Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear age

  • The 50-Year Shadow

    Fifty years ago, I joined Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and eight others in signing a manifesto warning of the dire consequences of nuclear war. This statement, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, was Einstein’s final public act. He died shortly after signing it. Now, in my 97th year, I am the only remaining signatory. Because of this, I feel it is my duty to carry Einstein’s message forward, into this 60th year since the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which evoked almost universal opposition to any further use of nuclear weapons.

    I was the only scientist to resign on moral grounds from the United States nuclear weapons program known as the Manhattan Project. On Aug. 6, 1945, I switched on my radio and heard that we had dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. I knew that a new era had dawned in which nuclear weapons would be used, and I grew worried about the future of mankind.

    Several years later, I met Bertrand Russell on the set of the BBC Television program “Panorama,” where we discussed the new hydrogen bomb. I had become an authority on the biological effects of radiation after examining the fallout from the American hydrogen bomb test in Bikini Atoll in 1954. Russell, who was increasingly agitated about the developments, started to come to me for information. Russell decided to persuade a number of eminent scientists from around the world to join him in issuing a statement outlining the dangers of thermonuclear war and calling on the scientific community to convene a conference on averting that danger.

    The most eminent scientist alive at that time was Albert Einstein, who responded immediately and enthusiastically to Russell’s entreaty. And so the man who symbolized the height of human intellect adopted what became his last message – this manifesto, which implored governments and the public not to allow our civilization to be destroyed by human folly. The manifesto also highlighted the perils of scientific progress in a world rent by the titanic struggle over communism. I was the youngest of the 11 signatories, but Russell asked me to lead the press conference in London to present the manifesto to the public.

    The year was 1955, and cold war fears and hostilities were at their height. We took action then because we felt that the world situation was entering a dangerous phase, in which extraordinary efforts were required to prevent a catastrophe.

    Now, two generations later, as the representatives of nearly 190 nations meet in New York to discuss how to advance the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, we face the same perils and new ones as well. Today we confront the possibilities of nuclear terrorism and of the development of yet more new nuclear warheads in the United States. The two former superpowers still hold enormous nuclear arsenals. North Korea and Iran are advancing their capability to build nuclear weapons. Other nations are increasingly likely to acquire nuclear arsenals on the excuse that they are needed for their security. The result could be a new nuclear arms race.

    Fifty years ago we wrote: “We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?” That question is as relevant today as it was in 1955. So is the manifesto’s admonition: “Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.”

    Joseph Rotblat, a physicist and emeritus president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.

    Originally published in the New York Times

  • Nuclear Renaissance

    The review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), a five-yearly event, opened in New York on May 2 without benefit of an agenda. The conference had no agenda because the world has no agenda with respect to nuclear arms. Broadly speaking, two groups of nations are setting the pace of events. One — the possessors of nuclear arms under the terms of the treaty, comprising the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China — wants to hold on to its nuclear arsenals indefinitely. The other group — call them the proliferators — has only recently acquired the weapons or would like to do so. Notable among them are North Korea, which by its own account has built a small arsenal, and Iran, which appears to be using its domestic nuclear-power program to create a nuclear-weapon capacity.

    As the conference began, Iran announced that it would soon end a moratorium on the production of fissile materials and Pyongyang declared that it had become a full-fledged nuclear power — a declaration buttressed by testimony in the Senate from the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, that North Korea now has rockets capable of landing nuclear warheads on the United States. If the two countries establish themselves as nuclear powers, a long list of other countries in the Middle East and North Asia may seek to follow suit. In that case, the NPT will be a dead letter, and the gates of unlimited proliferation will swing open.

    The two groups of nations are in collision. The possessors want to stop the proliferators, and the proliferators want to defy them as well as ask them to get rid of their own mountainous nuclear arsenals. One of the liveliest debates at the conference concerns the nuclear fuel cycle, whereby fuel for both nuclear power and nuclear bomb materials is made. In the possessor countries, proposals abound to restrict this capacity to themselves, thus digging a moat around not only their arsenals but their nuclear productive capacities as well. The proliferators respond that the world’s nuclear double-standard should not be fortified but eliminated: In the long run, either everyone should have the right to the fuel cycle — and for that matter to the bombs — or no one should. (This was the view of Pakistan and India until, in May 1998, they remedied the inequity in their own cases by testing nuclear weapons and declaring themselves nuclear powers.)

    Far more contentious is the new American military doctrine of pre-emptive war, aimed at stopping proliferation by force, as the United States said it sought to do by overthrowing the government of Iraq. Inasmuch as the Bush administration has suggested that even nuclear force might be used, the new policy represents the ultimate extreme of the double standard: The United States will use nuclear weapons to stop other countries from getting those same weapons. The proliferators accordingly fear a world whose commanding heights will be guarded by the nuclear cannons of a few nations, while the rest of the world cowers in the planet’s lowlands and back alleys. Nuclear disarmament, once the domain of the peace-loving, would become a prime engine of war in an imposed, militarized global order.

    The debate between the nuclear haves and have-nots is probably unresolvable anytime soon. Certainly it will not be settled at the review conference. And yet, as is true of so many adversaries, the two groups of nations have more in common with each other than with other nations: They both want nuclear weapons. And if one looks at what is happening on the ground, a remarkable uniformity appears. All the parties in this quarrel are expanding their nuclear capacities and missions. In a sense the two groups, even as they threaten each other with annihilation, are cooperating in nuclearizing the globe.

    The end of the cold war was supposed to be the beginning of a farewell to nuclear danger, but now, fifteen years later, it’s clear that a nuclear renaissance is under way. China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Britain are all increasing their arsenals and/or their delivery systems. (In an amazingly undernoticed development, the shadow of danger from Chinese nuclear weapons is falling over larger and larger areas of the United States.) The United States, even as it reduces the number of its alert nuclear weapons — though not the total number of nuclear weapons, alert or otherwise — is rotating its nuclear guns away from their traditional Cold War targets and toward Third World sites. (The United States and Russia built up such an excess of nuclear bombs during the Cold War that they can string out their dismantlement almost indefinitely without carving into their joint capacity to finish off most of human civilization.) Britain likewise is redirecting its targeting. Its Defense Secretary has stated that even the modest step of declaring no-first-use of nuclear weapons “would be incompatible with our and NATO’s doctrine of deterrence, nor would it further nuclear disarmament objectives.” In other words, Britain may find it necessary to initiate a nuclear war to achieve nuclear disarmament. Finally, individuals and terrorist groups are reaching for the bomb and other weapons of mass destruction. Osama bin Laden, for instance, has declared that obtaining such is the “religious duty” of Muslims, and September 11 gave us an example of how he might use them.

    All but unheard in the snarling din are the true voices of peace — voices calling on the one group of nations to resist the demonic allure of nuclear arms and on the other group to rid themselves of the ones they have, leaving the world with a single standard: no nuclear weapons. Of the countries represented at the conference, fully 183 have found it entirely possible to live without atomic arsenals, and few — barring a breakdown of the treaty — show any sign of changing their minds. In the UN General Assembly the vast majority of them have voted regularly for nuclear abolition. Behind those votes stand the people of the world, who, when asked, agree. Even the people of the United States are in the consensus. Presented by AP pollsters in March with the statement, “No country should be allowed to have nuclear weapons,” 66% agreed. In other countries, the percentage of supporters is higher. On the day their voices are heard and their will made active, the end of the nuclear age will be in sight.

    Jonathan Schell, author of The Unconquerable World, received the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2003 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.

    Originally published by The Nation Magazine.

  • 2005: A Year of Significant Anniversaries

    2005 is a year of important anniversaries of the Nuclear Age. It marks the 60th anniversary of the first test of an atomic weapon, an event that occurred at Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. Just weeks later, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were each destroyed with a single atomic bomb, announcing to the world the onset of the Nuclear Age. Hibakusha — the survivors of these bombings, who have worked throughout their lives for the abolition of nuclear weapons — will gather with others from throughout the world on August 6th and 9th to renew their fervent plea of “Never again!” on the 60th anniversary of these bombings.

    This year commemorates the 50 th anniversary of the death of the great scientist Albert Einstein, whose theories changed our understanding of the universe and the relationship of energy to matter. At the urging of his friend Leo Szilard, Einstein sent a letter to President Roosevelt in 1939 urging the United States to explore the possibility of an atomic weapon in order to be prepared to deter such weapons in the hands of Nazi Germany. Einstein later referred to his letter to Roosevelt as the greatest mistake of his life. Both Einstein and Szilard were active until their deaths in trying to abolish these most terrible weapons that they felt responsible for bringing into the world.

    July 9, 2005 marks the 50th anniversary of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, the last public document to which Einstein gave his support. The document sounded a grave warning to humanity. “No doubt,” it stated, “in an H-bomb war great cities would be obliterated. But this is one of the minor disasters that would have to be faced.” Einstein, along with Bertrand Russell and the nine other prominent scientists who joined them in signing the Manifesto, warned that nuclear war could put an end to humanity. Their solution was to abolish war, a solution they understood to be both incredibly difficult and absolutely necessary. The Manifesto stated: “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?” Fifty years later, we remain confronted by this overriding problem.

    The 35th anniversary of the entry into force of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will also be observed in 2005. It is the world’s only treaty that requires the nuclear weapons states to make good faith efforts to achieve complete nuclear disarmament. Five years ago, at the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the parties to the treaty, now numbering 188 countries, agreed by consensus to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. This was viewed throughout the world as a means to fulfill the treaty obligations of the nuclear weapons states to achieve nuclear disarmament. Among the most important of the 13 points is one requiring “[a]n unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals….”

    Commitments made in 2000, however, have been thrown into severe doubt by the failure of the nuclear weapons states, and particularly the United States, to fulfill their obligations. US backtracking on the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament is casting a long shadow on the prospects for success at the 2005 NPT Review Conference that will be held in May at United Nations headquarters.

    Humankind cannot indefinitely postpone making a choice. One choice is to do nothing. Another choice is to heed the warnings of Einstein and Russell and seek to fulfill the aspirations of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a world without nuclear weapons. The latter course will require creative and persistent public education and advocacy, particularly in the nuclear weapons states. This is the daily work of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, as you will see in this report. I encourage you to visit our www.wagingpeace.org website regularly and to become an active participant in our Turn the Tide Campaign as well as our many other activities for a more secure and nuclear weapons-free future.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).

  • News Media in the 60th Year of the Nuclear Age

    Top officials in Washington are now promoting jitters about Iran’s nuclear activities, while media outlets amplify the message. A confrontation with Tehran is on the second-term Bush agenda. So, we’re encouraged to obliquely think about the unthinkable.

    But no one can get very far trying to comprehend the enormity of nuclear weapons. They’ve shadowed human consciousness for six decades. From the outset, deception has been key.

    Lies from the White House have been part of the nuclear rationalizing process ever since August 1945. President Harry Truman spoke to the American public three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Calling the civilian-filled Japanese city a “military base,” Truman said: “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.”

    Actually, U.S. planners had sought a large urban area for the nuclear cross hairs because – as Manhattan Project director Gen. Leslie Groves later acknowledged – it was “desirable that the first target be of such size that the damage would be confined within it, so that we could more definitely determine the power of the bomb.” Thirty-five years later, when I looked at the U.S. Energy Department’s official roster of “Announced United States Nuclear Tests,” the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were on the list.

    We’re now six decades into the Nuclear Age. And we’re farther than ever, it seems, from a momentously difficult truth that Albert Einstein uttered during its first years, when the U.S. government still held a monopoly on the split atom. “This basic power of the universe cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms,” he wrote. “For there is no secret and there is no defense; there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world.”

    Today, no phrase could better describe U.S. foreign policies – or American media coverage – than “narrow nationalisms.” The officials keep putting on a proudly jingoistic show, and journalists report it without fundamental challenge.

    So, any whiff of sanity is conspicuous. Just before Thanksgiving, when the House and Senate voted to cut funding of research for a new line of tactical nuclear weapons including “bunker buster” warheads, the decision was reported as the most significant victory for arms-control advocates since the early 1990s. That’s because the nuclear-weapons industry has been running amok for so long.

    While Uncle Sam continues to maintain a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying life on Earth, the American finger-wagging at Iran is something righteous to behold.

    Current alarms, wailing about an alleged Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons, are being set off by the same Bush administration officials who declared that an invasion of Iraq was imperative because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. As we now know, he didn’t. But that hasn’t stopped the Bush team from launching the same kind of media campaign against Iran – based on unverified claims by Iranian exiles with a track record of inaccuracy and a clear motive to pull Washington into military action. Sound familiar?

    We ought to be able to recognize what’s wrong with U.S. officials who lecture Iran about the evils of nuclear-arms proliferation while winking at Israel’s arsenal, estimated to include 200 nuclear weapons.

    When Einstein called for “the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world,” he was describing a need that news media ought to help fill. But instead, mostly we get the official stories: dumbed-down, simplistic, and – yes – narrowly nationalistic. The themes are those of Washington’s powerful: our nukes good, our allies’ nukes pretty good, unauthorized nukes very bad.

    That sort of propaganda drumbeat won’t be convincing to people who doubt that a Christian Bomb is good and a Jewish Bomb is good but an Islamic Bomb is bad. You don’t have to be an Einstein to understand that people are rarely persuaded by hypocritical messages along the lines of “Do as we say, not as we do.”

    Norman Solomon is co-author, with Reese Erlich, of ” Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You. ” His columns and other writings can be found at ” Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience With Atomic Radiation ” (Delacorte Press, 1982), a book by Harvey Wasserman and Norman Solomon, is online at: http://www.ratical.org/radiation/KillingOurOwn

  • Terrorism Has Altered The Nuclear Equation Forever

    LOS ANGELES: Fifty years ago this month President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his Atoms for Peace proposal at the United Nations. This seminal event laid the groundwork for much of the nuclear enterprise that we see around the world today. It also generated a nuclear Trojan horse.

    Countries around the world greeted the prospects of the atom with glee: nuclear power plants would be too cheap to meter and nuclear isotopes would generate a renaissance in science, medicine and industry. While the atom contributed to some of these laudable objectives, it unwittingly booby-trapped the landscape with nuclear mines that terrorists can now set off.

