Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear abolition

  • 2009 Hiroshima Peace Declaration

    This declaration was read by Mayor Akiba at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on August 6, 2009

    That weapon of human extinction, the atomic bomb, was dropped on the people of Hiroshima sixty-four years ago. Yet the hibakusha’s suffering, a hell no words can convey, continues. Radiation absorbed 64 years earlier continues to eat at their bodies, and memories of 64 years ago flash back as if they had happened yesterday.

    Fortunately, the grave implications of the hibakusha experience are granted legal support. A good example of this support is the courageous court decision humbly accepting the fact that the effects of radiation on the human body have yet to be fully elucidated. The Japanese national government should make its assistance measures fully appropriate to the situations of the aging hibakusha, including those exposed in “black rain areas” and those living overseas. Then, tearing down the walls between its ministries and agencies, it should lead the world as standard-bearer for the movement to abolish nuclear weapons by 2020 to actualize the fervent desire of hibakusha that “No one else should ever suffer as we did.”

    In April this year, US President Obama speaking in Prague said, “…as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act.” And “…take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons.” Nuclear weapons abolition is the will not only of the hibakusha but also of the vast majority of people and nations on this planet. The fact that President Obama is listening to those voices has solidified our conviction that “the only role for nuclear weapons is to be abolished.”

    In response, we support President Obama and have a moral responsibility to act to abolish nuclear weapons. To emphasize this point, we refer to ourselves, the great global majority, as the “Obamajority,” and we call on the rest of the world to join forces with us to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020. The essence of this idea is embodied in the Japanese Constitution, which is ever more highly esteemed around the world.

    Now, with more than 3,000 member cities worldwide, Mayors for Peace has given concrete substance to our “2020 Vision” through the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol, and we are doing everything in our power to promote its adoption at the NPT Review Conference next year. Once the Protocol is adopted, our scenario calls for an immediate halt to all efforts to acquire or deploy nuclear weapons by all countries, including the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which has so recently conducted defiant nuclear tests; visits by leaders of nuclear-weapon states and suspect states to the A-bombed cities; early convening of a UN Special Session devoted to Disarmament; an immediate start to negotiations with the goal of concluding a nuclear weapons convention by 2015; and finally, to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020. We will adopt a more detailed plan at the Mayors for Peace General Conference that begins tomorrow in Nagasaki.

    The year 2020 is important because we wish to enter a world without nuclear weapons with as many hibakusha as possible. Furthermore, if our generation fails to eliminate nuclear weapons, we will have failed to fulfill our minimum responsibility to those that follow.

    Global Zero, the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and others of influence throughout the world have initiated positive programs that seek the abolition of nuclear weapons. We sincerely hope that they will all join the circle of those pressing for 2020.

    As seen in the anti-personnel landmine ban, liberation from poverty through the Grameen Bank, the prevention of global warming and other such movements, global democracy that respects the majority will of the world and solves problems through the power of the people has truly begun to grow. To nurture this growth and go on to solve other major problems, we must create a mechanism by which the voices of the people can be delivered directly into the UN. One idea would be to create a “Lower House” of the United Nations made up of 100 cities that have suffered major tragedies due to war and other disasters, plus another 100 cities with large populations, totaling 200 cities. The current UN General Assembly would then become the “Upper House.”

    On the occasion of the Peace Memorial Ceremony commemorating the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing, we offer our solemn, heartfelt condolence to the souls of the A-bomb victims, and, together with the city of Nagasaki and the majority of Earth’s people and nations, we pledge to strive with all our strength for a world free from nuclear weapons.

    We have the power. We have the responsibility. And we are the Obamajority. Together, we can abolish nuclear weapons. Yes, we can.

    Tadatoshi Akiba is Mayor of Hiroshima, Japan and President of Mayors for Peace (www.mayorsforpeace.org).

  • Japan Ready for “No Nukes”

    As the Obama administration contemplates major reductions to its nuclear arsenal, Japan’s commitment to nuclear disarmament is being tested as never before.

    In his Prague speech on April 5, President Barack Obama said, “We will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and urge others to do the same.” He went on to say, “we will begin the work of reducing our arsenal.”

    But in between these two landmark pledges he said, “as long as these weapons exist, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies.”

    The goal that Obama articulated of “a world without nuclear weapons” was overwhelmingly supported by the Japanese public. Yet, the way the Japanese government views U.S. extended nuclear deterrence, otherwise referred to as the “nuclear umbrella,” is turning out to be a key sticking point, which may end up blocking progress on nuclear disarmament.

    Reportedly, the specific reduction in the role of nuclear weapons that is being contemplated is that they would be retained for only one purpose. Their sole purpose would be to deter the use of other people’s nuclear weapons. This is sometimes referred to as a policy of “No First Use” (NFU).

    The Japanese government has long taken a different undeclared view that the U.S. nuclear umbrella should also cover potential threats from biological weapons, chemical weapons and even conventional weapons.

    At a press conference Aug. 9, on the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Prime Minister Taro Aso criticized demands for nuclear powers, including the United States, to pledge not to be the first to use nuclear weapons. He said, “I wonder if that’s a realistic way to ensure Japan’s safety.” Likewise, Foreign Ministry officials have repeatedly made unofficial comments opposing NFU.

    The key test for the vision spelled out by Obama in Prague is the Nuclear Posture Review, now being prepared. We understand that a substantial reduction in the role of nuclear weapons in national security strategy is being considered.

    It is distressing to note that Japan is being used as an excuse to prevent Washington from making an important policy change that would be a step forward toward a world without nuclear weapons. Some argue that a reduction in the role of nuclear weapons would weaken the U.S.-Japan security relationship.

    Others, for example former U.S. Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, even suggest that Japan might choose to acquire its own nuclear weapons.

    In fact, there are signs of greater flexibility than these people acknowledge. It is widely predicted that there will be a change of government after the Aug. 30 elections and that the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), currently the largest opposition party, will win. The attitude to NFU by the DPJ and its potential coalition partners is likely to be quite different from the LDP.

