deployment of the U.S. missile defense systems in Eastern Europe, which Russia perceives to be a threat to its sovereignty.

    Building the missile defense systems has cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, although it’s still not clear that it would be especially effective.

    “The defense contractors in the United States will continue to put pressure,” he told IPS. “But he [Obama] has to understand that this system is not going to work.”

    While Krieger and many others seem satisfied with the gradual and phased reduction of nuclear weapons on both sides, some nuclear abolitionists remain skeptical about the outcome of such measures and would rather like to see dramatic results in a short span of time.

    “Cutting down to 1,000 nuclear weapons each? 1,000 are too many. It’s the same kind of slow process as it was during the cold war,” said Zia Mian, a nuclear physicist and peace activist at Princeton University. “It’s about restoring the process, not breaking away from the process.”

    Mian, who plans to attend the upcoming NPT preparatory meeting in May, added: “If Obama wants a real change, he must say: We are going to negotiate a treaty now to eliminate the nuclear weapons.”

  • Creating a World Without Nuclear Weapons

    Creating a World Without Nuclear Weapons

    We are in the seventh decade of the Nuclear Age and there remain more than 25,000 nuclear weapons in the arsenals of nine nuclear weapons states. The list of countries possessing nuclear weapons is headed by the US and Russia, which between them have more than 95 percent of the total on the planet. These two countries still maintain a few thousand nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired within moments of an order to do so. The other countries with nuclear weapons are the UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.

    An important question that every concerned individual should ask is: Do these weapons make a country and its citizens more secure? The answer to this question is that they do not; nuclear weapons provide no physical protection against a nuclear attack. They do not and cannot provide physical protection against other nuclear weapons.

    The Limits of Deterrence

    These weapons of mass annihilation can only be used to threaten retaliation against an attacker. But the threat of retaliation, known as nuclear deterrence, is not foolproof. Deterrence relies upon beliefs and effective communications. For deterrence to work, a country’s leaders must believe in the intent as well as the capacity of an opponent to retaliate. Such a threat may be doubted since it implies a willingness to slaughter millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of innocent people.

    Another issue with deterrence is that of rationality: whether an opponent will always act rationally, even in times of severe crisis. The evidence does not support the proposition that all political leaders are rational at all times. Another problem with deterrence is that the threat of retaliation is essentially meaningless when it comes to terrorist groups, since they are often suicidal and cannot be located to retaliate against.

    Weapons of the Weak

    There are many good reasons to doubt that nuclear deterrence makes a country more secure. One perceived exception to this may be that nuclear weapons provide added security for a weaker country in relation to a stronger one. For example, George W. Bush, early in his presidency, branded Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an “axis of evil.” He then proceeded to attack Iraq on the false charge that it had a nuclear weapons program, overthrow its leadership and occupy the country. With North Korea, a country suspected of having a small arsenal of nuclear weapons, Bush was much more cautious and engaged in negotiations. This has sent a message to Iran that it would be more secure with a nuclear arsenal. This is surely not the message that the US wishes to send to the world, nor to countries such as Iran.

    For weaker countries, nuclear weapons may be thought of as “military equalizers.” They may make a stronger country think twice about attacking. But this is a dangerous game of Russian roulette. The greater the number of countries with nuclear weapons, the greater the danger that these weapons will be used by accident, miscalculation or design.

    Because of the perceived power that nuclear weapons bestow upon their possessors, they may seem to some to be desirable, but in fact possessors of nuclear weapons are also targets of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons can destroy cities, countries, civilization, the human species and most life on our planet. As Mikhail Gorbachev has pointed out, they are weapons of “infinite and uncontrollable fury,” far too dangerous to be “held in the hands of any mere mortal ever again, for any reason.” Nuclear weapons could cause irreversible damage, not to the planet which is capable of recovery despite the worst we can do to it, but to humanity and to the human future.

    The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

    The 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty requires the countries that were then in possession of nuclear weapons (US, Soviet Union, UK, France and China) to engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament in return for other countries agreeing not to acquire nuclear weapons. This agreement on the part of the nuclear weapons states has not been kept and unfortunately the country that has been the principal obstacle to nuclear disarmament has been the United States.

    Another aspect of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is that it refers to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy as an “inalienable right.” For many reasons, this moves the world in the wrong direction. The most important of these reasons is that nuclear energy provides a pretext for the creation of fissile materials for nuclear weapons through uranium enrichment and plutonium separation technologies. Once commerce is established in such bomb materials, the prospects of nuclear proliferation, even to terrorists, increase dramatically.

    Changing Our Thinking

    Nuclear weapons pose a unique existential challenge to humanity. If global warming is an “inconvenient truth,” nuclear weapons are an even greater and more acute problem for humanity. We need to shift our thinking if we are to confront the serious dangers to the human future posed by nuclear weapons. As Albert Einstein warned early in the Nuclear Age, “The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” The needed change in thinking will require a major shift in our orientation toward nuclear arms.

    These weapons must be viewed as the immoral and illegal weapons that they are, as opposed to just another, albeit more powerful, weapon of war. The International Court of Justice considered the issue of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons and unanimously concluded: “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.” People everywhere must understand that the weapons themselves are the enemy and must be committed to their elimination.