    The world is littered with possibilities. Dirty-bomb ingredients are ubiquitous. They are in hospitals and industry. They are transported through cities as nuclear waste to storage sites. They cannot just disappear. Nuclear power plants are vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Nuclear weapons derived from the peaceful atom reside in such unstable countries as Pakistan and North Korea. In more stable regions, countries insist on recycling weapons useable plutonium which can be diverted.

    Booby-trapping the world certainly was not Eisenhower’s intention. Anguished by the accelerating nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, he sought a way out. His solution was to reduce the capacity of the superpowers to produce nuclear weapons by conveying their “normal uranium and fissionable materials” to an atomic energy agency. The new organization would house and distribute the stocks for peaceful purposes.

    While an international “bank of fissionable material” never came about, the Atoms for Peace address broke the American inhibition against spreading nuclear knowledge and technology to the rest of the world. In 1955, Washington initiated the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. Twenty-five thousand scientists descended on Geneva to take advantage of the declassification of documents that held many of the secrets of the nuclear age.

    Washington did not proceed down this road naïvely. It knew that Atoms for Peace was not risk-free. But it faced a conundrum: if the United States did not promote the atom, it could not control it either. Knowledge is universal; inevitably, the rest of the world would catch up. The challenge was to build dikes to curtail the negative implications of the spread of nuclear technology. In 1957, the International Atomic Energy Agency was created to promote and monitor global nuclear markets. The 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty sought to halt the ambitions of nations to get the bomb in return for the peaceful nuclear assistance. Domestic and international controls over nuclear and dual-use exports followed. Most recently, Washington gathered several nations together in a Proliferation Security Initiative to intercept nuclear contraband.

    The dikes were not enough to prevent seepage. Israel used the “peaceful” atom provided by a French research reactor to develop the bomb. India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iraq and South Africa followed. At the same time, the United States beat back the temptations of Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, West Germany and Taiwan. When regimes changed in Belarus, Ukraine, South Africa and now Iraq, nuclear weapons programs were abandoned.

    As the international community reinforced its dikes against proliferation, it continued to build its peaceful nuclear infrastructure oblivious to another risk: nuclear terrorism. During the early nuclear era, terrorism as we know it today had not raised its ugly head. When it did emerge in the 1970’s, terrorists seemed mindful about the political costs of taking too many innocent lives.

    Nonetheless, even from the beginning of the nuclear age, the creators speculated on the risks of nuclear terrorism. In 1944, scientists at University of Chicago working on the Manhattan Project conjectured that a political group could unleash a nuclear blitzkrieg by smuggling an atomic weapon into the United States on a commercial aircraft. The terrorism of the 1970’s prompted public policy groups, many driven by a phobia of all things nuclear, to demand that weapons-useable plutonium and highly enriched uranium no longer fuel nuclear power and research reactors. The Europeans, Russians and Japanese resisted. America wavered. Then, many of these same groups began asking questions about the vulnerability of nuclear plants to terrorist attack. American officials took umbrage.

    As the 20th century ended, the absence of any serious act of nuclear violence convinced officials that nuclear terror would remain to province of fiction writers. Then the Sept. 11 attacks occurred. President George W. Bush announced that in the caves of Afghanistan, U.S. forces had uncovered plots to attack nuclear power plants. But eliminating the risks in the short run was impossible. Enhancing protection, while imperfect, remained the only option.

    As we map our nuclear future we should be mindful of the closing remarks of Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace speech: “The United States pledges before you – and therefore before the world – its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma – to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.”

    In the post-Sept. 11 world, solving “the fearful atomic dilemma” requires not more but less Atoms for Peace. The risk of nuclear terrorism, coupled to the environmental and proliferation burdens the initiative gave rise to, now requires that we roll back Eisenhower’s vision and try to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle.

    *This article was originally published in Atoms for Peace’. The writer, who served in the State Department’s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs during the first Bush administration, is author of “Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy.”

  • Choose Hope – An Interview with Dr. David Krieger Living Buddhism, Journal of Peace, Culture and Education

    “Ordinary people can and must guide their leaders to create a future free from a nuclear menace.” This is the theme of Choose Hope, published this month by Middleway Press. It is a dialogue between Soka Gakkai International president, Daisaku Ikeda and Dr. David Krieger, founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

    This dialogue reveals how the development of true peace can grow only when narrow national loyalties are surpassed by a shared global vision. Inspiring examples of individuals working for an end to the nuclear threat showcase the role everyday people can play in the quest for peace. Living Buddhism interviewed Dr. Krieger about the book, which is available at leading bookstores and online.

    Living Buddhism: The title of your new book is Choose Hope. How do you define hope and what does it have to do with the seemingly intractable problems of war and the nuclear threat?

    David Krieger: The title of the book reflects our belief that hope must be a conscious choice. It is possible also to choose hopelessness or, in other words, to believe that nothing or not much is possible in the way of positive change. This is a formula for giving up and withdrawing into complacency and apathy, which are pervasive malaises of our time.

    I define hope as the belief that we can realize our dreams by our efforts. I don’t see hope as being wildly detached from reality and certainly not detached from our own efforts. I don’t think that hope is a magic wand that by itself can change the world, but it can certainly give direction and energy to one’s intention.

    Related to problems of war and nuclear threat, hope is a starting point for seeking change. War is our most destructive means of attempting to resolve human conflicts and, in fact, doesn’t resolve them. When nuclear weapons are added into the mix, war could result in the annihilation of large populations, even of the human species. Of course, we should not give up hope that we can make a difference on issues of such importance. Without hope, we are, in a sense, giving up on humanity and we simply can’t do this. We owe it to all previous generations and to all whom will follow us on Earth, to maintain our hope and to work for a world without nuclear weapons and without war.

    LB: The book’s subtitle is “Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age.” Weapons policy, international relations and the nuclear threat seem very far removed from most people’s daily life concerns. With all the problems ordinary people have to deal with, what role are you urging people to take on? Can these efforts truly effect change?

    Krieger: It’s true that problems of a global scope may appear removed from our daily lives, but, of course, they are not. Finding solutions to these great global problems may be the most significant challenge of our time. The future of humanity rides on how we deal with these problems. If citizens opt out, decisions on weapons and warfare will be made by leaders whose interests are not necessarily aligned with the best interests of humanity and of future generations. These problems are far too important to be left to political or military leaders. I’m urging ordinary citizens throughout the world to engage in issues of war and peace because their voices and their efforts are needed. We all need to engage as if our very lives depended upon it because they do.

    I remember being with Jacques Cousteau, a man deeply committed to the welfare of future generations, when he said: “The time has come when speaking is not enough, applauding is not enough. We have to act.” It is time to act. I’d like to see ordinary citizens become change makers for a world free of nuclear weapons. One concrete action they can take is to sign, circulate and spread the word about our Foundation’s Appeal to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity and All Life, which they can find on our web site at www.wagingpeace.org. The principles in this Appeal can help guide their actions.

    It is difficult to know if our efforts will bring about the change we desire. We can’t be certain, but we must proceed as if they will bring about this change because the alternative of giving up hope and doing nothing is unacceptable.

    LB: In the book, you and Mr. Ikeda advocate abolishing nuclear weapons. With the chance of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists and so-called rogue states, wouldn’t the United States be making itself vulnerable and weak if it gave up its nuclear stockpiles?

    Krieger: We’re not advocating that the US alone give up its nuclear arsenal. The elimination of these weapons would be done multilaterally and in phases and with verification and confidence-building measures to assure that all nuclear-armed nations were also eliminating their nuclear arsenals. In a world without nuclear weapons, the US would remain a very powerful nation. Giving up its nuclear arsenal would certainly not make the US vulnerable and weak.

    Mr. Ikeda and I agree strongly on the need to abolish nuclear weapons. This is a position nearly uniformly supported by the people of Japan where they know first-hand the terrible effects of the use of nuclear weapons. The truth is that nuclear weapons make a country more vulnerable rather than less so. If you have nuclear weapons, you must rely upon nuclear deterrence, the threat of nuclear retaliation, for security. But deterrence cannot provide security against terrorists, who do not fear retaliation, or against accidental launches.

    The more reliance there is by some states on nuclear weapons, the more likely it is that these weapons will proliferate to other countries and find their way into the hands of terrorists. That is why the United States, which now possesses overwhelming military force, should lead the way toward achieving the phased, verifiable and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons. That would require wisdom and compassion. Such leadership is unlikely to come from political leaders. It is far more likely to originate from the people; ordinary people like you and me.

    LB: Through dialogue with Mr. Ikeda and association with SGI, have you learned anything that helps you in your own work?

    Krieger: I am very taken with Mr. Ikeda’s focus on “human revolution.” I share his belief that each of us has the power to make a difference far beyond our imaginations. Mr. Ikeda himself is an example of a single individual who has made an enormous difference in our world. Through his vision and perseverance, he has created a wide array of noble institutions that educate young people and contribute to the common good. I am also impressed by Mr. Ikeda’s tremendous commitment to dialogue and the open and flexible mind that he brings to solving problems. His annual peace proposals are among the most thoughtful and useful contributions to the global dialogue on bettering humanity’s future.

    I am also very appreciative of the positive spirit of the members of the SGI who I have met. As individuals and as an organization, there seems to be a deep concern in the SGI for embracing the world and all of its inhabitants. There is also a “can do” attitude, a willingness to roll up one’s sleeves and work, which I appreciate very much.

    LB: What are your long-term goals for this book?

    Krieger: One of my goals for this book is to help awaken people to action to create a better world, a world in which people are valued for what they contribute of themselves, not what they possess. I would be very pleased if this book helped people to see that hope is indeed a conscious choice and a starting point for committed action. I’d be delighted if Choose Hope encouraged more young people to become involved in the great issues of our time, engaging with compassion, commitment and courage. I hope that the book will contribute to realizing the dream of a world free of nuclear weapons.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence

    Part II of II

    Chapter I PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES Article I

    The Purposes of the United Nations are:

    1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

    2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

    3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

    4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

    Certainly, all of these Purposes of the United Nations would be defeated and set at naught in the event that nuclear weapons were actually used.

    In the above-quoted Paragraph 48 of the Advisory Opinion the Court appears to condemn nuclear deterrence once again in no uncertain terms, and to include within this rubric the possession of nuclear weapons with the intention and imminent capability to use them. Hence, such possession of nuclear weapons is clearly illegal and, I might add, criminal as well. This conclusion by the World Court as to the illegality of the possession of nuclear weapons goes far beyond anything argued in most of the scholarly literature produced on this subject during the past two decades. For this reason, Paragraph 48 stands as a resounding vindication to that handful of courageous scholars who have taken the position that the possession of nuclear weapons is illegal despite enduring the guffaws and ridicule of their so-called colleagues.

    Nuclear Weapons and the Laws of War

    In regard to the defense of anti-nuclear resisters, the next critical passage of the World Court’s Advisory Opinion becomes Paragraph 77:

    77. All this shows that the conduct of military operations is governed by a body of legal prescriptions. This is so because “the right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited” as stated in Article 22 of the 1907 Hague Regulations relating to the laws and customs of war on land. The St. Petersburg Declaration had already condemned the use of weapons “which uselessly aggravate the suffering of disabled men or make their death inevitable”. The aforementioned Regulations relating to the laws and customs of war on land, annexed to the Hague Convention IV of 1907, prohibit the use of “arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering” (Art. 23).

    It is clear, therefore, that the laws of war likewise apply to the threat and use of nuclear weapons.

    Nuclear weapons are “unlimited” in their effects. Nuclear weapons also uselessly aggravate the suffering of disabled men and women and make their deaths inevitable. Nuclear weapons also cause unnecessary suffering.

    Hence, t. The United States government is a contracting party to Hague Convention No. IV of 1907 and its annexed Regulations, which constitute a “treaty” and thus the “supreme Law of the Land” under Article VI of the United States Constitution. Therefore, current U.S. nuclear deterrence policies stand in anticipatory breach of Hague Convention No. IV and are therefore illegal and criminal.

    Nuclear Deterrence and International Humanitarian Law

    Paragraph 78 of the Advisory Opinion is directly on point with respect to maintaining the illegality of the threat and use of nuclear weapons, including therein nuclear deterrence:

    78. The cardinal principles contained in the texts constituting the fabric of humanitarian law are the following. The first is aimed at the protection of the civilian population and civilian objects and establishes the distinction between combatants and non-combatants; States must never make civilians the object of attack and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets. According to the second principle, it is prohibited to cause unnecessary suffering to combatants: it is accordingly prohibited to use weapons causing them such harm or uselessly aggravating their suffering. In application of that second principle, States do not have unlimited freedom of choice of means in the weapons they use.

    The Court would likewise refer, in relation to these principles, to the Martens Clause, which was first included in the Hague Convention II with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 1899 and which has proved to be an effective means of addressing the rapid evolution of military technology. A modern version of that clause is to be found in Article 1, paragraph 2, of Additional Protocol I of 1977, which reads as follows:

    “In cases not covered by this Protocol or by other international agreements, civilians and combatants remain under the protection and authority of the principles of international law derived from established custom, from the principles of humanity and from the dictates of public conscience.”

    In conformity with the aforementioned principles, humanitarian law, at a very early stage, prohibited certain types of weapons either because of their indiscriminate effect on combatants and civilians or because of the unnecessary suffering caused to combatants, that is to say, a harm greater than that unavoidable to achieve legitimate military objectives. If an envisaged use of weapons would not meet the requirements of humanitarian law, a threat to engage in such use would also be contrary to that law.

    The World Court clearly said: “States must never make civilians the object of attack and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets.” Yet, to the contrary, U.S. strategic nuclear weapons systems do indeed make civilians the direct object of attack, and because of their incredible explosive power are also incapable of distinguishing between civilians and military targets.

    The Court then goes on to say: “According to the second principle, it is prohibited to cause unnecessary suffering to combatants.” But clearly the use of nuclear weapons would cause unnecessary suffering to both combatants and to civilians, the latter of whom remain absolutely protected at all times. The well-documented human suffering in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provides conclusive evidence of the validity of this proposition.