    DPJ secretary general Katsuya Okada has suggested that Japan work with Washington to achieve a NFU policy. In response to a questionnaire sent recently to Japanese political parties by disarmament nongovernment organizations, the DPJ said that NFU was an issue that should be discussed with the U.S. government.

    The Social Democratic Party, a potential coalition party in a new government, and the Japanese Communist Party also supported an NFU policy. Even New Komeito, which is a member of the current government, supported an NFU policy if there is an international consensus.

    Opposition to NFU within the LDP is by no means universal. So the picture of monolithic Japanese opposition to NFU, presented by some U.S. commentators, is really quite misleading.

    As for the argument that Japan will go nuclear if Washington reduces the number and missions of U.S. nuclear forces, this is nonsense. Japanese political leaders are intelligent enough to know that going nuclear would have huge ramifications that would not be in Japan’s national interest. No political party in Japan supports acquiring nuclear weapons.

    Sixty-four years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the anti- nuclear sentiment in Japan remains strong. Over 1,400 local authorities (about 80 percent) have made nuclear-free pledges. These local authorities represent the spirit of nuclear abolition in Japanese society far better than the LDP-led central government.

    If the Obama administration moves decisively to get rid of “the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War.” the joy of the vast majority of the Japanese people will overwhelm the reservations of an unrepresentative clique in the Japanese bureaucratic system. So, Mr. Obama, act boldly. Grasp the opportunity that is before you. Japan is ready.

    This article was originally published by the Japan Times

    Shingo Fukuyama is secretary general of the Japan Congress Against A- and H-Bombs (Gensuikin). Hiromichi Umebayashi is special adviser to Peace Depot, a nonprofit organization.

  • Ease Their Pain

    This article was originally published in the Ottawa Citizen

    On Aug. 6, 2002, I had the privilege and responsibility of representing UN secretary general Kofi Annan at the ceremony commemorating the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. The event is at once haunting, sombre and soul-cleansing. Some 40,000 people assemble in the sultry heat to recall the searing, dazzling blast that announced the birth of the atomic age with the death of a hundred thousand people at one stroke and the horror-filled stories of the larger number of survivors.

    There is a word in Japanese, hibakusha (“explosion-affected people”), that describes the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. Truly the living envied the dead. As of last year, there were just over a quarter million hibakusha recognized by the Japanese government. On March 24 this year, the government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi as a double survivor. In Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945, he decided to return home to Nagasaki the day before it too was bombed on Aug. 9. There are times when belief in karma (loosely translated as destiny) becomes a comforting solace.

    The A-bomb was developed during the Second World War at the top secret Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico by a group of scientists brought together in the Manhattan Project under the directorship of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Canada’s National Film Board has made an excellent documentary, called The Strangest Dream, about the only scientist to resign from the Manhattan Project, the Nobel Peace Laureate Joseph Rotblat.

    The bomb’s first successful test, Trinity, was carried out on July 16 at the White Sands Missile Range. Witnessing that, Oppenheimer famously recalled the sacred Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendour of the mighty one.” Of course, birth and death are symbiotically linked in the cycle of life. So Oppenheimer recalled too the matching verse from the Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

    The same duality is omnipresent in every aspect of Hiroshima. The Aug. 6 ceremony is incredibly moving and indelibly poignant. The cenotaph memorializing the bombing is set in a beautiful peace park that was designed shortly after the war by Kenzo Tange, one of Japan’s most famous postwar architects. (Coincidentally, he was also the architect for the United Nations University building in Tokyo, where I worked for almost a decade.) The names of the atomic bomb victims are inscribed on the arc-shaped cenotaph which stands atop a reflecting pool. Every year on Aug. 6, the living gather there to atone for the dead.

    The park is framed at one end by the Atomic Bomb Dome, a structure that survived the blast in skeleton form and today functions as one of the most iconic and recognizable images of the horrors of atomic weapons, and a potent rallying point for the anti-nuclear peace movement. It has been inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. At the other end of the park is the Peace Museum that houses various memorabilia and displays. Again, it is difficult not be shocked into contemplation of human folly and our capacity to inflict pain on one another by many of the images and items, for example spectacles that fused onto facial bones in the intense heat of the radiation.

    For world leaders going to certain countries in Europe, it is obligatory to visit sites like Auschwitz and Buchenwald, pay respects to the victims lest we forget, and offer silent prayers for their souls. I am yet to understand what it is about western culture that holds leaders back from the same gesture to a common human history when they visit Japan. I was told that no serving U.S. leader has ever visited Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Would such a visit raise unnecessary controversy by suggesting penance? Is it not possible to recognize and honour a defining event in human history without implying guilt? Will the “yes we can” president dare to break the taboo and act on his dream of a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear dread?

    We tend to remember the consequences of what others do to us, and so grievance festers. We know why we did what we did to others, and so that becomes justified, and we are puzzled that the others should still bear a grudge. It is rare to find former enemies join in common atonement of a shared human tragedy.

    Yet that surely is what Hiroshima symbolizes, and it is in the recognition of our common humanity that we shall find redemption. The citizens of Hiroshima, in rebuilding their city, have consecrated it as a testimonial to social resilience, human solidarity and nuclear abolition.

    Then there is the beautiful story of the cranes. Sadako Sasaki, two when she was exposed to the Hiroshima bombing, fell ill in 1954 and was diagnosed to be suffering from leukemia. Serene in the belief that folding 1,000 paper cranes would fulfil her wish for a normal life, she was still short of the magic number (she had the time but not the paper) when she died on Oct. 25, 1955. Friends completed her task and 1,000 cranes were buried with her. As her story spread, a children’s peace monument was built in the Peace Park from funds donated from across the country. By now around 10 million cranes are offered annually before her monument, where she stands with her arms fully stretched overhead holding up a giant, stylized folded paper crane.

    Hiroshima, once again a beautiful, scenic and thriving city, lives by three codes: To forgive and atone, but never to forget; never again; and transformation from a military city to a city of peace.

    The sacred Buddhist text The Dhammapada tells us:

    We are what we think

    All that we are arises with our thoughts

    With our thoughts we make the world.