    The Need for US Leadership

    The United States, as the world’s most powerful country, must lead in achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. The US, however, seems unmindful of this responsibility and continues to send exactly the wrong message by its reliance on nuclear weapons. Two distinguished former US diplomats, Thomas Graham Jr. and Max Kampelman, have called US leadership “essential”: “The road from the world of today, with thousands of nuclear weapons in national arsenals to a world free of this threat, will not be an easy one to take, but it is clear that US leadership is essential to the journey and there is growing worldwide support for that civilized call to zero.” US leaders must understand that for the country’s own security and for global security, nuclear weapons abolition is necessary, but won’t be possible without US leadership.

    The Role of Citizens

    The people of the US and other nuclear weapons states must put pressure on their governments to act on ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Pressure must come from below to change the thinking and the actions of political leaders. Among the steps that individuals can take to make a difference on this issue are the following:

    1. Learn more. Visit the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s website at www.wagingpeace.org.
    2. Keep abreast of the issues. At www.wagingpeace.org you can sign up for The Sunflower, a free monthly e-newsletter on current nuclear weapons issues.
    3. Share your knowledge. Tell your family and friends about the importance of current nuclear weapons issues and encourage their involvement.
    4. Communicate with the media. Follow the news and write letters to your local newspaper.
    5. Write your representatives in Congress. Sign up for the Turn the Tide Action Alerts at www.wagingpeace.org, and we’ll make it easy for you to communicate with your Congressional representatives.
    6. Support and build nuclear abolition organizations. It may take a village to raise a child, but it will take strong, committed and enduring organizations to assure we achieve the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons for all the children of the world.
    7. Never give up. It will take extraordinary perseverance to achieve the goal. No one should give up because the task is difficult.

    Each generation has a responsibility to pass the world on intact to the next generation. Those of us alive today are challenged as never before to accomplish this. Technological achievement does not necessarily make us stronger. It may simply make us more vulnerable, and our old ways of thinking may seal our fate. The alternative to waiting for a nuclear catastrophe to occur is to join others who are committed to preserving a future of the human species, and act to rid the world of this most terrible of all human inventions.

    David Krieger is a founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and has served as its president since 1982. He is a leader in the global effort to abolish nuclear weapons.
  • The Non-Proliferation Treaty Turns Forty

    The Non-Proliferation Treaty Turns Forty

    July 1, 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) being opened for signatures. The true purpose of this treaty has always been two-fold: to prevent nuclear proliferation and to achieve nuclear disarmament; in other words, to create a level playing field in which there are no nuclear weapons. In the preamble to the treaty, the parties declare “their intention to achieve at the earliest possible date the cessation of the nuclear arms race and to undertake effective measures in the direction of nuclear disarmament.”

    The treaty recognized five states as nuclear weapons states: the United States, Soviet Union (now Russia), United Kingdom, France and China. Three countries never joined the Treaty – Israel, India and Pakistan – and all three have subsequently developed nuclear arsenals. One country, North Korea, withdrew from the treaty and tested a nuclear device in 2006.

    Thus, at the 40-year anniversary, the number of nuclear weapons states in the world has not quite doubled. Actually, four other states became nuclear weapons states during this period, but gave up their nuclear arsenals. South Africa developed a small nuclear arsenal and then dismantled it. Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus inherited nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union broke apart, but turned them over to Russia for dismantling.

    The greatest failure of the NPT at the 40-year mark is in the area of nuclear disarmament. In 1968, when the NPT was opened for signatures, there were 38,974 nuclear weapons in the world. By 1986, the number of nuclear weapons reached its height at 70,481 nuclear weapons. By the time the NPT turned 25 (from its entry into force in 1970), there were 40,344 nuclear weapons in the world, more than when it was opened for signatures. There remain some 26,000 nuclear weapons in the world, with over 95 percent of these in the arsenals of the US and Russia. Yet, there are some hopeful signs.

    Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has created an International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament with the purpose of forging a global consensus on how to reinvigorate the NPT at its 2010 Review Conference. “We cannot simply stand idly by” Rudd said, “and allow another review conference to achieve no progress – or worse, to begin to disintegrate. The treaty is too important. The goal of nuclear non-proliferation is too important.”

    In Europe, 69 members of the European Parliament from 19 European Union member states issued a Parliamentary declaration in support of the Nuclear Weapons Convention, a draft treaty for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Angelika Beer, a member of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Security and Defense, said, “Only a serious commitment to disarmament provides the moral ground for demanding non-proliferation from others.”

    In their endorsement of the Nuclear Weapons Convention, the parliamentarians stated, “We take seriously the universal obligation, affirmed by the International Court of Justice, to achieve nuclear disarmament in good faith in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    It is also hopeful that over 2,300 mayors of cities from throughout the world have recognized the particular danger that nuclear weapons pose to cities. They have joined the Mayors for Peace 2020 Campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons by the year 2020.