    The Court concludes Paragraph 78 by stating: “If an envisaged use of weapons would not meet the requirements of humanitarian law, a threat to engage in such use would also be contrary to that law.” In other words, nuclear deterrence itself is illegal. For example, a nuclear weapons state such as the United States cannot lawfully threaten mass extermination when mass extermination itself would be clearly illegal and criminal. Here once again, the World Court implicitly condemns the whole doctrine of nuclear deterrence as being illegal and, I might add, criminal.

    Referring explicitly to the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions in Paragraph 79 of the Advisory Opinion, the World Court held as follows: “Further these fundamental rules are to be observed by all States whether or not they have ratified the conventions that contain them, because they constitute intransgressible principles of international customary law.” Of course, the United States government has ratified Hague Convention No. IV of 1907 and the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and so is bound to observe them a fortiori.

    Nuclear Weapons and Nuremberg Accountability

    In this regard, it is also significant that in Paragraph 80 of the Advisory Opinion, the World Court invokes and affirms the authority of the 1945 Nuremberg Judgment during the course of analyzing the legality of the threat and use of nuclear weapons under international humanitarian law. Furthermore, in Paragraph 81 of the Advisory Opinion, the World Court repeats with implicit approval the official assertion by the United Nations Secretary General that the Nuremberg Charter of 8 August 1945, inter alia, represents “‘…part of conventional international humanitarian law which has beyond doubt become part of international customary law…’” Thus, in Paragraphs 80 and 81 of the Advisory Opinion, the World Court deliberately and directly raises the specter of personal criminal responsibility under the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and I might add the Nuremberg Principles, for government decision-makers bearing command responsibility, aiding and abetting, or otherwise complicit in their country’s plans for the threat and use of nuclear weapons. Since I have already discussed these matters at great length elsewhere, I will not bother to repeat any of that analysis here.

    Nuclear Weapons and International Humanitarian Law

    The Court then turns directly to the question of the applicability of international humanitarian law to the threat and use of nuclear weapons and concludes in Paragraphs 85, 86 and 87 that the aforementioned principles of international humanitarian law apply to nuclear weapons just as they apply to any other weapon of warfare:

    85. …In the view of the vast majority of States as well as writers there can be no doubt as to the applicability of humanitarian law to nuclear weapons.

    86. The Court shares that view. … In this respect it seems significant that the thesis that the rules of humanitarian law do not apply to the new weaponry, because of the newness of the latter, has not been advocated in the present proceedings. On the contrary, the newness of nuclear weapons has been expressly rejected as an argument against the application to them of international humanitarian law:

    ….

    None of the statements made before the Court in any way advocated a freedom to use nuclear weapons without regard to humanitarian constraints. Quite the reverse; it has been explicitly stated,

    “Restrictions set by the rules applicable to armed conflicts in respect of means and methods of warfare definitely also extend to nuclear weapons” (Russian Federation, CR 95/29, p. 52);

    “So far as the customary law of war is concerned, the United Kingdom has always accepted that the use of nuclear weapons is subject to the general principles of the jus in bello” (United Kingdom, CR 95/34, p. 45); and

    “The United States has long shared the view that the law of armed conflict governs the use of nuclear weapons — just as it governs the use of conventional weapons” (United States of America, CR 95/34, p. 85.)

    87. Finally, the Court points to the Martens Clause, whose continuing existence and applicability is not to be doubted, as an affirmation that the principles and rules of humanitarian law apply to nuclear weapons.

    Thus, consistent with its longstanding position going back to the U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 of 1956, the United States government expressly conceded before the World Court that international humanitarian law applies to the use of nuclear weapons. But as the World Court has consistently pointed out so far in this Advisory Opinion, it would be difficult to imagine any circumstances in which the threat and use of nuclear weapons would not violate international humanitarian law. Once again, the conclusion becomes inexorable that the threat and use of nuclear weapons, including therein nuclear deterrence, is illegal and, I might add, criminal.

    Violation of the International Laws of Neutrality

    The World Court then turned to the question of whether or not the threat and use of nuclear weapons violate the international laws of neutrality. Generally put, the essence of the international laws of neutrality can be found in Hague Convention No. V Respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land of 1907, and Hague Convention No. XIII Respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War of 1907. The United States government is a contracting party to both Hague Neutrality Conventions. In addition, both of the Hague Neutrality Conventions of 1907 constitute customary international law on the rules of neutrality in wartime.

    No point would be served by reviewing the contents of these two treaties in detail. Suffice it to say here that their basic requirement is that belligerents are bound to respect the territory and the sovereign rights of neutral states during wartime. As Article 1 of Hague Convention No. V. Respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land of 1907 put it: “The territory of neutral Powers is inviolable.” In Paragraph 89 of the Advisory Opinion, the World Court found that these principles of neutrality apply “…to all international armed conflict, whatever type of weapons might be used.” In other words, states must respect the international laws of neutrality and the territory and the sovereign rights of neutral states when it comes to the threat and use of nuclear weapons.

    But this simply cannot be done given the devastating effects of nuclear weapons upon the surrounding environment irrespective of national borders; given the transnational effects of nuclear fallout; and given the transgenerational effects of nuclear radiation. In any event, it is certainly clear that the nuclear weapons states have paid absolutely no attention whatsoever to the customary or conventional international laws of neutrality when it comes to formulating their currently existing plans for the threat and use of nuclear weapons, including therein nuclear deterrence. In other words, the nuclear weapons states are currently threatening to violate the international laws of neutrality and thus stand in anticipatory breach of these two Hague Neutrality Conventions and the customary international laws of neutrality. Once again, this is certainly the type of ongoing inchoate criminal activity that anti-nuclear resisters have the right to oppose by necessary and proportionate means.

    Furthermore, many states such as the United States have enacted domestic implementing legislation that is purposefully designed to incorporate into their municipal legal systems the customary and conventional international laws of neutrality on pain of criminal penalty for their violation. Once again, anti-nuclear resisters have the right to oppose such ongoing inchoate criminal activities by their own government officials acting in gross violation of customary international law, international treaties, and domestic statutes that were expressly intended to criminalize such behavior. Papers to that effect have already been drawn up by my friend, former client, Plowshares resister, convicted felon, fellow graduate of the Harvard Law School, fellow attorney, and co-counsel Katya Komisaruk, Esquire, of Oakland, California–a real American Hero!

    Conclusion on International Humanitarian Law and Nuclear Weapons

    In Paragraph 91 of the Advisory Opinion, the World Court referred to, but refused to endorse, the legality of even “…the use of a low yield nuclear weapon against warships on the High Seas or troops in sparsely populated areas…” as advocated by the United Kingdom and the United States during the course of these proceedings. And in Paragraph 94 of the Opinion, the World Court even goes so far as to expressly refuse to endorse “…the legality of the use of nuclear weapons under certain circumstances, including the ‘clean’ use of smaller, low yield, tactical nuclear weapons…” Here the Court’s analysis implies that even such “limited” uses of tactical nuclear weapons would have to comply with international humanitarian law and the international laws of neutrality, assuming that could be done. Even then, the legality vel non of the tactical use of low yield nuclear weapons would also depend upon “…whether such limited use would not tend to escalate into the all-out use of high yield nuclear weapons.” (Advisory Opinion, Paragraph 94.) Once again, it is difficult to imagine any such circumstances.

    The Court utters its final condemnation of nuclear weapons in Paragraph 95 of the Opinion as follows:

    …Thus, methods and means of warfare, which would preclude any distinction between civilian and military targets, or which would result in unnecessary suffering to combatants, are prohibited. In view of the unique characteristics of nuclear weapons, to which the Court has referred above, the use of such weapons in fact seem scarcely reconcilable with respect for such requirements. …

    So once again the World Court expressly recognizes the proposition that it is difficult to imagine any circumstances where the threat and use of nuclear weapons would be lawful.

    The World Court’s Non-Pronouncement in Paragraph 97

    Originally, the General Assembly had asked the World Court to answer the following question: “Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstances permitted under international law?” The World Court finally got around to answering this precise question in Paragraph 95 of the Advisory Opinion by employing the following language:

    …Nevertheless, the Court considers that it does not have sufficient elements to enable it to conclude with certainty that the use of nuclear weapons would necessarily be at variance with the principles and rules of law applicable in armed conflict in any circumstance.

    For obvious reasons, the World Court could not possibly have envisioned and considered all the circumstances in which nuclear weapons might conceivably be used. Consequently, the Court observed in Paragraph 97 of the Advisory Opinion that “…it cannot reach a definitive conclusion as to the legality or illegality of the use of nuclear weapons by a State in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which its very survival would be at stake.” This is because of the factual uncertainties surrounding this hypothetical conjecture that had been mentioned in Paragraph 95 of the Advisory Opinion as quoted above.

    I will discuss the Court’s non-pronouncement mentioned in Paragraph 97 of the Advisory Opinion in more detail below when analyzing the Opinion’s dispositif. Suffice it to say here that in this entire Advisory Opinion, the World Court did not tolerate, or approve, or sanction, or condone any threat or use of nuclear weapons for any reason. The Court simply refused to express “…a definitive conclusion as to the legality or illegality of the use of nuclear weapons by a State in an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which its very survival would be at stake…” because of the factual uncertainties surrounding this purely hypothetical conjecture. Like any other court in the world today, the World Court operates on two basic principles, inter alia: Never say never! And: It all depends upon the facts!

    Nuclear Disarmament

    In Paragraph 99 of the Advisory Opinion, the Court quotes Article VI of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as follows:

    “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

    The Court interpreted NPT Article VI to contain a twofold obligation (1) to pursue and (2) to conclude negotiations for nuclear disarmament in good faith as follows:

    ….

    The legal import of that obligation goes beyond that of a mere obligation of conduct; the obligation involved here is an obligation to achieve a precise result — nuclear disarmament in all its aspects — by adopting a particular course of conduct, namely, the pursuit of negotiations on the matter in good faith.

    See Advisory Opinion, para. 99.

    And in Paragraph 100 of the Advisory Opinion, the Court clearly states that: “This twofold obligation to pursue and to conclude negotiations formally concerns the 182 States parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or, in other words, the vast majority of the international community.”

    Since 1968 it cannot be said that the world’s nuclear weapons states have ever pursued negotiations on nuclear disarmament in good faith. Indeed, since 1968, except perhaps for the 1986 Gorbachev proposals, not one of the nuclear weapons states has ever given any serious consideration to their solemn legal obligation of nuclear disarmament, let alone general and complete disarmament, as required and called for by NPT Article VI. Hence, all of the nuclear weapons states currently stand in material breach of these twin obligations under NPT Article VI and customary international law as authoritatively determined by the World Court itself in Paragraph 99 of its Advisory Opinion.

    The Dispositif

    The Court then issued its formal rulings in Paragraph 105 of the Advisory Opinion, the so-called “dispositif.” I will not bother to repeat or analyze all of its elements here. But for the purposes of defending anti-nuclear resisters the critical provisions of the dispositif will be discussed below. For the sake of convenience I will first examine these “unanimous” rulings adopted by the International Court of Justice in the dispositif of this Advisory Opinion.

    Unanimous Ruling on the U.N. Charter

    In Paragraph 105(2)(C) of the Opinion the Court ruled unanimously that: “A threat or use of force by means of nuclear weapons that is contrary to Article 2, paragraph 4, of the United Nations Charter and that fails to meet all the requirements of Article 51, is unlawful;”

    In his Dissenting Opinion at page 3, Judge Weeramantry interpreted Paragraph 105(2)(C) of the Advisory Opinion as follows:

    (iv) Paragraph 2(C) – (Unanimous)

    The positive features of this paragraph have already been noted. The Court, in this paragraph, has unanimously endorsed Charter-based pre-conditions to the legality of nuclear weapons, which are diametrically opposed to the results of the use of the weapon. I thus read paragraph 1(C) [sic: must read “2(C)” because there is no 1(C)] of the dispositif as rendering the use of the nuclear weapon illegal without regard [sic: add “to”] the circumstances in which the weapon is used – whether in aggression or in self defence, whether internationally or internally, whether by individual decision or in concert with other nations. A unanimous endorsement of this principle by all the judges of this Court takes the principle of illegality of use of nuclear weapons a long way forward from the stage when there was no prior judicial consideration of legality of nuclear weapons by any international tribunal.

    Those contending that the use of nuclear weapons was within the law argued strongly that what is not expressly prohibited to a state is permitted. On this basis, the use of the nuclear weapon was said to be a matter on which the state’s freedom was not limited. I see the limitations laid down in paragraph 1(C) [sic: must read “2(C)” because there is no 1(C)] as laying that argument to rest.

    In this passage, Judge Weeramantry has provided us with an authoritative interpretation of Paragraph 105(2)(C) not only because he is a sitting Judge of the World Court but also because he is one of the world’s leading experts on nuclear weapons and international law.

    The import of this unanimous ruling by the World Court in Paragraph 105(2)(C) of the Advisory Opinion should be crystal clear by now. It is almost impossible to imagine any threat or use of nuclear weapons that would be compatible with Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter and that meets all the requirements of Article 51, especially the principles of necessity and proportionality. Indeed, in their current plans for the threat and use of nuclear weapons, including therein nuclear deterrence, the world’s nuclear weapons states have paid absolutely no meaningful attention whatsoever to the requirements of Article 2(4) and Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, and especially the principles of necessity and proportionality. Hence, all of the current plans for the threat and use of nuclear weapons by the world’s nuclear weapons states, including therein nuclear deterrence, are “unlawful” and, I might add, criminal.

    Unanimous Ruling on International Humanitarian Law

    In Paragraph 105(2)(D) of the Opinion’s dispositif, the World Court ruled unanimously that: “A threat or use of nuclear weapons should also be compatible with the requirements of the international law applicable in armed conflict, particularly those of the principles and rules of international humanitarian law, as well as with specific obligations under treaties and other undertakings which expressly deal with nuclear weapons;”

    In his Dissenting Opinion at page 3, Judge Weeramantry interpreted Paragraph 105(2)(D) of the Advisory Opinion as follows: (v) Paragraph 2(D) – (Unanimous)

    This paragraph, also unanimously endorsed by the Court, lays down the further limitation of compatibility with the requirements of international law applicable in armed conflict, and particularly with the rules of international humanitarian law and specific treaty obligations.

    There is a large array of prohibitions laid down here.