    Thursday, as we mark the 64th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, let us join together in turning our thoughts to the three inspiring principles that symbolize death, destruction and resurrection. What we need is a multi-phased roadmap to abolition that prioritizes concrete immediate steps in the first couple of years such as introducing more robust firewalls to separate possession from use of nuclear weapons; further significant cuts in existing nuclear arsenals and a freeze on production of fissile materials in the medium term of up to three years; a verifiable and enforceable new international nuclear weapons convention within a target timeframe of about five years; and their total and verified destruction in 10 to 20 years.

    By these actions shall we release the souls of the atomic dead, ease the pain of the hibakusha, and liberate ourselves from bondage to a weapon that does not increase our net security but does diminish our common humanity.

    Ramesh Thakur is director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs and a distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ontario.

  • What Has Prevented Nuclear War

    This article was originally published on the History News Network

    One of the great questions of the modern world is: Why has nuclear war not occurred since 1945?

    The conventional answer is that, thanks to fear of mutual destruction, nuclear weapons have “deterred” nuclear war. And yet, this answer fails to account for some important developments. Since 1945, nuclear powers have not waged nuclear war against non-nuclear powers. Furthermore, if nuclear weapons prevent nuclear war, it is hard to understand why nuclear powers have signed disarmament agreements or have worried (and still worry) about nuclear proliferation.

    An alternative explanation for nuclear restraint is that public opposition to nuclear war has caused government officials to step back from the brink. After all, peace groups have agitated vigorously against nuclear war and opinion polls over the years have shown that the public has viewed nuclear war with revulsion—two factors that government leaders have viewed with alarm. In addition, there is substantial evidence that underscores the decisive role of public pressure.

    In 1945, U.S. President Harry Truman had launched the atomic bombing of Japan without apparent moral qualms or influence by the public (which knew nothing of the government’s atomic bomb program). This use of nuclear weapons, Truman declared jubilantly, was “the greatest thing in history.” Consequently, five years later, when the Korean War erupted, there could well have been a repeat performance in that bloody conflict. Certainly, there seemed good military reasons for the use of nuclear weapons. On two occasions, U.S. troops were close to military defeat at the hands of non-nuclear powers. Also, there was no prospect of a nuclear counterattack by the Soviet Union, which was not participating directly in the war, had only recently developed an atomic bomb, and lacked an effective delivery system for it.

    But, thanks to burgeoning antinuclear sentiment, employing the atomic bomb in the war had become politically difficult. U.S. intelligence reported that, in Britain, there existed “widespread popular alarm concerning the possible use of the A-bomb.” From the State Department’s specialist on the Far East came a warning that use of the Bomb would cause a “revulsion of feeling” to “spread throughout Asia. . . . Our efforts to win the Asiatics to our side would be cancelled and our influence in non-Communist nations of Asia would deteriorate to an almost non-existent quantity.” Paul Nitze, the chair of the State Department’s policy planning staff, argued that, in military terms, the Bomb probably would be effective. But using it would “arouse the peoples of Asia against us.” Ultimately, then, political considerations overwhelmed military considerations, and Truman chose to reject calls by U.S. military commanders, such as General Douglas MacArthur, to win the war with nuclear weapons.

    The Eisenhower administration, too, began with a breezy sense of the opportunities afforded by U.S. nuclear weapons, promising “massive retaliation” against any outbreak of Communist aggression. But it soon came up against the limits set by popular loathing for nuclear war. According to the record of a 1956 National Security Council (NSC) meeting, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other administration officials called for greater flexibility in the employment of nuclear weapons, the President responded: “The use of nuclear weapons would raise serious political problems in view of the current state of world opinion.” The following May, countering ambitious proposals by Lewis Strauss (chair of the Atomic Energy Commission) and the Defense Department for nuclear war-fighting, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told another NSC meeting, according to the minutes, that “world opinion was not yet ready to accept the general use of nuclear weapons. . . . If we resort to such a use of nuclear weapons we will, in the eyes of the world, be cast as a ruthless military power.” Dulles predicted, hopefully, “that all this would change at some point in the future, but the time had not yet come.” Although the Secretary of Defense renewed his pleas for use of nuclear weapons, Dulles remained adamant that the United States must not “get out of step with world opinion.”

    The Kennedy administration also found its options limited by the public’s distaste for nuclear war. A late 1960 Defense Department report to the President-elect, recalled one of its drafters, argued that “the political mood of the country” weighed heavily against developing a U.S. “`win’ capability” for a future nuclear war. This fear of the public response also tempered administration policy during the Cuban missile crisis, when Kennedy—as Secretary of State Dean Rusk recalled—worried about “an adverse public reaction,” including “demonstrations, peace groups marching in the streets, perhaps a divisive public debate.” In addition, even in conflicts with non-nuclear powers, U.S. policymakers felt it necessary to rule out nuclear war thanks to the stigma attached to it by the public. A nuclear power, Rusk explained years later, “would wear the mark of Cain for generations to come if it ever attacked a non-nuclear country with nuclear weapons.”

    The Vietnam War provided a particularly attractive opportunity for the U.S. government’s use of its nuclear might. Here, once more, U.S. military forces were engaged in a war with a non-nuclear nation—and, furthermore, were losing that war. And yet, as Rusk recalled, the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations deliberately “lost the war rather than ‘win’ it with nuclear weapons.” McGeorge Bundy, who served as the national security advisor to Kennedy and Johnson, maintained that the U.S. government’s decision to avoid using nuclear weapons in the Vietnam conflict did not result from fear of nuclear retaliation by the Soviet and Chinese governments, but from the terrible public reaction that a U.S. nuclear attack would provoke in other nations. Even more significant, Bundy maintained, was the prospect of public upheaval in the United States, for “no President could hope for understanding and support from his own countrymen if he used the bomb.” Looking back on the war, Richard Nixon complained bitterly that, had he used nuclear weapons in Vietnam, “the resulting domestic and international uproar would have damaged our foreign policy on all fronts.”