    Despite the United States voting against every one of the 15 nuclear disarmament measures to come before the 2007 United Nations General Assembly, there is hope on this front as well. Both major party candidates for US president have endorsed the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons, and have indicated that they would take steps to realize this goal. With serious US presidential leadership for achieving the nuclear disarmament obligation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, there will hopefully be far more to celebrate on the 50th anniversary of the treaty.

     

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and a councilor of the World Future Council (www.worldfuturecouncil.org).
  • Debating Article VI

    Debating Article VI

    Christopher Ford’s article, “Debating Disarmament, Interpreting Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” (Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 14, No. 3, November 2007), ends with a disclaimer, “The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the State Department or the U.S. government.” Ford’s views, however, seem extremely closely aligned with those of the State Department, which he joined in 2003 and where he currently serves as the United States Special Representative for Nuclear Nonproliferation.

    Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) states: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” This article is the principal tradeoff in the NPT, in which the non-nuclear weapon states are given the promise that the playing field will be leveled by “negotiations in good faith on…nuclear disarmament.”

    When the International Court of Justice (ICJ) considered the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons in 1996, the judges unanimously concluded, based upon Article VI of the NPT, that “[t]here 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.” [Emphasis added.]

    In his article, Ford seeks to substitute his judgment for that of the ICJ, the world’s highest judicial body. He dismisses the view of the Court on the nuclear disarmament obligation as mere dictum, “generally… regarded as having minimal authority or value as precedent.” But, in fact, the Court viewed this portion of its opinion as essential to close the gap in international law that they found in the threat or use of nuclear weapons “in an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake.”

    Ford uses his impressive rhetorical skills to place emphasis on the word “pursue,” making the claim that “pursuit” of negotiation in good faith is all that is required of a party. He uses the term “pursue” to mean “to seek” or “to chase,” rather than in the sense of “to carry something out” or “to continue with something,” meanings that the ICJ likely had in mind in their reaching their opinion that negotiations must not only be pursued but brought “to a conclusion.”

    It seems unlikely that the non-nuclear weapon states would have been (or now would be) satisfied with Ford’s view of “pursue.” Like the bold lover on the Grecian Urn in Keat’s famous Ode, the non-nuclear weapon states would be denied their reward “[t]hough winning near the goal.” In other words, they could only watch as the nuclear weapons states pursued the goal of negotiations on nuclear disarmament without real hope that the goal would ever be reached.

    Article VI of the NPT makes far more sense when the emphasis is placed on the “good faith” of the parties in pursuing (as in carrying out) negotiations for nuclear disarmament. Ford’s parsing of words literally deprives Article VI of meaning as he seeks to exonerate the US for its failure to act in good faith.

    Ford is predictably also dismissive of the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament that were adopted by consensus in the Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference. He argues, “Structurally, contextually, and grammatically…the 13 Steps amount to no more than any other political declaration by a convocation of national representatives: their statement of belief, at that time, regarding what would be best.” Since the United States has also been dismissive of the 13 Practical Steps, Ford is certainly in line with US policy on this point.

    The 13 Practical Steps call for, inter alia, ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), applying the principle of irreversibility to nuclear disarmament, conclusion of START III, preserving and strengthening the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, and “[a]n unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States parties are committed under Article VI.”

    The United States has, in fact, failed to ratify the CTBT, explicitly not applied the principle of irreversibility in negotiating the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) in 2002, failed to negotiate START III with the Russians, withdrawn from the ABM Treaty to pursue missile defenses and space weaponization, and not made the “unequivocal undertaking…to which all states are committed under Article VI.”

    Despite Mr. Ford’s protestations concerning Article VI and his argument that “the United States has made enormous progress” on nuclear disarmament, the facts remain that the US still relies heavily on its nuclear arsenal, is the only country capable of leading the way toward a world free of nuclear weapons, and has not done nearly enough to rid the world nor its own citizens of the existential threats posed by nuclear weapons. The US, for example, has continued to maintain a significant portion of its nuclear arsenal on hair-trigger alert, has sought to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons, has failed to initiate a policy of No First Use of nuclear weapons, and in 2007 voted against all 15 nuclear disarmament measures that came before the United Nations General Assembly.

    From a practical point of view, this means that other nuclear weapons states will continue to rely upon their nuclear arms for what they believe provides for their security. In fact, as the nuclear weapons states continue to rely upon these weapons, other states will choose to provide such “security” for themselves, and nuclear weapons will proliferate, eventually ending up in the hands of extremist organizations that cannot be deterred from using them against even the most powerful states. In other words, while Mr. Ford’s rationalizations and analysis (“…it would be unfair and inaccurate to extend any special Article VI compliance criticism to the United States”) may provide comforting justifications for some, they in fact contribute to a sense of nuclear complacency that undermines US security and progress on nuclear disarmament.

    It will not be possible to maintain indefinitely the double standards on which the NPT was formulated and which can only be cured by achieving the nuclear disarmament provision in Article VI of the treaty. This will require substantially more effort than pursuing good faith negotiations; it will require actual good faith. US leaders would do well to set aside Mr. Ford’s approach to papering over US failures to act in good faith with a thin veneer of rhetorical justifications and legal advocacy, and get down to the serious business of leading a global effort to eliminate nuclear weapons before they eliminate us.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and is a Councilor of the World Future Council.