    My Opinion will show what these rules and principles are, and how it is impossible, in the light of the nature and effects of nuclear weapons, for these to be satisfied.

    If the weapon is demonstrably contrary to these principles, it is unlawful in accordance with this paragraph of the Court’s Opinion.

    Once again, in this passage Judge Weeramantry has provided us with an authoritative interpretation of Paragraph 105(2)(D) not only because he is a sitting Judge of the World Court, but also because he is one of the world’s leading experts on nuclear weapons and international law.

    The import of this unanimous ruling by the World Court in Paragraph 105(2)(D) of the Advisory Opinion should also be crystal clear by now. It is almost impossible to imagine any threat or use of nuclear weapons that would not grossly violate the principles and rules of international humanitarian law, whether customary or conventional. Indeed, in their current plans for the threat and use of nuclear weapons, including therein nuclear deterrence, the nuclear weapons states have paid absolutely no meaningful attention whatsoever to the requirements of international humanitarian law, whether customary or conventional. Hence, all of the current plans for the threat and use of nuclear weapons by the world’s nuclear weapons states, including therein nuclear deterrence, are illegal and, I might add, criminal.

    Unanimous Ruling on Nuclear Disarmament

    Finally, in Paragraph 105(2)(F) of the Opinion’s dispositif, the World Court ruled unanimously: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” Quite obviously, since 1968 not one of the nuclear weapons states has discharged these twin obligations of both customary and conventional international law. Consequently, all of the world’s nuclear weapons states currently stand in material breach of NPT Article VI as well as these identical twin obligations under customary international law.

    The Court’s Ruling on the Threat and Use of Nuclear Weapons

    The World Court then ruled on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons in Paragraph 105(2)(E) of the Advisory Opinion’s dispositif as follows:

    E. By seven votes to seven, by the President’s casting vote,

    It follows from the above-mentioned requirements that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law;

    However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake;

    IN FAVOUR: President Bedjaoui; Judges Ranjeva, Herczgh, Shi, Fleischhauer, Vereschetin, Ferrari Bravo;

    AGAINST: Vice-President Schwebel; Judges Oda, Guillaume, Shahabuddeen, Weeramantry, Koroma, Higgins.

    According to Article 55 of the ICJ Statute, in the event of a tie in the number of votes by the World Court Judges, it is for the President of the Court to cast the deciding vote. For this reason, President Bedjaoui’s separate Declaration appended to the Opinion bears special importance for the interpretation of this component of the dispositif.

    According to President Bedjaoui, Paragraph 105(2)(E) of the Advisory Opinion’s dispositif must not “in any way be interpreted as leaving the way open to the recognition of the lawfulness of the threat or use of nuclear weapons.” See Declaration of President Bedjaoui, at para. 11. In this regard, President Bedjaoui drew attention to the fact that in Paragraph 79 of the Advisory Opinion, the Court had already held that the fundamental rules of international humanitarian law (i.e., the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions) “…constitute intransgressible principles of international customary law.” In other words, since these principles are “intransgressible,” to use the precise word of the Court, then they can never be violated, even in extreme circumstances, when the very survival of the state is at stake. See Declaration of President Bedjaoui, at para. 21.

    The Importance of Paragraph 104

    Likewise, in interpreting this element of the dispositif, it is crucial to recall to mind once again the text of Paragraph 104 of the Advisory Opinion, which immediately precedes the entirety of the dispositif found in Paragraph 105, as follows:

    104. At the end of the present Opinion, the Court emphasizes that its reply to the question put to it by the General Assembly rests on the totality of the legal grounds set forth by the Court above (paragraphs 20 to 103), each of which is to be read in the light of the others. Some of these grounds are not such as to form the object of formal conclusions in the final paragraph of the Opinion; they nevertheless retain, in the view of the Court, all their importance.

    In other words, the elements of the dispositif set forth in Paragraph 105(2)(E) must be read and interpreted by reference to Paragraphs 20 to 103 of the Advisory Opinion, which have already been extensively analyzed above.

    Therefore, it would be an incorrect interpretation of the Advisory Opinion to focus simply upon Paragraph 105(2)(E) of the dispositif. Rather, by means of Paragraph 104 the Court makes it crystal clear that the dispositif, including Paragraph 105(2)(E), does not mean to take back or call into question any of its findings set forth in Paragraphs 20 to 103. Paragraphs 20 to 103 “retain, in the view of the Court, all their importance” despite the non-pronouncement found in Paragraph 105(2)(E) of the Advisory Opinion.

    Interpreting Paragraph 105(2)(E)

    In his Dissenting Opinion Judge Weeramantry criticized the entirety of Advisory Opinion Paragraph 105(2)(E) as follows:

    (ii) Paragraph 2(E) – (7 votes to 7. Casting vote in favour by the President)

    I am in fundamental disagreement with both sentences contained within this paragraph.

    I strongly oppose the presence of the word “generally” in the first sentence. The word is too uncertain in content for use in an Advisory Opinion, and I cannot assent to a proposition which, even by remotest implication, leaves open any possibility that the use of nuclear weapons would not be contrary to law in any circumstances whatsoever. I regret the presence of this word in a sentence which otherwise states the law correctly. It would also appear that the word “generally” introduces an element of internal contradiction into the Court’s Opinion, for in paragraphs 2(C) and 2(D) of the Court’s Opinion, the Court concludes that nuclear weapons must be consistent with the United Nations Charter, the principles of international law, and the principles of humanitarian law, and, such consistency being impossible, the weapon becomes illegal.

    The word “generally” admits of many meanings, ranging through various gradations, from “as a general rule; commonly”, to “universally; with respect to all or nearly all”. [Footnote omitted.] Even with the latter meaning, the word opens a window of permissibility, however narrow, which does not truly reflect the law. There should be no niche in the legal principle, within which a nation may seek refuge, constituting itself the sole judge in its own cause on so important a matter.

    The main purpose of this Opinion is to show that, not generally but always, the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be contrary to the rules of international law and, in particular, to the principles and rules of humanitarian law. Paragraph 2(E) should have been in those terms, and the Opinion need have stated no more.

    The second paragraph of 2(E) states that the current state of international law is such that the Court cannot conclude definitely whether the threat or use of the weapon would or would not be lawful in extreme circumstances of self defence. It seems self-evident to me that once nuclear weapons are resorted to, the laws of war (the ius in bello) take over, and that there are many principles of the laws of war, as recounted in this Opinion, which totally forbid the use of such a weapon. The existing law is sufficiently clear on this matter to have enabled the Court to make a definite pronouncement without leaving this vital question, as though sufficient principles are not already in existence to determine it. All the more should this uncertainty have been eliminated in view of the Court’s very definite findings as set out earlier.

    See Dissenting Opinion of Judge Weeramantry, at pp. 2-3. Once again, Judge Weeramantry’s comments constitute an authoritative interpretation of Paragraph 105(2)(E) because he is a sitting Judge of the World Court and also because he is one of the world’s leading experts on nuclear weapons and international law.

    The First Paragraph of Paragraph 105(2)(E)

    Quite obviously, there should not be any problem interpreting the meaning of the first paragraph of Paragraph 105(2)(E):

    It follows from the above-mentioned requirements that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law;

    …. Notice that the World Court expressly found that both “the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law…” In other words, nuclear deterrence itself “would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law…” Here I might add that since nuclear deterrence violates the laws of war and international humanitarian law, nuclear deterrence is thus criminal.

    Likewise, in this regard, Judge Shi Jiuyong (from China, a nuclear weapons state) points out in his Declaration that nuclear deterrence has “no legal significance.” Similarly, on page 2 of his Declaration Judge Ferrari Bravo (from Italy, allied with three nuclear weapons states in the NATO Alliance) states that nuclear deterrence has no juridical value, and observes: “On pourrait arriver à dire que l’on est en présence d’un anti-droit, si on pense aux effets qu’elle a eus sur la Charte des Nations Unies.” In other words, nuclear deterrence is “anti-law,” that is the very negation of international law and especially of the United Nations Charter.

    In a similar vein, Judge Fleischhauer (from Germany, allied with three nuclear weapons states in the NATO Alliance) states in Paragraph 2 of his Separate Opinion: “The nuclear weapon is, in many ways, the negation of the humanitarian considerations underlying the law applicable in armed conflict and the principle of neutrality.”

    President Bedjaoui made a similar observation in Paragraph 20 of his Declaration: “…Nuclear weapons, the ultimate evil, destabilize humanitarian law which is the law of the lesser evil. The existence of nuclear weapons is therefore a challenge to the very existence of humanitarian law. …Nuclear war and humanitarian law seem by consequence to be two antitheses which exclude each other radically, the existence of the one necessarily supposes the inexistence of the other.”

    Simply put, nuclear weapons are to international law what the so-called Anti-Christ is to the Christian religion. Indeed, I personally know many devout Christians who sincerely believe that nuclear weapons are the Anti-Christ. Typically, anti-nuclear resisters oppose nuclear weapons because of a mixture of religious, moral, and legal considerations. Their admixture of motivations is given legal significance by the so-called Martens Clause as set forth, for example, in the Preamble to Hague Convention No. IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 18 October 1907, to which the United States government is a contracting party:

    Until a more complete code of the laws of war has been issued, the High Contracting Parties deem it expedient to declare that, in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, the inhabitants and the belligerents remain under the protection and the rule of the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience.

    Certainly the dictate of the public conscience around the world is against the threat and use of nuclear weapons. As Judge Shahabuddeen put the matter on page 27 of his Dissenting Opinion:

    In the result, on the basis of what the Court finds to be the state of the public conscience, it will be able to say whether the Martens Clause operates to prohibit the use of nuclear weapons in all circumstances. On the available material, it would be open to the Court to hold that the Clause operates to impose such a prohibition.

    Interpreting The Second Paragraph of Paragraph 105(2)(E) of the Advisory Opinion

    The real problem with Paragraph 105(2)(E) of the Advisory Opinion comes from the proper interpretation to be accorded its second paragraph:

    ….

    However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake;

    At the very outset of his Dissenting Opinion Judge Koroma (of Sierre Leone) had the following observations to make about the second paragraph of Paragraph 105(2)(E):

    It is a matter of profound regret to me that I have been compelled to append this Dissenting Opinion to the Advisory Opinion rendered by the Court, as I fundamentally disagree with its finding – secured by the President’s casting vote – that:

    “in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake”.

    This finding, in my considered opinion, is not only unsustainable on the basis of existing international law, but, as I shall demonstrate later, is totally at variance with the weight and abundance of material presented to the Court. The finding is all the more regrettable in view of the fact that the Court had itself reached a conclusion that:

    “the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law”.

    A finding with which I concur, save for the word “generally”. It is my considered opinion based on the existing law and the available evidence that the use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance would be unlawful under international law. That use would at the very least result in the violation of the principles and rules of international humanitarian law, and would therefore be contrary to that law.

    ….

    See Dissenting Opinion of Judge Koroma, at p. 1.

    Likewise, in her Dissenting Opinion at Paragraph 29, Judge Higgins (from the United Kingdom, a nuclear weapons state) criticizes the second paragraph of Paragraph 105(2)(E) in the following language:

    29. …Through this formula of non-pronouncement the Court necessarily leaves open the possibility that a use of nuclear weapons contrary to humanitarian law might nonetheless be lawful. This goes beyond anything that was claimed by the nuclear weapon States appearing before the Court, who fully accepted that any lawful threat or use of nuclear weapons would have to comply with both the jus ad bellum and jus in bello (see para. 86).

    Judge Higgins is certainly correct to point out that the nuclear weapons states are still bound to adhere to their position on this matter that they formally articulated during the course of the World Court proceedings. It has been the longstanding position of the nuclear weapons states that any threat or use of nuclear weapons must comply with both the United Nations Charter (the jus ad bellum, or right to go to war) as well as with the laws of war and international humanitarian law (that is, the jus in bello, or laws of war). The non-pronouncement found in the second paragraph of Paragraph 105(2)(E) of this Advisory Opinion did not and indeed could not alter the validity of those legal obligations which flow from both customary and conventional international law.

    Likewise, in Paragraph 12 of her Dissenting Opinion Judge Higgins stated most emphatically: “…It is in any event absolutely prohibited to attack civilians, whether by nuclear or other weapons.” Even when considering attacking legitimate military targets, a state must not attack “if the collateral civilian casualties would be disproportionate to the specific military gain from the attack.” See Dissenting Opinion of Judge Higgins, at para. 20. Applying this principle of proportionality to nuclear weapons, Judge Higgins opines: “One is inevitably led to the question of whether, if a target is legitimate and the use of a nuclear weapon is the only way of destroying that target, any need can ever be so necessary as to occasion massive damage upon civilians.” See id.

    Finally, in Paragraph 23 of her Dissenting Opinion Judge Higgins enunciates a third principle of international humanitarian law with respect to the threat and use of nuclear weapons: “Very important also in the present context is the requirement of humanitarian law that weapons may not be used which are incapable of discriminating between civilian and military targets.” Once again, it is extremely difficult to conceive of any circumstances surrounding the current plans for the threat and use of nuclear weapons by the world’s nuclear weapons states that would not violate any one, or more, or all three of these fundamental principles of international humanitarian law that were articulated by Judge Higgins in her Dissenting Opinion.

    The Dissenters to Paragraph 105(2)(E)

    As can be seen from the above analysis, of the seven World Court Judges registering dissenting votes to Paragraph 105(2)(E) of the dispositif of the Advisory Opinion, Judge Weeramantry and Judge Koroma dissented because it did not, in their Opinions, go far enough to expressly condemn the threat and use of nuclear weapons in all circumstances. The same can be said for Judge Shahabuddeen in his Dissenting Opinion. The grounds for Judge Oda’s Dissenting Opinion were that he did not believe the World Court should have responded to the General Assembly’s Request for this Advisory Opinion in the first place.