    And so it went in the following decades. Even the remarkably hawkish officials of the Reagan administration came up sharply against political realities. Entering office talking glibly of fighting and winning nuclear wars, they soon confronted a worldwide antinuclear uprising, undergirded by public opinion. In April 1982, shortly after a Nuclear Freeze resolution began wending its way through Congress, the President began declaring publicly: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” He added, on that first occasion: “To those who protest against nuclear war, I’m with you.” Cynics might argue that Reagan’s rejection of nuclear war was no more than rhetoric. Nevertheless, rhetoric repeated often enough inhibits a policy reversal. And, in fact, although the Reagan administration sponsored wars in numerous places, it does not appear to have factored nuclear weapons into its battle plans. Kenneth Adelman, who directed the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency for most of the Reagan years, claimed that he “never heard anyone broach the topic of using nuclear weapons. Ever. In any setting, in any way.”

    Thus, evidence certainly exists that public pressure has prevented nuclear war. Where is the evidence that nuclear weapons have done so?

    Dr. Lawrence S. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).

  • A Nuclear Weapons-Free World

    Two years have passed since George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn revived the idea of a nuclear weapon-free world. In the meantime, leaders from many other countries have joined in. President Obama has done the same. They have all referred to concrete measures that can bring us closer to the goal.

    The four American leaders underlined the relationship between vision and action: “Without the bold vision, the actions will not be perceived as fair or urgent. Without the actions, the vision will not be perceived as realistic or possible”. To create such a dynamic interplay, we have to be serious both about the vision and about the measures. We call on all to do so, as strongly as we can.

    The goal must be a world where not only the weapons, but also the facilities that produce them are eliminated. All fissile materials for military ends must be destroyed, and all nuclear activities must be subject to strict international control.

    The United States and Russia, which together account for more than 90 per cent of the world’s arsenals, must take the first steps. They should reduce their arsenals to a level where the other nuclear weapon states may join in negotiations of global limitations. All agreements must be balanced and verifiable and provide enhanced security at lower levels of arms. While reductions are going on, mutual deterrence will remain a basic principle of international security.

    All types of nuclear weapons – also the tactical ones – must be included in the negotiations. We urge Russia, which has big arsenals of tactical weapons, to accept this.

    Today, there is the risk that nuclear weapons will proliferate to more states as well as to non-state actors and terrorist networks. The latter want nuclear weapons in order to use them. Together with the US and many other countries, Norway has participated in programmes to control and destroy nuclear materials and ready-made weapons. A major increase in the funding for such programmes is urgently needed.

    Establishment of missile shields should be avoided, for they stimulate rearmament. Nuclear powers which do not have such shields will seek countermeasures to maintain their retaliatory capabilities. Others fear that for those who have a shield, it will be easier to use the sword. Ongoing missile defence plans and programmes should therefore be subordinated to the work for comprehensive nuclear disarmament.

    While new negotiations are set in motion, existing agreements must be maintained. That goes for the INF Treaty, which eliminated intermediate-range systems from Europe, and for the CFE agreement on conventional force reductions that was concluded as the Cold War drew to an end. Also, it goes for the American-Russian presidential initiatives of 1991/92 on withdrawal and elimination of American and Russian tactical weapons. Above all, it goes for the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), which is currently under pressure. In connection with next year’s review conference for the NPT, it is important to reconfirm the validity of the principles on which it is built: non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Holding the chair of the seven-nation initiative, Norway may contribute to the successful conclusion of this conference.

    This article was originally published in Norwegian by Aftenposten

    Odvar Nordli, Gro Harlem Brundtland, KåreWilloch and Kjell Magne Bondevik are former Prime Ministers of Norway. Thorvald Stoltenberg is a former Foreign Minister of Norway.

  • How To Reduce the Nuclear Threat

    Monday’s North Korean nuclear test was a dramatic reminder of the challenges to eliminating nuclear weapons world-wide. President Barack Obama has stated that he intends to pursue this goal while maintaining a reliable nuclear deterrent for the United States and its allies. But achieving nuclear abolition will likely require many years.

    Indeed, it is difficult to envision the necessary geopolitical conditions that would permit even approaching that goal. Unless the U.S. and its partners re-energize international efforts to lessen the present dangers of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism, they will never have the hope of reaching this long-term objective.

    An effective strategy to reduce nuclear dangers must build on five pillars: revitalizing strategic dialogue with nuclear-armed powers, particularly Russia and China; strengthening the international nuclear nonproliferation regime; reaffirming the protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella to our allies; maintaining the credibility of the U.S. nuclear deterrent; and implementing best security practices for nuclear weapons and weapons-usable materials worldwide.

    With thousands of U.S. and Russian warheads still deployed, the threat of a nuclear war through strategic miscalculation is not entirely removed. Thankfully, Russia has neither shown nor threatened such intent against the U.S. The two nations cooperated through much of the post-Cold War period on reducing nuclear arsenals and curbing nuclear proliferation. But given the recent chill in U.S.-Russia relations — a result of NATO expansion efforts and missile-defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic — the relationship faces significant challenges.

    In order to “press the reset button” with Russia, in the words of Vice President Joe Biden, the U.S. needs to base strategic dialogue on the common interests of stopping nuclear proliferation, preventing nuclear terrorism, and ensuring the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The U.S. and Russia should conduct a joint threat assessment as a prerequisite to renewed arms control. In tandem, the U.S. and China should discuss their threat perceptions and seek greater cooperation on nuclear security and stability.

    The spread of weapons-usable nuclear technologies may push the world to a dangerous tipping point. North Korea — despite nearly universal opposition — has developed a small nuclear arsenal and on Monday demonstrated its capability with a successful nuclear test. Iran claims to be developing a peaceful nuclear program but this is hard to believe. Partly in response to Iran, other Middle Eastern states, like Turkey and Egypt, are beginning to develop nuclear-power programs.

    To prevent further proliferation, the Obama administration needs to leverage the next 12 months in the run-up to the May 2010 Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference. The U.S. must redouble global efforts to enact the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear weapons, call for a ban on the production of fissile material for weapons, and provide sustainable resources to the International Atomic Energy Agency — the world’s “nuclear watchdog.”

    In the meantime, as Mr. Obama has stated, the U.S. should maintain a safe, secure and reliable nuclear deterrent for itself and its allies. This deterrent should be adequately funded and staffed with top-notch managers, scientists and engineers. The administration should also decide whether to replace existing nuclear warheads with redesigned warheads or to increase programs to extend their operational lives on a case-by-case basis, weighing heavily recommendations from the weapons lab responsible for the warheads in question.

    Another critical concern is the massive global stockpile of weapons-usable fissile material that could fuel thousands of nuclear explosives. The more states that have fissile material, the greater the chances of it falling into the hands of terrorists. Laudably, the Obama administration has committed to work with international partners to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. This ambitious agenda will require development of much better security practices and a cooperative effort among dozens of countries.

    The dangers of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism are real and imminent. Any serious effort to combat them will require the leadership of the United States.

    This article was originally published in the Wall Street Journal

    William Perry, a former secretary of defense, and Mr. Scowcroft, a former national security adviser, are the co-chairs of the Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored Independent Task Force on U.S. nuclear weapons policy. Mr. Ferguson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the project director.

  • 17 Nobel Peace Laureates Call for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

    Sixty-four years ago, the horror of atomic bombs was unleashed on Japan, and the world witnessed the destructive power of nuclear weapons. Today, with just a year until the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference convenes at the United Nations in the spring of 2010, we, the undersigned Nobel Peace Laureates, echo U.S. President Barack Obama’s call for a world without nuclear weapons and appeal to the leader of every nation to resolutely pursue this goal for the good of all.

    We find ourselves in a new era of proliferation. Despite the near universal ratification of the 1970 treaty, which binds states to nuclear disarmament, little progress has been made to fulfill this pact and eliminate nuclear weapons from our world. On the contrary, as the nuclear powers have continued to brandish their weapons, other nations have sought to produce their own nuclear arsenals.

    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.

    The fact that humanity has managed to avoid a third nuclear nightmare is not merely a fortunate whim of history. The resolve of the A-bomb survivors, who have called on the world to avert another Hiroshima or Nagasaki, has surely helped prevent that catastrophe. Moreover, the millions who have supported the survivors in their quest for peace, as well as the reality of our collective restraint, suggest that human beings are imbued with a better, higher nature, an instinct for inhibiting violence and upholding life.

    In the months leading up to the NPT Review Conference, this higher nature must rise to guide our efforts. Nations are now reviewing progress in the treaty’s implementation and mapping a path forward. For the first time in many years, the opportunity exists for genuine movement toward reducing and eliminating nuclear arms.

    As this process unfolds, world leaders will be faced with a stark choice: nuclear non-proliferation or nuclear brinkmanship. We can either put an end to proliferation, and set a course toward abolition; or we can wait for the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be repeated.

    We believe it is long past time for humanity to heed the warning made by Albert Einstein in 1946: ”The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.”

    We know that such a new manner of thinking is possible. In the past ten years, the governments of the world, working alongside international institutions, non-governmental organizations, and survivors, have negotiated treaties banning two indiscriminate weapons systems: landmines and cluster bombs. These weapons were banned when the world finally recognized them for the humanitarian disaster they are.

    The world is well aware that nuclear weapons are a humanitarian disaster of monstrous proportion. They are indiscriminate, immoral, and illegal. They are military tools whose staggering consequences have already been seen in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the long-term impacts of those attacks. Eliminating nuclear weapons is indeed a possibility — more than that, it is a fundamental necessity in forging a more secure planet for us all.

    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. To fulfill a world without nuclear weapons, and inspire a greater peace among our kind, humanity must stand together to make this vision a reality.

    * This declaration was published by the Hiroshima Peace Media Center

  • Time to Ban the Bomb and the Reactor

    This speech was delivered to delegates at the 2009 Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee at the United Nations

    With the world’s hopes newly raised by inspiring statements from prominent leaders urging the elimination of nuclear weapons, including pledges by Presidents Obama and Medvedev, to work for “a nuclear free world,” the recent establishment of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) could actually enable us to realistically fulfill the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s mission for nuclear disarmament. In January, Germany, together with Denmark and Spain, launched IRENA in Bonn with 75 nations who signed its founding statute. Since IRENA is the Greek word for peace, this auspicious initiative is particularly well-named as the Agency is designed to spread the fruits of clean, safe sustainable energy, enabling the planet to avoid nuclear proliferation and catastrophic climate change and assist developing countries to access the abundant free energy resources provided by our Mother Earth.

    IRENA precludes reliance on fossil, nuclear and inefficient traditional biomass energy. With an International Atomic Energy Agency, promoting dangerous and toxic nuclear power technology, and an International Energy Agency, founded during the 1970s oil crisis to manage the fossil fuel supply, IRENA’s launch could not have been timelier as the world wrestles with the twin crises of nuclear proliferation and global warming. We urge every nation to join IRENA by signing its founding statute and to forego or phase out deadly nuclear technology, whether for war or for peace.

    Throughout the years of this NPT process, we NGOs have warned states parties that the spread of nuclear energy spells disaster for efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons or to mitigate the impacts of climate change, threatening the very future of humanity’s existence. Distinguished physicians at these meetings have described for you the awful physical effects of carcinogenic pollution from nuclear power with increased cancer, leukemia, and birth defects in every community where nuclear reactors spew their lethal poisons into the air, water and soil. Since we last spoke to you, new German studies show a 60% increase in solid cancers and a 117% increase in leukemia among young children living near German nuclear facilities between 1980 and 2003.

    Indigenous leaders from around the planet have stood here and told you about the awful horrors wreaked on their communities from uranium mining. We reminded you of the creation story of the Rainbow Serpent, asleep in the earth, guarding over those elemental powers which lie outside of humankind’s control and how any attempt to seize those underworld elements will disturb the sleep of the serpent, provoking its vengeance: a terrible deluge of destruction and death. At the World Uranium Hearing, the world was warned that:

    The Rainbow Serpent has been wakened. Men turned into shadows, cancer, women giving birth to jellyfish babies, leukemia – since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, since the Bravo test in the Bikini Islands, and since the Chernobyl catastrophe in April of 1986, we know that the Rainbow Serpent doesn’t differentiate between uranium’s military and peaceful uses. Death is everywhere it touches. But what we perhaps don’t realize is that the destructive properties of uranium are unleashed the moment it’s mined from the ground.