    Therefore, of the seven dissenters to Paragraph 105(2)(E), only Judge Schwebel (from the United States), Judge Higgins (from the United Kingdom) and Judge Guillaume (from France) had any substantive problem with its general condemnation of the threat and use of nuclear weapons. Notice that these three dissenters were all from the three nuclear weapons states that are allied with each other by means of the NATO Pact. Thus, it is not surprising that these three Judges voted on Paragraph 105(2)(E) in a manner consistent with the fact that their respective states of nationality possess nuclear weapons. In the practice of the International Court of Justice and its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice, there has always been a high degree of correlation between a Judge’s vote and the position advocated by his or her state of nationality before the World Court despite the vaunted independence of the World Court from outside political pressures. Nevertheless, by comparison, Judge Vereschetin from Russia and Judge Shi from China did not dissent from Paragraph 105(2)(E) despite the fact that their respective states of nationality were indeed nuclear weapons states.

    In light of these three dissenting votes on Paragraph 105(2)(E) by Judges Schwebel, Higgins and Guillaime, let us assume an extreme case of legitimate self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter where a state’s “very survival would be at stake.” Even then, according to Paragraph 79 of the Opinion, the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions “constitute intransgressible principles of international customary law.” As pointed out by Judge Bedjaoui, then President of the World Court, in his appended Declaration, such intransgressible principles can never be violated, even in extreme circumstances, where the very survival of a state is at stake. It is difficult to imagine any circumstances where the actual use of nuclear weapons would not violate either the Hague Conventions or the Geneva Conventions. In other words, it is difficult to imagine any circumstances where the actual use of nuclear weapons would not violate “intransgressible principles of international customary law.”

    Furthermore, as already noted above, the United States government has ratified Hague Convention No. IV of 1907 and the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and so is bound to observe them a fortiori and without any exceptions whatsoever. The same is true for the other acknowledged nuclear weapons states: Britain, China, France and Russia. The non-pronouncement found in the World Court’s Advisory Opinion cannot alter those undeniable facts and the legal conclusions that flow inevitably from them.

    Conclusion

    It is obvious from reading the World Court’s Advisory Opinion that any currently contemplated threat or use of nuclear weapons by the United States government is illegal under international humanitarian law, and therefore I would add criminal. Hence all that needs to be done in order to defend an anti-nuclear resister is to apply the World Court’s Advisory Opinion to the actual nuclear weapons system that was the object of the anti-nuclear resister’s action. By applying the teachings of the World Court’s Advisory Opinion to the actual facts of the case, it should become clear that the specific nuclear weapons system and its related strategy are illegal and criminal.

    Hence, there is no need to deal with the question of the legality or illegality of nuclear weapons as an abstract proposition. Rather, simply apply the language of the Advisory Opinion, together with the analysis of the Opinion as set forth above, to the specific nuclear weapons system that was the object of the anti-nuclear resister’s action: e.g., NAVSTAR/Trident 2/Delta 5. Once you demonstrate the mission and the capabilities of the specific nuclear weapons system, its illegality and criminality should become blatantly obvious to the jury.

    Indeed, this contextual approach to the problem coincides quite nicely with the contextual argument twice made by the United States government in its Written Observations on the Request by the General Assembly for an Advisory Opinion that was submitted to the International Court of Justice during the course of the World Court proceedings:

    …As in the case of other weapons, the legality of use depends on the conformity of the particular use with the rules applicable to such weapons. This would, in turn, depend on factors that can only be guessed at, including the characteristics of the particular weapon used and its effects, the military requirements for the destruction of the target in question, and the magnitude of the risk to civilians…

    By following this contextual approach to the actual nuclear weapons system at issue, you are only taking seriously and applying the contextual approach recommended by the United States government itself to the International Court of Justice. Certainly a judge and a jury anywhere in the United States of America should have the exact same right and duty to take into consideration the entire context surrounding the threat and use of the particular nuclear weapons system that motivated any act of anti-nuclear resistance.

    Basically, then, the defense strategy in all these anti-nuclear trials has been to shift the jury’s focus of attention away from the act of anti-nuclear resistance over to the specific nuclear weapons system involved. In other words, put the nuclear weapons system on trial instead of the anti-nuclear resisters. The critical factor in all these cases has been to get both the legal evidence and the technical evidence about the specific nuclear weapons system involved to be considered by the jury. The precise tactics, theories and strategies whereby this has been done have never mattered so much as whether or not the jury heard this legal evidence and the technical evidence in the first place.

    Optimally, the successful defense of an anti-nuclear resister requires testimony at trial and before the jury by two experts: one on international law, the other on the technical characteristics of the specific nuclear weapons system involved. Of course, if you only have one expert or the judge will permit only one expert witness to testify, then that expert will have to do double duty. In this case, it is probably better to have your international law expert bone up on the facts surrounding the specific nuclear weapons system. You can usually get your international law expert qualified as an expert on nuclear weapons policies as well. By comparison, you will not be able to get your technical expert qualified as an expert on international law. So when faced with a choice, use the international law expert.

    Of course, the judge might decide to strip you of all your expert witnesses, both technical and legal. If the judge does this, there is a good chance that such a ruling will constitute reversible error on appeal. Nevertheless, even if you are stripped of all your experts at trial, you must not despair! There have been several instances of anti-nuclear resisters obtaining hung juries by means of their own testimony. I know of other cases where different types of protesters have been able to obtain outright acquittals by means of their own testimony alone.

    In any event, prior to trial anti-nuclear resisters and their lawyers must spend a good deal of time preparing their testimony in chief. During the course of their direct testimony, anti-nuclear resisters must explain their basic understanding and knowledge of the technical characteristics of the specific nuclear weapons system that they acted against. In addition, they should also try to explain in their own words that at the time they undertook their act of anti-nuclear resistance, this specific nuclear weapons system stood in gross violation of the United Nations Charter; the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles; the Genocide Convention and its Implementation Act; the Hague Regulations; the Geneva Conventions and Protocol I; the Hague Neutrality Conventions; U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956); the 1996 World Court Advisory Opinion; as well as basic principles of international humanitarian, the laws of war, and international environmental law. Their act of anti-nuclear resistance was intended and designed for the express purpose of terminating ongoing inchoate criminal activity under well recognized principles of international law that have been fully subscribed to by the United States government itself.

    Once again, I cannot over-emphasize enough that when facing any serious criminal charges, an anti-nuclear resister is well advised to be represented by an attorney. Even with representation by counsel, it will be difficult enough as it is to set up the defense of an anti-nuclear resister using international law, let alone to pull it off successfully. Based upon my experience with doing anti-nuclear protest cases since 1982, anti-nuclear resisters do themselves no favor by foregoing the services of an attorney–with all due respect to them. In some cases, they might even hurt the anti-nuclear cause that they seek to promote by proceeding to trial without adequate counsel and representation by a lawyer.

    Quite obviously, there is a lot more I could say about defending anti-nuclear resisters under international law. But for a variety of reasons, I believe I have said enough for the time being. Good luck to you!

    F.A.B.

    * Francis A. Boyle is Professor of International Law and Advisor to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

    © Copyright 1999-2000 BY FRANCIS A. BOYLE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  • From Arms Control to Abolition: Global Action for a Nuclear Weapons Free World

    During the Cold War, nuclear arsenals were rationalized on the basis of deterrence, and the nuclear weapons states developed military strategies of mutual assured destruction (MAD). Since it was recognized that attacks and counter-attacks with nuclear arsenals would be without precedent in their destructiveness, even to the point of destroying human civilization and most life on Earth, the acronym MAD seemed particularly appropriate. During the Cold War period, leaders tried to bring some modicum of sanity to an otherwise insane situation by engaging in arms control discussions and occasionally reaching agreements regarding the control of nuclear arsenals.

    The two most important arms control agreements during the Cold War were reached in the 1960s. The first was the Partial Test Ban (PTB) Treaty, which was signed and entered into force in 1963. This treaty prohibited nuclear testing in the oceans, atmosphere, and outer space. The PTB was achieved under considerable pressure from citizens throughout the world who objected to the dangerous health effects associated with atmospheric nuclear testing. Among the leaders in the protest against atmospheric nuclear testing were Linus Pauling, the great scientist, and his wife Ava Helen Pauling, who organized a petition signed by 9,235 scientists, which Pauling delivered to U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammerskjold on January 15, 1958. The document was entitled, “Petition to the United Nations Urging that an International Agreement to Stop the Testing of Nuclear Bombs Be Made Now.”

    The PTB did not put an end to nuclear testing, and thus to the development of new and more efficient nuclear weapons. Rather, it resulted in moving nuclear testing underground. In this sense, the treaty was more an environmental treaty than an arms control treaty. The only thing that the treaty disarmed was public outrage at the health risks related to atmospheric nuclear testing. The treaty contained the promise of “seeking to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time,” which was widely recognized as a critical step in ending the nuclear arms race. Unfortunately, the goal of ending nuclear testing remained essentially dormant for the next 33 years until a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was finally adopted by the United Nations and opened for signatures in 1996.

    The second important arms control agreement during the Cold War was the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was signed in 1968 and entered into force in 1970. This treaty sought to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials to states not in possession of nuclear arsenals as of January 1, 1967. The treaty recognized two classes of states: nuclear weapons states (United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China), and non-nuclear weapons states (all other states). The nuclear weapons states agreed not to transfer nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear materials to the non-nuclear weapons states, and the non-nuclear weapons states agreed not to receive or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear materials.

    When the NPT was negotiated, the non-nuclear weapons states recognized the unequal nature of the treaty, and argued for two concessions from the nuclear weapons states. First, nuclear energy for peaceful purposes was described in the treaty as an “inalienable right,” and nuclear weapons states promised to help the non-nuclear weapons states in developing nuclear power plants. Second, the non-nuclear weapons states objected to the two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” created by the treaty, and negotiated Article VI of the treaty which called for good faith negotiations to achieve a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date, nuclear disarmament, and general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. Article VI of the NPT, despite its carefully crafted language, is one of the most important, if not the most important, of all commitments made by nuclear weapons states in arms control agreements.

    In exchange for not attempting to develop or acquire nuclear weapons, the non-nuclear weapons states had a reasonable expectation under Article VI that the nuclear weapons states would proceed with good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament, to rid the world of the terrible threat of nuclear holocaust. Until the end of the Cold War, however, the nuclear weapons states had made scant progress toward nuclear disarmament, and were widely viewed by states from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) as being in violation of their Article VI commitment. In fact, at the end of the Cold War, the strategic nuclear arsenals of the nuclear weapons states were considerably larger than they were when the NPT was signed in 1968.

    In the aftermath of the Cold War, the rationale for retaining nuclear arsenals has evaporated. Deterrence was always a questionable theory, but without the threatened attack of an enemy, it clearly makes no sense at all. Nuclear weapons can be more clearly recognized in the aftermath of the Cold War as “instruments of genocide” that serve no reasonable purpose. Since the end of the Cold War, increasing pressure has mounted for the nuclear weapons states to fulfill the promise under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty to achieve nuclear disarmament.

    START I, START II, and START III

    Strategic Arms Reduction Talks in the early 1990s resulted in two treaties agreeing to the reduction of the numbers of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the United States and former Soviet Union. START I, which was signed by Presidents Gorbachev and Bush in 1991, called for reductions to approximately 6,500 deployed strategic weapons on each side. START II, signed by Presidents Bush and Yeltsin in 1993, called for further reductions of deployed strategic nuclear weapons to 3,000 to 3,500 on each side by January 1, 2003. START II was ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1996, but has yet to be ratified by the Russian Duma, many members of which have expressed deep concerns over the U.S.-led efforts to expand NATO eastward. In September 1997, the U.S. and Russia agreed to extend the date for achieving START II reductions for five years to the end of 1997.

    However, even if START II is successfully completed, there will still be as many deployed strategic nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the two major nuclear weapons states as there were when the NPT was signed in 1968. This has led many of the non-aligned states to question the sincerity and good faith of the nuclear weapons states in fulfilling their Article VI promises.

    Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin have had preliminary discussions regarding START III, and have suggested that this agreement could reduce nuclear arsenals to 2,000-2,500 deployed strategic nuclear weapons on each side by the year 2007. This advance, however, is uncertain due to the Russian opposition to the proposed expansion of NATO. Even more significant is that the proposed START III agreement is simply more incrementalism. It lacks a vision of a world without nuclear weapons, and simply reduces the overkill ratio to a somewhat lower level. It is consistent with maintaining the two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” indefinitely. It misses the tremendous opportunity that currently exists to move from arms control to abolition.

    The Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference

    A NPT Review and Extension Conference was called for by the terms of the treaty 25 years after the treaty entered into force. The purpose of this conference, which was held in 1995, was to determine whether the treaty should be extended indefinitely or for a period or periods of time. The nuclear weapons states, which saw the treaty as advantageous to themselves, argued for an indefinite extension of the treaty. Many non-aligned states, though, questioned the good faith of the nuclear weapons states, and suggested that the treaty should be extended for periods of time and re-extended contingent upon sufficient progress toward fulfillment of the Article VI promise of nuclear disarmament.

    At the conference the nuclear weapons states and their allies (primarily the NATO states) exerted considerable pressure on the non-aligned states and finally prevailed in having the treaty extended indefinitely. However, at the insistence of the non-aligned states, certain non-binding agreements were attached to the indefinite extension which called for, among other steps, the following:

    “(a) The completion by the Conference on Disarmament of the negotiations on a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty no later than 1996. Pending the entry into force of a Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, the nuclear-weapon States should exercise utmost restraint;

    “(b) The immediate commencement and early conclusion of negotiations on a non-discriminatory and universally applicable convention banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, in accordance with the statement of the Special Coordinator of the Conference on Disarmament and the mandate contained therein;

    “(c) The determined pursuit by the nuclear-weapon States of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goals of eliminating those weapons, and by all States of general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

    Abolition 2000 Global Network

    At the NPT Review and Extension Conference, an Abolition Caucus — composed of representatives of citizen action groups from throughout the world — was organized to share information and to join in lobbying the delegates. From this caucus an 11-point plan, calling for nuclear weapons abolition was drafted and agreed to. This document was called the Abolition 2000 Statement. The Statement called for a treaty by the year 2000 for the prohibition and elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework.

    The Abolition 2000 Statement became the basis for the establishment of the Abolition 2000 Global Network, which has now grown to over 700 citizen actions groups from six continents. It is a dynamic citizen network committed to the goal of achieving a nuclear weapons free world.