    We have told you there is no known solution to the storage of nuclear waste which lasts for hundreds of thousands of years, spewing its silent poisons into our air, earth and soil, injuring not only the living, but unborn generations to come—our very genetic heritage. The United States, in 2009, cancelled 30 year-old plans to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain Nevada because it cannot safely contain the long-lived poisons that the nuclear industry lobbied to bury there for eons. After more than 60 years of ignorantly and mindlessly amassing huge quantities of toxic radioactive poisons, heedless of the consequences to earth’s biosphere, yet another Commission is to be appointed to yet again “study the issue”. We don’t have a clue! Rational behavior would demand we should stop making any more nuclear waste until, and if ever, we can figure it out!!

    In France, held up as the exemplar of a country enjoying the “benefits” of nuclear power, its nationally owned Areva, the largest nuclear corporation in the world, is plunged into debt. Its reprocessing center at La Hague has produced massive discharges of radiation into the English Channel and has over nine thousand containers of radioactive wastes with no safe place to go. In Japan, the costs from the earthquake last year that crippled seven reactors at Kashwazaki are still rising. In the UK, the Sellafield nuclear recycling plant is mired in debt and costly breakdowns.

    We have explained to you how the nuclear industry promotes false information about nuclear power’s ability to mitigate the effects of catastrophic climate disasters. Millions of dollars are spent in marketing campaigns to convince the public that nuclear power will prevent global warming. But the evidence is incontrovertible that nuclear power is the slowest and costliest way to reduce CO2 emissions. Financing nuclear power diverts scarce resources from investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Enormous sums spent for nuclear power would worsen the effects of global warming by buying less carbon-free energy per dollar, compared to investing those sums in sun, wind or efficiency. Nor is nuclear power carbon free. It uses fossil fuels for the mining, milling and processing of uranium, as well as for reactor decommissioning and waste disposition and depends on a grid usually powered by coal. It is unreliable in extreme weather conditions and needs back up power to prevent meltdown. In the summer of 2004, France had to shut down a number of reactors during an extreme heat wave.

    We have spoken to you of the folly of lusting for mastery of nuclear technology as a matter of “national pride”. This is holdover thinking from the 1960s when nuclear power developed in industrialized nations. Many scientists in developing countries were trained in nuclear technology as part of the Atoms for Peace programs in the US, Russia and Europe during the late 1950s and in the 1960s. Nuclear power growth stalled in the industrialized countries by the late 1980s, especially after the tragedies of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and as its economic burdens became clear. But by then the former young scientists were entrenched in running the industry and like their nuclear reactors were now middle aged and unwilling to let go of their positions of power.

    The nuclear renaissance was to be a passing on of the inheritance to the next generation but real world constraints are making this generation of new reactors even more problematic than the last and the nuclear baton is not likely to pass out of the existing “club”. The enormous cost and safety problems are still here. In the industrialized nations, the nuclear industry has great difficulty in recruiting nuclear engineers. Due to global shortages in nuclear reactor components it’s not possible for the world nuclear industry to build more that 10 reactors a year at most for the next decade. Because all of the operating reactors will have to be retired in that time, 1070 reactors would have to be built in 42 years, or about 25 reactors per year, in order for nuclear technology to lower carbon emissions of even one billion tons per year.

    In a “wedge” model which assumes that nuclear power could replace a portion of the energy used by coal fired plants, the effort expended would be insufficient to have even the smallest impact on climate change. And because the limited supply of production capacity to produce new reactors creates a seller’s market, the industry is much more likely to sell to countries with nuclear experience. This is due to the risks associated with inordinately long lead times for new construction, security and liability issues, and already existing infrastructure. Thus developing countries or countries with no nuclear industry will probably be rebuffed and are well advised to put their energy investments into much more reliable renewable sources

    Nevertheless, proposals to try to control civilian nuclear fuel production have sparked new interest in acquiring nuclear technology by countries that never wanted such technology before. A top-down, hierarchical, centrally controlled nuclear apartheid fuel cycle is being planned, 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! These discriminatory proposals are doomed to fail. With the growing chorus of promising new calls for a nuclear free world, there is no need for any nation to have a virtual bomb in the basement. Far better to leap frog over this antiquated, poisonous 20th century technology and expend your financial and intellectual treasure on clean, safe renewable energy, averting the twin catastrophes of nuclear proliferation and radical climate change, while adding your nation’s voice to the growing numbers of world leaders demanding that negotiations for nuclear weapons abolition move forward.

    Critical energy investment choices must be made now if we are to prevent the looming climate calamity. Every thirty minutes, enough of the sun’s energy reaches the earth’s surface to meet global energy demand for an entire year. Wind has the potential to satisfy the world’s electricity needs 40 times over and could meet all global energy demand five times over. The geothermal energy stored in the top six miles of the earth’s crust contains an estimated 50,000 times the energy of the world’s known oil and gas resources. Global wave power, tidal and river power are vast untapped stores of clean energy. IRENA is dedicated to supporting nations to develop and share the research and technology that will enable us to harness that abundant, free energy to secure the future of our planet.

    While the NPT guarantees to States which 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. During the Age of Enlightenment natural law theory challenged the divine right of kings. The United States’ Declaration of Independence spoke of “self-evident truth” that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights …to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Where does “peaceful nuclear technology” fit in this picture?!? Just as the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban abrogated the right to peaceful nuclear explosions in Article V of the NPT, we urge you to adopt a protocol to the NPT mandating participation in the newly launched International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) which would supersede the Article IV right to “peaceful” nuclear technology.

    Civil Society’s Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, now an official UN document, includes an Optional Protocol Concerning Energy Assistance which would phase out nuclear power and provide funding and assist nations to shift to non-nuclear sustainable energy sources. Universal enrollment in IRENA, coupled with a moratorium on new reactors and fuel production, while phasing out nuclear power by relying on safe, renewable energy, must become an integral part of the good faith negotiations required to eliminate nuclear weapons. We urge your enrollment and participation with IRENA. Since IRENA was launched in January with 75 countries, two new countries, Belarus and India have signed its Statute. NGOs will campaign for 100% universal participation in IRENA by the 2010 Review Conference. Please join us!! Add your nation to the list!! It’s time to give peace a chance!