    The World Court Project

    The World Court Project (WCP) was initiated by three major international citizen action groups: the International Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), and the International Peace Bureau (IPB). The purpose of the project was to obtain an opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. Through intensive lobbying of delegates to the World Health Organization and the United Nations General Assembly, the WCP was successful in having both of those bodies request an opinion from the Court.

    The question posed by the World Health Organization (WHO) focused on use of nuclear weapons: “In view of the health and environmental effects, would the use of nuclear weapons by a State in war or other armed conflict be a breach of its obligations under international law including the WHO Constitution?” The question posed by the General Assembly also included the threat of use: “Would the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance be permitted under international law?”

    The Court received considerable written and oral argument from states. On July 8, 1996, the Court issued its opinion on the question posed by the U.N. General Assembly. At the same time, the Court declined to issue an opinion on the question posed by WHO, stating that their question failed to meet the criteria of arising within the scope of WHO’s activities. In response the General Assembly, the Court issued a 37 page opinion, and each of the 14 judges on the Court issued a separate statement with the opinion. The Court found that any threat or use of nuclear weapons must conform with the principles and rules of international humanitarian law. This means that nuclear weapons cannot be threatened or used in such a manner as to fail to discriminate between civilians and combatants, and that they must not cause unnecessary suffering to combatants. Based primarily upon this finding, the Court then found that any threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal.

    The Court was unable to determine, however, whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be legal or illegal “in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a state would be at stake.” The Court’s opinion went a long way toward shutting the door on the threat or use of nuclear weapons, but it left open this narrow possibility in the case of the very survival of a state. Some of the judges pointed to the irony of leaving open the possibility of using nuclear weapons in conditions in which the survival of a state was at stake, since such use could result in escalation endangering the survival of all life.

    Given what the Court found to be an ambiguity in international law involving an “extreme circumstance of self-defence,” it reviewed Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and 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.” The Court’s ruling on the Article VI commitment clarifies that nuclear disarmament must be complete, that it must be disarmament “in all its aspects,” and that it is not tied to conventional disarmament or other security issues.

    The nuclear weapons states have argued that the Court’s opinion is advisory only, and they have not acted on it. While the opinion is, in fact, advisory in nature, it is still the pronouncement of the highest Court in the world on an issue of utmost importance. The significance of the opinion has not been lost on the states in the non-aligned movement that have been pressing for complete nuclear disarmament. Nor has the significance of the opinion been lost on citizen action groups around the world, such as the Abolition 2000 Global Network, that have been pressing the case for the abolition of nuclear arsenals.

    The Canberra Commission Report

    In response to French nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific, the Australian government established a prestigious commission of eminent individuals to examine the case for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Participants in the Commission included General Lee Butler, a former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command; Robert McNamara, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense; Michel Rocard, a former French Prime Minister; Field Marshall Micheal Carver, a former British Chief of Defence Staff; Jacques Cousteau, the late ocean explorer and advocate for future generations; and Joseph Rotblat, founder and president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and the 1995 Nobel Peace Laureate.

    The Report of the Canberra Commission stated: “Nuclear weapons pose an intolerable threat to humanity and its habitat, yet tens of thousands remain in arsenals built up at a time of deep antagonism. That time has passed, yet assertions of their utility continue…. A nuclear weapon free world can be secured and maintained through political commitment, and anchored in an enduring and binding legal framework.”

    The Report called for some immediate steps to reduce the nuclear threat:

    • Taking nuclear forces off alert;
    • Removal of warheads from delivery vehicles;
    • Ending deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons;
    • Ending nuclear testing;
    • Initiating negotiations to further reduce United States and Russian nuclear arsenals; and
    • Agreement amongst the nuclear weapons states of reciprocal no first use undertakings, and of a non-use undertaking by them in relation to the non-nuclear weapon states.

    These steps would take us a long way toward reducing the immediate risks of nuclear warfare, but as yet the nuclear weapons states have resisted their implementation. The only exception is the signing of the CTBT and, even in this case, at least one of the nuclear weapons states, the United States, is continuing to conduct “sub-critical” nuclear tests which undermine the spirit of the treaty.

    The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

    A Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was finally opened for signatures in September 1996, but it has yet to enter into force and the procedures for entry into force make it unlikely that this will occur. Entry into force requires the ratification of all 44 nuclear capable states, and India has made it clear that it will not sign or ratify the treaty so long as there is no firm commitment by the declared nuclear weapons states to the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. India’s position is that it is unwilling to give up the option of conducting nuclear tests in a world in which the declared nuclear weapons states, which have already tested extensively, refuse to make a firm commitment to eliminate their nuclear arsenals and thus continue to rely upon them for their security. While India has been widely criticized for this position, one must admit that this position is not without logic.

    The CTBT has been marred by the insistence of the U.S. that “sub-critical” tests fall within the framework of the treaty. The U.S. has already begun a series of such tests, and it is likely that other nuclear weapons states will follow its lead. The U.S. is also planning a Stockpile Stewardship Program, on which it plans to spend some $45 billion over the next ten years. This program includes the development of new and expensive structures for laboratory testing of nuclear weapons. Again, it is likely that other nuclear weapons states will follow the U.S. lead by continuing to test by other means that circumvent the spirit if not the letter of the CTBT.

    The Statement by International Generals and Admirals*

    In December 1996 some 60 retired generals and admirals from around the world issued statements calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. U.S. Generals Lee Butler and Andrew Goodpaster issued a statement at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Their statement called for “pursuit of a policy of cooperative, phased reductions with serious commitments to seek the elimination of all nuclear weapons.”

    As a separate statement, 58 of these retired generals and admirals argued “the continuing existence of nuclear weapons in the armories of nuclear powers, and the ever present threat of acquisition of these weapons by others, constitute a peril to global peace and security and to the safety and survival of the people we are dedicated to protect.” The generals and admirals called for the following three steps:

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

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

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

    A Nuclear Weapons Convention

    In December 1996 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution (51/45M) expressing appreciation to the International Court of Justice for responding to its request. It underlined the Court’s unanimous conclusion that an obligation exists “to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.” The resolution called for “commencement of multilateral negotiations in 1997 leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination.”

    In order to demonstrate that drafting a nuclear weapons convention was a technically feasible possibility, two citizens action groups — the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP) and the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP) — prepared a draft model Nuclear Weapons Convention. This draft was made public in April 1997 at the PrepCom for the NPT Review Conference.

    From Arms Control to Abolition

    Arms control has been a method of maintaining strategic balance between the key nuclear weapons states, while at the same time maintaining the two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” In other words, arms control has been in part a dangerous game to maintain special privilege played at the precipice of nuclear holocaust. It has been a game of high stakes, both financially and militarily. In the end, it caused the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the jury is still out on what its ultimate effects will be on the United States, the one nation that has used nuclear weapons in warfare.

    In the aftermath of the Cold War, it is now a particularly propitious time to move forward with the abolition of nuclear weapons. To do so will require a change in mindset of decision-makers in the nuclear weapons states, many of whom seem determined to hold on to their nuclear arsenals. The International Court of Justice has spoken on the obligation to achieve complete nuclear disarmament. The Canberra Commission has offered positive proposals for eliminating the immediate threat. The international generals and admirals have argued the case for the security benefits of eliminating nuclear arsenals.

    Citizen action groups around the world have joined together in the call for achieving a treaty by the year 2000 calling for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons within a timebound framework. They have called for achieving this treaty by the year 2000 so that the people of the world can enter the 21st century with a treaty in place leading to the elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework.

    Unfortunately, the leaders of the nuclear weapons states do not seem to have heard or understood the arguments for eliminating their nuclear arsenals. They are expending their efforts on arms control proposals, like the CTBT, which they try to evade in practice. These leaders do not seem to have grasped that this is not a game, and that “superiority” cannot be realized by arsenals of genocidal weapons. They are still thinking in old ways that are no longer appropriate in the Nuclear Age. Their thinking could pull us into the vortex of nuclear conflagration, by accident or design.

    Einstein argued that “The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” The new way of thinking that Einstein called for must take into account the tremendous destructive power of the “instruments of genocide” in the arsenals of the nuclear weapons states. If we oppose genocide, we must also oppose basing our security on nuclear weapons.

    When enough people speak out and demand that government leaders change their ways of thinking, then these leaders will change. Until enough people demand such change, government officials will likely continue to tread old paths of the mind. We need a united effort of people everywhere to demand that the goal of a nuclear weapons free world be realized, and that we enter the 21st century with a treaty in place that will lead to elimination of nuclear weapons within a timebound framework.

    Bibliography

    Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons 1996, United Nations General Assembly, A/51/218, 15 October 1996

    Model Nuclear Weapons Convention 1997, Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, New York

    Report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons 1996 National Capital Printers, Canberra, Australia [http://www.dfat.gov.au/dfat/cc/cchome.html]

    Evan, William and Ved Nanda (eds.) 1995 Nuclear Proliferation and the Legality of Nuclear Weapons, University Press of America, Inc., Lanham, Maryland

    Pauling, Linus 1983 No More War!, Dodd, Mead & Company, New York

    Roche, Douglas, Unacceptable Risk: Nuclear Weapons in a Volatile World 1995 Project Ploughshares and Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Ontario

    Rotblat, Joseph, et.al. (eds.) A Nuclear-Weapon-Free World Desirable? Feasible? 1993 Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado

    Ruggiero, Greg and Stuart Sahulka (eds.) 1996 Critical Mass, Voices for a Nuclear-Free Future, Open Media, Westfield, New Jersey

    INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE ADVISORY OPINION

    ON THE LEGALITY OF THE THREAT OR USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

    July 8, 1996 Paragraph 105. For these reasons, THE COURT,

    (1) By thirteen votes to one, Decides to comply with the request for an advisory opinion;

    In Favour. President Bedjaoui; Vice-President Schwebel; Judges Guillaume, Shahabuddeen, Weeramantry, Ranjeva, Herczegh, Shi, Fleischhauer, Koroma, Vereshchetin, Ferrari Bravo, Higgins;

    Against: Judge Oda.

    (2) Replies in the following manner to the question put by the General Assembly:

    A. Unanimously, There is in neither customary nor conventional international law any specific authorization of the threat or use of nuclear weapons;

    B. By eleven votes to three, There is in neither customary nor conventional international law any comprehensive and universal prohibition of the threat or use of nuclear weapons as such;

    In Favour: President Bedjaoui; Vice-President Schwebel; Judges Oda, Guillaume, Ranjeva, Herczegh, Shi, Fleischhauer, Vereshchetin, Ferrari Bravo, Higgins;

    Against: Judges Shahabuddeen, Weeramantry, Koroma.

    C. Unanimously, A threat or use of force by means of nuclear weapons that is contrary to Article 2, paragraph 4, of the United Nations Charter and that fails to meet all the requirements of Article 51 is unlawful;

    D. Unanimously, A threat or use of nuclear weapons should also be compatible with the requirements of the international law applicable in armed conflict, particularly those of the principles and rules of international humanitarian law, as well as with specific obligations under treaties and other undertakings which expressly deal with nuclear weapons;

    E. By seven votes to seven, by the President’s casting vote, It follows from the above-mentioned requirements that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law,

    However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake;

    IN FAVOUR: President Bedjaoui; Judges Ranjeva, Herczegh, Shi, Fleischhauer, Vereschetin, Ferrari Bravo;

    AGAINST: Vice-President Schwebel; Judges Oda, Guillaume, Shahabuddeen, Weeramantry, Koroma, Higgins.

    F. Unanimously, There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.

    Done in English and in French, the English text being authoritative, at the Peace Palace, The Hague, this eighth day of July, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six, in two copies, one of which will be placed in the archives of the Court and the other transmitted to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

    (Signed) Mohammed Bedjaoui, President.

    (Signed) Eduardo Valencia-Ospina, Registrar.

    President Bedjaoui, Judges Herczegh, Shi Vereshchetin and Ferrari Bravo append declarations to the Advisory Opinion of the Court.

    Judges Guillaume, Ranjeva and Fleischhauer append separate opinions to the Advisory Opinion of the Court.

    Vice-President Schwebel, Judges Oda, Shahabuddeen, Weeramantry, Koroma and Higgins append dissenting opinions to the Advisory Opinion of the Court.

  • Sowing Seeds of Peace

    We are in the season of Hiroshima, having just passed the 52nd anniversary of the bombing of that city by a single nuclear weapon. On the day the bomb was dropped, August 6, 1945, there was a tear in the fabric of the world. It became clear that a chasm had opened between our technological capabilities for destruction and our spiritual/moral precepts of respect for the dignity and sacredness of human life. Of course, war itself has been a breeding ground for undermining respect for the value of human life. But nuclear weapons brought our destructive capabilities to new heights. Albert Einstein, the great scientist who conceived of the theory of relativity, gave voice to the problem confronting humanity when he said, “The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

    The “unparalleled catastrophe” Einstein spoke of included the end of human civilization and the destruction of most life on Earth. During the Cold War each side pursued a strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction and built up arsenals capable of destroying the other side many times over, despite the knowledge that use of these terrible weapons would entail their own destruction as well as the destruction of most life on Earth. This strategy, which has the acronym MAD, is based upon calculations of human rationality. Yet, as we all know, humans act irrationally for many reasons, not least of which are fear, anger, jealousy, hatred, and mistrust. Humans also make mistakes because they lack pertinent information, misinterpret the information they do have, misconstrue the intentions of other humans, or miscalculate their own capabilities or those of others. The strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction was and remains truly MAD.

    The Nuclear Age demands greater efforts to achieve peace and a world free of the threat of nuclear annihilation. The great challenge of our time is to end the threat of nuclear annihilation. The end of the Cold War has made this possible, but entrenched ways of thinking have made it difficult. Even after the breakup of the former Soviet Union, the nuclear weapons states are still relying upon their nuclear arsenals to provide security. But security from whom? Security against what? We need a new kind of security that does not place the human future in jeopardy. We need to learn to think and act in new ways.

    Let me suggest some elements of this new way of thinking.

    1. Think indigenous. Think like a person whose feet touch the land, like one who loves and respects the Earth and all its creatures. Think seven generations. Recognize that all acts have consequences. Protect the Earth that sustains you. Ask yourself what are the consequences for the Earth of each act you take. Corbin Harney, spiritual leader of the Western Shoshone, has reminded us that we have only “One Earth, one air, one water.” Chief Seattle is reported to have said:

    The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the Earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites our family. If we kill snakes, the field mice will multiply and destroy our corn. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the Earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

    2. Think like an astronaut. Keep a broad perspective. See the world as one. Recognize that all borders are manmade. They may exist on maps, but they do not really exist on Earth. That is what the astronauts discovered when they went into space and looked back at our small fragile planet that floats in an immensely vast universe. Astronaut Salman Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia described his experience travelling in space with other astronauts:

    The first day, we pointed to our countries. The third day, we pointed to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.

    3. The late Carl Sagan, a space scientist and author of Cosmos and Contact, described the Earth as a “pale blue dot”. He wrote:

    After Voyager 2 passed Neptune, I got a chance to do something I had wanted to do for many years: turn the cameras around and photograph the distant Earth…

    I look at that picture and I see a pale blue dot. One pixel, one picture element, just a dot. I think, that’s us. That’s our home world. Everybody you know, everybody you love, everybody you’ve ever heard of, everybody who ever lived, every human being in the history of the universe lived on that blue dot. Every hopeful child, every couple in love, every prince and pauper, every revered religious leader, every corrupt politician, every ethnocentrist and xenophobe, all of them there on that little dot.

    It speaks to me of fragility and vulnerability, not for the planet, but for the species that imagines itself the dominant organism living as part of a thin film of life that covers the dot. It seems to me that this perspective carries with it, as does so much else we know, an obligation to care for and cherish that blue dot, the only home our species has ever known.

    4. Think with your heart. Learn to stand in the other person’s shoes. Ask yourself how you would feel if you were in that other person’s shoes. Act with compassion. Follow the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Don’t be stopped or molded by so-called enemies. Look into the faces, the eyes, the hearts of those who are labeled enemies. Find their humanity. In doing so, you will also find your own.

    5. Think peace. Peace is a process. It requires constant effort to maintain a dynamic balance. I define peace in this way: Peace is a dynamic process of nonviolent social interaction that results in security for all members of a society. Thus, peace is more than the absence of war. Without security, there is no peace.

    6. Think like a seed. Recognize that you have the inherent power of growth. You are not static. A tiny seed may become a majestic tree.

    Potential is realized in many ways, in the seemingly small decisions that one makes each day. When Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, refused to give up her seat in the front of a public bus to a white man, she was realizing her potential. Her simple act of courage, which caused her to be arrested, led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the modern civil rights movement. When Daniel Ellsberg, a Defense Department analyst, risked imprisonment by turning over the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, thus exposing secret reports on the Vietnam War to the American people, he was realizing his potential as a human being.

    Let me contrast this way of thinking with what I believe are the main characteristics of the old way of thinking. It is short-sighted without due regard for consequences; technology centered, seeking technological rather than human solutions to problems; high-risk, and often propelled by testosterone; rooted in secrecy, which is maintained by official classification of information in the name of national security; and often arrogant, bureaucratic, and hierarchical. In short, it is thinking and behavior which divides rather than unites, dominates rather than shares, and destroys rather than heals. This is the thinking which underlies war, nuclearism, disparity, environmental devastation, and human rights abuses.

    Which kind of thinking do you choose? It is an important question because the world of tomorrow will be rooted in the thinking of today. And your thinking and your acts will help to form the world of tomorrow.

    Forty years ago when Josei Toda called for the abolition of all nuclear weapons his thinking was ahead of its time. But he sowed a seed of peace that has taken root. He referred to nuclear weapons as an “absolute evil.” Nearly four decades later, the International Court of Justice issued its opinion that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal under international law. The Court said that any threat or use of nuclear weapons would be subject to the rules of international humanitarian law. This means that nuclear weapons cannot be threatened or used if they would fail to distinguish between combatants and civilians or if they would cause unnecessary suffering to combatants. In issuing this opinion, the President of the Court, Mohammed Bedjaoui, wrote, “Atomic warfare and humanitarian law therefore appear to be mutually exclusive; the existence of the one automatically implies the non-existence of the other.” He also referred to nuclear weapons in a manner similar to the way that Josei Toda had referred to them in 1957. He called them the “ultimate evil.”

    In many ways we have been too complacent in tolerating this absolute evil in our world. As citizens of the world, we must confront this evil and demand an end to the nuclear weapons era. I have the following suggestions for you:

    1. Increase your awareness. Inform yourself. One place to start is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s or other similar web sites. The Foundation’s web address is https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com. We also have a free electronic newsletter, The Sunflower, which provides information on the abolition of nuclear weapons and other issues relating to peace in the Nuclear Age. You can sign up for this at the Foundation’s web site. We are publishing a booklet in our Waging Peace Series on Creating a Nuclear Weapons Free World, A Guide for Students and All Concerned Citizens. You can order a copy from our Foundation.

    2. Exercise your citizenship. Speak out. Make your voice heard. If necessary, protest. Demand information, and fight against government secrecy. You have a democratic right to informed consent on government policies. The late ocean explorer, filmmaker and environmentalist, Jacques Cousteau, said, The time has come when speaking is not enough, applauding is not enough. We have to act. I urge you, every time you have an opportunity, make your opinions known by physical presence. Do it!

    3. Sow seeds of peace. You can sow seeds of peace in many ways — by a smile or a kind word, by caring and sharing, by compassion, by demonstrating in your daily acts that life matters, that the Earth matters, that you are committed to creating a safer and saner future.

    4. Support Abolition 2000. This is a worldwide network of over 700 citizen action groups around the world working for a treaty by the year 2000 that calls for the prohibition and elimination of all nuclear weapons in a timebound framework. Sign the Abolition 2000 International Petition, and help circulate it. There is also an Abolition 2000 Resolution for Municipalities and one for College Campuses. You can help in having these enacted in your municipality and on your college campus.

    5. Grow to your full stature as a human being. Think about not only your rights, but your responsibilities as a human being fortunate enough to be alive at this amazing time in history. Recognize that you are a miracle, that all life is a miracle, and treat yourself and all life with the respect due a miracle. One important responsibility of each generation is to assure that the chain of life is not broken. This responsibility is heightened in the Nuclear Age, and thus more is demanded of us all. My greatest hope for each of you is that you will fulfill your promise and potential as human beings, and be a force for peace in a world that is crying out to be healed.

    I would like to end with a story about sunflowers. When the former Soviet Union split apart, Ukraine was left with a large nuclear weapons arsenal. Ukraine agreed, however, to become a nuclear weapons free state, and to send all of the nuclear weapons left on its territory to Russia for dismantlement. When Ukraine completed this transfer in June 1996, the Defense Ministers of Ukraine and Russia along with the Secretary of Defense of the United States commemorated the occasion in an extraordinary way. They scattered sunflower seeds and planted sunflowers on a former Ukrainian missile base which once housed 80 SS-19 nuclear-armed missiles aimed at the United States. Secretary of Defense William Perry said, “Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil would ensure peace for future generations.”

    Of course, sunflowers alone will not be enough. But sunflowers are a great symbol of hope. They are bright and beautiful. They are hardy and healthy. They make us smile, and they can nourish us. They represent everything that missiles do not. They are life and they affirm life. Nuclear armed missiles, on the other hand, are technological instruments of genocide. They are symbols death and the mass destruction of life.

    Sunflowers have become the symbol of a world free of nuclear weapons. They are a powerful symbol, but they are not enough. To achieve a world free of nuclear weapons will require a great effort of citizens united from all parts of the world, and particularly an effort by young people who will inherit tomorrow’s world. I urge you to be part of this effort, and one day we will plant sunflowers to celebrate the end of the nuclear weapons era on our planet.

    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Ending the Nuclear Weapons Era

    The Nuclear Age

    The Nuclear Age began on a quiet stretch of desert in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. Robert Oppenheimer, a principal scientist in the effort to create the atomic bomb, is reported to have recalled this line from the Bhagavad Gita, “I am become death, the shatterer of worlds.” Just three weeks after the first test, a second atomic bomb was exploded, this time over the city of Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima became death. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, Nagasaki became death. Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists were, indeed, shatterers of worlds.

    The Nuclear Age was conceived in fear and born with destructive impulse. The atom bomb was developed to protect its creators; it was used to destroy their enemies. It remains to be seen whether it will also destroy its creators. For the first time in history, humankind had created a tool powerful enough to destroy itself. Thus, we should be sobered by our own invention, and warned by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But as a species we seem to be neither sufficiently sobered nor warned.

    In the name of national security, a mad race to develop nuclear arsenals took place between the United States and the former Soviet Union. It drained the treasuries of these countries, and cast a dark shadow on the souls of their inhabitants. With scientific genius, these so-called superpowers (and ethical weaklings) improved the power and efficiency of their nuclear devices. Their leaders believed that national security justified threatening to kill hundreds of millions of innocent people that were called “the enemy.”

    On each side, the strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction was pursued with intensity of purpose. This is the atmosphere into which most of the world’s people now living have been born and raised. This is the Nuclear Age.

    Einstein warned that “the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” How are we to respond? How are we to change our thinking? How are we to avoid the catastrophes that lurk not only in the shadows of the Nuclear Age, but in our Congresses, our Parliaments, our Diets, our Dumas, our very hearts?

    The Nuclear Age was born from the destruction of World War II. The atomic bombs were the final exclamation points on a world crazed with killing. From this same frenzy and turmoil of war came other creations more hopeful. From the ashes of World War II came the United Nations, an organization dedicated to preventing the “scourge of war,” which twice in the lifetimes of the U.N.’s creators had brought “untold sorrow to mankind.” The United Nations was viewed as a place where representatives of nations could gather to resolve the world’s problems with civility rather than bombs. On occasion, it has succeeded in dramatic and more subtle ways, but on many other occasions it has failed to prevent wars from erupting.

    It is a great irony of history that in the three-day period between the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, representatives of the U.S., U.K., USSR and France met in London to sign the treaty establishing the International Military Tribunal to hold Nazi leaders accountable for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. At this Tribunal held in Nuremberg and at other international tribunals, the principle of individual accountability was upheld against the leaders of the defeated Axis powers. The concept of individual accountability under international law was given broad support by the United Nations General Assembly, but it has taken root in the succeeding half century far more slowly than its dangerous sibling, the bomb.

    In the Nuclear Age, there has been a fearful acceleration of the struggle between the forces of violence and the forces of reason, between brutality and civility, that have been woven through human history. But the tools have changed as have the stakes of the outcome. In the Nuclear Age, the most awesome tools of violence, nuclear weapons, threaten the continuation of our species. The forces of reason include a place of global dialogue, the United Nations, and the concept that all individuals, even national leaders, must be held accountable for acts constituting crimes under international law. The struggle continues. The outcome remains uncertain.

    The Past Decade

    The world has changed dramatically since the mid-1980s. As 1985 began, the nuclear arms race was at its zenith. The U.S. under President Reagan was pressing ahead with development of Star Wars, a space-based missile defense system. It appeared that the U.S. and USSR were on the verge of entering an even more dangerous chapter of the nuclear arms race in which costly new defensive systems would stimulate the deployment of even more lethal offensive systems. The nuclear weapons states seemed fully committed to pursuing their nuclear weapons programs no matter what the cost.

    In the midst of those dark days, a bright light of sanity appeared. Some, like Helen Caldicott, have described it as a miracle. Mikhail Gorbachev, the new leader of the Communist Party of the USSR, declared a moratorium on all nuclear tests on August 6, 1985, the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. He invited the U.S. to join in the moratorium, but the U.S. continued to test.

    The year 1985 ended with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Accepting the award for IPPNW, its

    co-founder, Dr. Bernard Lown, stated, “Combatting the nuclear threat has been our exclusive preoccupation, since we are dedicated to the proposition that to insure the conditions of life, we must prevent the conditions of death. Ultimately, we believe people must come to terms with the fact that the struggle is not between different national destinies, between opposing ideologies, but rather between catastrophe and survival. All nations share a linked destiny; nuclear weapons are the shared enemy.”

    Early in 1986 Mikhail Gorbachev called for the abolition of all nuclear weapons by the year 2000. His dramatic proposal was not met with particular interest by the other nuclear weapons states.

    In the Spring of 1986 an accident occurred at Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which spewed some 50 million curies of radiation into the environment. The Chernobyl accident demonstrated an often overlooked facet of the Nuclear Age: it is not only our warlike technologies that threaten humanity; our so-called peaceful technologies can also cause devastation to life and property.

    In the Fall of 1986 Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev held a summit meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland. The two presidents seriously discussed the possibility of abolishing nuclear weapons, but the talks ultimately failed due to Reagan’s refusal to abandon his plans to develop a space-based missile defense system. The utterly impractical plan to provide a shield against missile attack prevented agreement on creating a nuclear weapons free world. The nuclear arms race between the U.S. and USSR continued, but with less intensity. Gorbachev had challenged the West to end the dangerous nuclear arms race, and there was growing pressure in the West to respond.

    In 1987 the U.S. and USSR entered into an agreement to establish Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers, providing a direct communications link that would be used to exchange information on ballistic missile tests and other matters. Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty in December 1987, eliminating all land-based missiles held by the two countries with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles. For the first time in the Nuclear Age an entire class of nuclear weapons was eliminated. This Treaty entered into force on June 1, 1988.

    By Fall 1990 the last Pershing II missiles were removed from Germany. By mid-1991 the new American President George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), providing for the elimination of almost 50 percent of the strategic nuclear warheads carried by ballistic missiles. In 1991 both Bush and Gorbachev were making promises of further unilateral reductions in their nuclear arsenals. Bush announced the cancellation of controversial nuclear weapons programs, and the withdrawal of all remaining army and navy tactical nuclear weapons worldwide. Gorbachev announced the elimination or reduction of a range of tactical nuclear weapons on land, sea and air, and promised to exceed the START I requirements by reducing the number of Soviet strategic warheads to 5,000 within seven years. He also initiated a new moratorium on nuclear testing.