    Alice Slater is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s New York representative.

  • Bridging the Vision and the Corridors of Power

    A world free of nuclear weapons has been the dream of all humanity ever since those dreaded weapons first made their appearance on the global scene. However, there has always been a seemingly unbridgeable gulf between such dreams and aspirations and the thought processes that operate in the corridors of power. There they are dismissed as visionary and idealistic, for the world of realpolitik operates on power and not on ideals.

    The speech of President Obama in Prague on April 5th 2009 has built a significant bridge between the world of aspiration and the world of power. Here, from the world’s most exalted seat of power, has come a call for an end to this menace which threatens the future of humanity, imperils all civilization and jettisons the values painfully built up over millennia of thought and sacrifice.

    The message that leaps forth from the heart of humanity for the abolition of these weapons has never struck an answering chord from the wielders of nuclear power. The conviction with which President Obama emphasizes America’s commitment to a world without nuclear weapons sends rays of hope radiating through the entire world community.

    For more than sixty years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki the world has been appalled by the unprecedented power of nuclear weapons to produce human suffering on a scale never visualized before. Attila and Genghis Khan pale into insignificance as perpetrators of cruelty when compared to the bomb. Yet this weapon which violates every canon of humane conduct and humanitarian law has continued to be protected by those who have it and to be sought after by those who do not, while the voice of protest passes muted and unheard.

    The easier accessibility of the necessary knowledge to put together a crude nuclear weapon grows by the day, and far from humanity being able to remove from its horizons this threat to its very existence, the world permits the danger from this source to keep growing day by day, month by month and year by year. Now more than ever before, there is an imperative need for humanity to jettison this danger to its very survival and the survival of all that it holds dear. As the President so rightly observes, the risk of a nuclear attack has increased. Indeed it has increased to the point where we need urgent action to eliminate it in the next few years rather than the next few decades.

    Possessors of the nuclear weapon have propagated the myth that the possession of the nuclear weapon has kept us free from nuclear war for over sixty years, when on the contrary it has brought us near to total destruction time and again. The erection of the Berlin wall 1948, the Suez crisis 1956, and the Cuban missile crisis 1962 are but a few of a series of occasions when good fortune rather than good judgment saved humanity from catastrophe. As President Obama has so rightly observed, “generations have lived with the knowledge that their world could be erased in a single flash of light”.

    These are reasons why President Obama’s speech needs to be greeted world wide with hope, support and admiration. Affirmative steps are urgently required from the power centres of this world if the desired result is to be achieved. The US call is a great expression of world leadership in one of the most important calls to action we have witnessed in recent times.

    When the 20th century dawned there was a universal hope that the mistakes of the previous century of war would be left behind and that a brand new century of peace could be planned. That hope was bungled and humanity made a sorry mess of the 20th century which became the bloodiest century on record.

    With the dawn of the 21st century there was likewise a universal yearning for a century of peace. We have however entered it on a note of war and if we do not correct our course, we will have no 22nd century to put our house in order. If the 20th century was our century of lost opportunity the 21st is our century of last opportunity, because no other century has commenced with humanity having the power to destroy itself and all its achievements over the centuries.

    It is in the next few years that we need to put our affairs in order on the nuclear front, because as President Obama has observed the risk of nuclear attack has gone up. Indeed the nuclear danger grows from day to day. A number of different causes induce this urgency. Among these are:

    • The growth in the number of nuclear powers
    • The growth in the number of states seeking nuclear power
    • The increase in the power and spread of terrorist groups
    • The proliferation of the necessary knowledge to make a nuclear weapon
    • The easy availability of materials necessary to put together a nuclear weapons with tens of thousands of tons of uranium being discharged from hundreds of nuclear reactors across the world
    • The lack of a comprehensive record even by the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, of such material and the trafficking in such material
    • The ever present possibility of nuclear accidents with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in storage and many of them in readiness for use
    • The launch on warning capability LOWC of several countries, with hair trigger devices set to detect incoming objects and respond to them within minutes, if not seconds
    • The increase in the number of mini-wars raging throughout the world which could attract the intervention of more powerful participants
    • The increasing disregard for international law in the world community
    • The increasing number of flashpoints of international tensions
    • The continuing disregard of international law and international obligations by the nuclear powers
    • Continued research on and improvement of nuclear weapons
    • The difficulty of maintaining nuclear stockpiles, inventorising them, storing them and policing them
    • The increasing number of suicide bombers now available for carrying out desperate projects

    The International Court of Justice unanimously pronounced in 1996 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. There can be no weightier pronouncement on international law than a unanimous decision of the International Court of Justice. Any nuclear power that disregards this decision is a violator of international law. President Obama’s call for action is an important step towards upholding the integrity of international law.

    For all these reasons President Obama’s statement is a landmark event on the international scene. It gives hope where earlier there was total resignation to the inevitability of a world dominated by nuclear weapons. It shows that the human spirit can rise triumphant against seemingly insuperable obstacles. It shows that we still enjoy the possibility of visionary and humanitarian world leadership.

    As President Obama has observed the United States as the only power to have used the nuclear weapon “has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavour alone, but we can lead it, we can start it”

    Here is a clarion call to action which cannot but induce hope and happiness in all who have lived so long under the shadow of the mushroom cloud. It sends a thrill of optimism into the hearts of those who have despaired at the insensitivity that prevails in high places on such cardinal issues on which the world has long waited for global leadership.

    In short, the Prague speech was an outstanding statement by an outstanding leader on an issue of seminal importance to the human future. The least that can be done is for all people of goodwill across the world to give their whole hearted support to this magnificent new initiative to work towards a world which will live once more without the nuclear weapon hanging like the sword of Damocles over the human habitat, human civilization, human values and humanity itself.

    Christopher Weeramantry is the former Vice President of the International Court of Justice and a member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council.

  • The Unthinkable Becomes Thinkable: Towards the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

    The meeting of US and Russian presidents has prompted us to speak out about the global abolition of nuclear arms. The urgency can hardly be exaggerated: nuclear weapons may come into the possession of states that might use them as well as stateless terrorists—creating new threats of unimaginable proportion.

    A noble dream just several years ago, the elimination of nuclear arms is no longer the idea of populists and pacifists; it is now a call of professionals—politicians known for their sense of realism and academics for their sense of responsibility.

    An inspiration to discuss a world free from nuclear peril came from a statement by four US statesmen, two Democrats and two Republicans. In ‘A World Free of Nuclear Weapons’ (Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007), former US secretaries of state George Schultz and Henry Kissinger, former defence secretary William Perry, and former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn proposed several measures in pursuit of this goal. A year later, in another article expanding their initiative, they used this metaphor: “[T]he 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” (WSJ, Jan. 15, 2008).

    These words provoked an avalanche of support from leading figures on the British political scene, from Italian politicians from the left, centre and right, and eminent figures on the German political scene, whether Social Democrats, Christian Democrats or Liberals.

    In January 2009, 130 world politicians and scientists gathered in Paris to sign the Global Zero Declaration. Elsewhere, the governments of Australia and Japan established an International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. Leading research centres in all corners of the globe are working on reports to provide arguments for a political decision on the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

    We are now adding our voice from Poland, a country tested by the atrocities of World War II, and familiar with the nuclear threats of the Cold War period. A country heavily affected by the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl.

    This growing concern mirrors the perception of new threats and risks. The invention of nuclear weapons—which served the goal of deterrence during the Cold War, with the world divided into two opposing blocks—answered the needs and risks of the time. Security rested on a balance of fear, as reflected in the concept of mutual assured destruction. In that bipolar world, nuclear weapons were held by only five global powers, permanent members of the UN Security Council.

    Today the global picture is different. Sparked by the Solidarity movement in Poland, the erosion of communist systems in Central and Eastern Europe led to our region’s new “Springtime of the Peoples”. With the Warsaw Pact dissolved and the Soviet Union disintegrated, the bipolar world and its East-West divide vanished. And the hope for a better future came to our hearts.

    An order based on the dangerous doctrine of mutual deterrence, was not, however, replaced with a system founded on cooperation and interdependence. Destabilization and chaos followed, accompanied by a sense of uncertainty and unpredictability. Nuclear weapons are now also held by three states in conflict: India, Pakistan and Israel. Given the development of the nuclear programmes in North Korea and Iran, both these countries may also become nuclear-weapon states, and there is a real danger that this group may further expand to include states where governments will not always be guided by rational considerations. There is also the risk that nuclear weapons may fall into the hands of non-state actors, such as extremists from terrorist groupings.

    We share the view that an effective non-proliferation regime will not be possible unless the major nuclear powers, especially the USA and Russia, take urgent steps towards nuclear disarmament. Together, they hold nearly 25,000 nuclear warheads—96% of the global nuclear arsenal.

    It gives us hope that US President Obama recognizes these dangers. We note with satisfaction that the new US administration has not turned a deaf ear to voices from statesmen and scientists. The goal of a nuclear-free world was incorporated in the US administration’s arms control and disarmament agenda. We appreciate the proposals from the UK, France and Germany. Russia has also signaled recently in Geneva its readiness to embark upon nuclear disarmament.

    Opponents of nuclear disarmament used to argue that this goal was unattainable in the absence of an effective system of control and verification. But today appropriate means of control are available to the international community. Of key importance are the nuclear safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The world must have guarantees that civilian nuclear reactors will not be used for military purposes – a condition for non-nuclear-weapon states’ unrestricted access to nuclear technologies as proposed recently Prime-Minister Brown in his initiative on A global nuclear bargain for our times. This is specially urgent at the present time, with the search for new energy sources and a “renaissance” of nuclear power.

    The 2010 NPT Review Conference calls for an urgent formulation of priorities. The Preparatory Committee will meet in New York this May, and this is where the required decisions should be made. The main expectations are for a reduction of nuclear armaments, a cutback in the number of launch-ready warheads (de-alerting), negotiations on a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty, ratification of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, and other means of strengthening practical implementation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, especially its universal adoption.

    The time has come for a fundamental change in the proceedings of the Geneva-based Disarmament Conference. It has for years failed to meet the international community’s expectations.

    We share the expectation expressed by the academics, politicians and experts of the international Warsaw Reflection Group, convened under auspices of the Polish Institute of International Affairs in co-operation with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) that consideration should be given to the zero option as a basis for a future multilateral nuclear disarmament agreement. The Group’s report, Arms Control Revisited: Non-proliferation and Denuclearization, elaborated under chairmanship of Adam D.Rotfeld of Poland and drafted by British scholar Ian Anthony of SIPRI was based on contributions made by security analysts from nuclear powers and Poland as well as from countries previously in possession of nuclear weapons (South Africa) and countries where they had been stored: post-Soviet armouries were located in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. The fact that these new states were denuclearized as part of the Safe and Secure Disarmament programme provides a valuable lesson.

    Today we have to set the process of gradual nuclear disarmament in motion. It will not produce results overnight but would give us a sense of direction, a chance to strengthen non-proliferation mechanisms, and an opportunity to establish a global, cooperative non-nuclear security system.

    The deadliest threat to global security comes from a qualitatively new wave of nuclear proliferation. The heaviest responsibility is shouldered by the powers that hold the largest arsenals. We trust that the presidents of the USA and Russia, and leaders of all other nuclear powers will show statesmanlike wisdom and courage, and that they will begin the process of freeing the world from the nuclear menace. For a new international security order, abolishing nuclear weapons is as important as respect for human rights and the rights of minorities and establishing in the world a governance based on rule of law and democracy.

    This article was originally published in Polish in the Gazeta Wyborcza on April 3, 2009

    Aleksander Kwaśniewski was Polish president between 1995 and 2005; Tadeusz Mazowiecki was prime minister in the first non-communist government of Poland (1989-1990); Lech Wałęsa, leader of the Solidarity movement and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1983), was Polish president between 1990 and 1995.