    While nuclear arms negotiations were proceeding, a sea change in international politics was occurring. The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. The Soviet Union was disintegrating, and would cease to exist by Christmas 1991 when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the USSR, ending nearly 75 years of communist rule. The nuclear weapons of the former Soviet Union ended up in the control of Russian President Boris Yeltsin. It would be necessary to reach agreements with Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus with regard to control of the nuclear warheads left on their territories. All subsequently agreed to transfer their nuclear arsenals to Russia and join the NPT as non-nuclear weapons states.

    In 1992 George Bush and Boris Yeltsin reached an agreement on a second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II), this one calling for a reduction by each side to 3,000-3,500 strategic nuclear warheads by the year 2003. Bush stated, “The nuclear nightmare recedes more and more.” Yeltsin, addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress said that nuclear weapons and the Cold War “turned out to be obsolete and unnecessary to mankind, and it is now simply a matter of calculating the best way and the best time schedule for destroying them and getting rid of them.”

    Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference

    Despite these achievements, ridding the world of nuclear weapons has proven to be more difficult than President Yeltsin suggested. Three major events that occurred in 1995 demonstrate the problems involved. The first of these major events was the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference, which was held in April and May at the United Nations in New York. This Conference was called for in the 1970 Treaty to decide whether the Treaty should be extended indefinitely or for a fixed period or periods. Four of the five declared nuclear weapons states (U.S., U.K., France, and Russia), argued for indefinite extension of the Treaty. With indefinite extension, other states would remain obligated indefinitely not to develop nuclear arsenals, while the nuclear weapons states would continue their special status of possessing nuclear weapons. The U.S. lobbied particularly hard for this, beginning its lobbying efforts nearly two years in advance of the Conference. The fifth declared nuclear weapons state, China, adopted a more neutral posture that was more conciliatory to non-nuclear weapons states. China indicated its willingness to eliminate its nuclear arsenal, contingent upon all other nuclear weapons states doing so.

    In advance of the Conference, a number of citizen action groups, including the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, lobbied for extension of the Treaty for a series of fixed periods that would be tied to a commitment by the nuclear weapons states to the total elimination of their nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework. We argued that the nuclear weapons states had promised in the NPT to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” The Treaty had entered into force in 1970, but during the following 25-year period the nuclear weapons states had increased rather than decreased the size of their nuclear arsenals, as well as substantially improving them qualitatively. Therefore, an indefinite extension of the Treaty would be the equivalent to giving a blank check to states that had not fulfilled their past promises.1

    A group of non-aligned countries held out against an indefinite extension of the Treaty, but in the end the nuclear weapons states prevailed and the Treaty was extended indefinitely. However, the price for achieving this was the adoption of a set of Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. Among these were:

    “(a) The completion by the Conference on Disarmament of the negotiations on a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty no later than 1996. Pending the entry into force of a Comprehensive-Test-Ban Treaty, the nuclear-weapon States should exercise utmost restraint;

    “(b) The immediate commencement and early conclusion of negotiations on a non-discriminatory and universally applicable convention banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices in accordance with the statement of the Special Coordinator of the Conference on Disarmament and the mandate contained therein;

    “(c) The determined pursuit by the nuclear-weapon States of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of eliminating those weapons, and by all States of general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”2

    These commitments were non-binding, but they set clear standards by which the behavior of the nuclear weapons states could be measured. Yet, within days of making these commitments, the Chinese conducted a nuclear weapons test, and just over a month later French President Jacques Chirac announced that the French would conduct a series of eight nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific.

    French Testing

    French testing was the second of the major events in 1995 related to the struggle to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Despite protests from throughout the world and in France, where over 60 percent of the population opposed the tests, the French conducted six nuclear weapons tests on the atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa. The most important lesson to be drawn from the French testing is that one leader of a nuclear weapons state can set his will against the people of the world, including his own people. On this occasion, Jacques Chirac unilaterally led the French government in a series of nuclear tests. In the future, a leader of a nuclear weapons state may decide, against the will of the people, to use nuclear weapons as a means of attack. This is a reality of the Nuclear Age. The decision to use nuclear weapons is not subject to a democratic process. The weapons themselves are an obscene concentration of power that undermine democracy.

    French testing also showed the extent of opposition to nuclear weapons throughout the world. Protests came not only from citizens groups, but from many governments. As a direct result of their anger over French testing, the Australian government established the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. In announcing the formation of the Commission, the then Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, said, “Some years ago a commission of this type would have been a theoretical exercise. But the end of the Cold War means that we can seriously envisage a concrete program to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.”3

    For the first time a country in the Western alliance was taking steps at the government level to promote the abolition of nuclear weapons. The Canberra Commission, composed of 17 eminent government leaders, scientists, disarmament experts, and military strategists from throughout the world, held its first of four meetings in January 1996. The Commission’s members included British Field Marshal Michael Carver, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard.

    The Commission released its report on August 14, 1996. It found “that immediate and determined efforts need to be made to rid the world of nuclear weapons and the threat they pose to it.” The Report continued, “The proposition that nuclear weapons can be retained in perpetuity and never used defies credibility. The only complete defense is the elimination of nuclear weapons and assurance that they will never be produced again.” The Committee called for an unequivocal commitment by the nuclear weapons states to a nuclear weapons free world and the following immediate steps:

    • Take nuclear forces off alert
    • Remove warheads from delivery vehicles
    • End deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons
    • End nuclear testing
    • Initiate negotiations to further reduce United States and Russian nuclear arsenals

    Achieve agreement amongst the nuclear weapons states of reciprocal no first use undertakings, and of a non-use undertaking by them in relation to the non-nuclear weapon states. 4

    World Court Opinion on the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons

    The third event in 1995 related to ridding the world of nuclear weapons was the oral arguments at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. At these hearings, which were initiated at the request of the World Health Organization and the United Nations General Assembly, the nuclear weapons states argued that the threat or use of nuclear weapons was a political rather than a legal question and, therefore, the Court should not issue an advisory opinion. The nuclear weapons states went further, and argued that if the Court did decide to issue an advisory opinion it should find that the weapons themselves were not inherently illegal. The majority of states presenting positions to the Court argued that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is illegal under international law.

    The Court issued its advisory opinion on July 8, 1996.5 It found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons was generally illegal under international law and that the nuclear weapons states were obligated to complete negotiations on nuclear disarmament. The Court was unable to reach a conclusion on whether or not the threat of use of nuclear weapons for self-defense would be legal in the extreme circumstance when the survival of the state was at stake.

    The decision of the Court will have far-reaching effects for the future of nuclear weapons and for the future of humanity. The opinion that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal under international law gives strong support to the advocates of a nuclear weapons free world and puts the governments of the nuclear weapons states under increased pressure to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

    In December 1995, Joseph Rotblat, a former Manhattan Project scientist, and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs shared the Nobel Peace Prize. In his Nobel Lecture, Professor Rotblat stated, “As for the assertion that nuclear weapons prevent wars, how many more wars are needed to refute this argument? Tens of millions have died in the many wars that have taken place since 1945. In a number of them nuclear states were directly involved. In two they were actually defeated. Having nuclear weapons was of no use to them. To sum up, there is no evidence that a world without nuclear weapons would be a more dangerous world. On the contrary, it would be a safer world.”6

    Also in December 1995 the nations of Southeast Asia created a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone throughout Southeast Asia.

    The year 1995 ended with the United Nations General Assembly passing a resolution calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework. The resolution called upon the nuclear weapons states “to undertake step-by-step reduction of the nuclear threat and a phased programme of progressive and balanced deep reductions of nuclear weapons, and to carry out effective nuclear disarmament measures with a view to the total elimination of these weapons within a time-bound framework.”7 The resolution was opposed by the same nuclear weapons states and their allies that had fought so hard at the NPT Review and Extension Conference for an indefinite extension of that Treaty.

    In April 1996 the Treaty of Pelindaba was signed creating an African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. With the signing of this treaty nearly the entire Southern hemisphere had designated itself as nuclear weapons free.

    The Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva drafted a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The CD, however, was unable to reach consensus on the Treaty due to India’s demand that the nuclear weapons states make a commitment to eliminate their nuclear arsenals within a time-bound framework.

    Australia took the draft CTBT to the U.N. General Assembly, and in special session on September 10, 1996, the General Assembly adopted the Treaty by a vote of 158 to 3 with 5 abstentions and 19 members absent. The Treaty was opened for signatures on September 24, 1996. All five declared nuclear weapons states have signed the Treaty. However, to enter into force the Treaty requires the signatures and ratifications of all 44 nuclear capable countries, including India. India has made it clear that it will neither sign nor ratify the Treaty until the nuclear weapons states have made the commitment to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

    The Twenty-First Century

    As we approach the twenty-first century, the struggle continues between those who would rely upon nuclear weapons to provide for their national security and those who would abolish these weapons of indiscriminate mass murder. More than anything else, the issue seems to be one of privilege within the international system. The nuclear weapons states are comfortable with their privileges in the current two-tier system of nuclear “haves” and “have nots.” The “haves” appear willing to cut back their arsenals, to eliminate underground nuclear tests (but not laboratory testing), and to make promises about “the ultimate goal” of eliminating nuclear weapons. They appear unwilling, however, to make a commitment to eliminating their nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework.

    In essence, the nuclear weapons states are resisting giving up what they perceive to be their privileged status within the structure of the international system. Of course, there is a huge blindspot in their strategy of attempting to maintain their special status. In the last analysis, other states will do as the nuclear weapons states do, not as they say. If, as the behavior of the nuclear weapons states demonstrates, nuclear weapons are deployed to provide security in a dangerous world, then other states will eventually turn to this form of security. The result will be an even more dangerous world.

    Finding a Way Out

    But there is a way out. More than half the world sees it, and has called for the elimination of nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework. Eventually the nuclear weapons states also will be forced to see it. A nuclear weapons free world is in the interests of all people on Earth, and all those who will follow. This includes the interests of the nuclear weapons states. In fact, their reliance on nuclear weapons is the main threat to their own security.

    Nuclear weapons are a test for humanity. If we can control and eliminate these and other weapons of mass destruction that threaten our common future, it is possible for humanity to join in common purpose to solve other pressing problems confronting us, such as eliminating poverty, protecting human rights, and safeguarding the environment from pollution and over-exploitation.

    In the Nuclear Age, humanity must grow to meet the new responsibilities that it has created for itself. The new way of thinking that Einstein called for is perhaps not so new. It may be as old as the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you. It may be as simple as attempting to view the world from an imagined vantage point of a perceived opponent or of future generations. It may be as simple as Joseph Rotblat said in concluding his Nobel Laureate Address, “Remember your duty to humanity.”

    But most likely it will not be this simple. Ending the nuclear weapons era will require dedication, sustained effort, and mass education. It will require the commitment of millions of individuals who believe that humanity is worth saving, that the future is worth preserving. It will require an optimism that refuses to give way to despair. It will require hope. It will require friendship. It will require sacrifice.

    Between 1985 and the present there has been substantial progress in reducing the world’s nuclear arsenals. It is not too much to hope that we could enter the new millennium with a treaty in place committing the world to the elimination of nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework. It is our challenge to make this vision a reality.

    Other Nuclear Age Issues

    I have focused attention primarily on nuclear weapons and the need for their abolition. But this is far from the whole story of the Nuclear Age. Nuclear weapons are only the most prominent, dramatic, and dangerous development of the Nuclear Age. There are many other issues that require the attention of society. Without going into detail, I wish to mention some of these.

    1. The environmental impacts of nuclear technology. During the Cold War, nuclear weapons were produced with only minimal concern for the environment. Today leaking storage tanks and inadequate methods of waste storage are major problems that need to be remedied. It will require hundreds of billions of dollars to clean up behind the weapons producers.

    Many nuclear submarines carrying nuclear weapons have suffered accidents and gone down at sea. Others have been purposefully dumped at sea after their useful life has ended. As the nuclear materials in the sunken reactors and weapons breach their containments, the ocean environment will be threatened.

    Even today there is no adequate answer to the question of how to dispose of long-lived radioactive wastes. The best that scientists can suggest at this time is monitored, multi-barrier retrievable storage. This is not a permanent solution. It simply puts off a long-term solution to a later date; it recognizes that we don’t know enough to attempt a permanent solution that will affect thousands of generations in the future. There are hundreds of nuclear power plants scattered throughout the world. Each of these plants produces high level radioactive wastes in the process of boiling water to generate electricity. The costs of attempting to shield these wastes from the environment for thousands of years have not been adequately assessed. Proceeding with the development of nuclear power plants without having an adequate answer to the problem of nuclear waste storage reflects an arrogance almost as great as using the power of the atom to create weapons that place humanity’s future in jeopardy.

    2. The role of science in society. The Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear bomb was the first great project of corporate science put at the disposal of the nation-state. Corporate science and nationalism have proven to be a dangerous combination. They have given us both nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants.

    Scientists have been rewarded for their efforts by receiving a special status in modern societies, a status reserved for medicine men, healers, and spiritual leaders in more primitive societies. Alvin Weinberg, a prominent nuclear scientist, has spoken of the need for a “nuclear priesthood” to be the guardians of nuclear materials in the future, and to pass on their knowledge from generation to generation. This is a heady proposition, that society should become beholden to those with special knowledge to protect thousands of future generations from the potential harm of radioactive materials and to keep these materials from the hands of terrorists.

    Scientists as a group and as individuals have rarely exercised responsibility for their discoveries. Rather than providing cautious advice, they have often been overly optimistic about society’s ability to manage and control the products of their knowledge. Of course, scientists, like other humans, cannot foresee the ways in which their discoveries might be used. They can, however, draw a line at working on improving or testing weapons of mass destruction or at developing industries that have dangerous waste products that cannot be contained with certainty.

    3. Secrecy and democracy. The Nuclear Age brought forth elaborate measures to maintain secrecy with regard to the development and improvement of nuclear weapons. Such measures were believed to be necessary to prevent the spread of knowledge about making nuclear weapons, but they did not succeed. Today the knowledge of how to make a nuclear weapon is widespread. Even undergraduate college students have demonstrated a grasp of this knowledge, which they have been able to discover from scientific literature available to the public. It is widely acknowledged that terrorists would be able to develop nuclear weapons perhaps crude weapons, but nonetheless nuclear weapons if they were able to get their hands on bomb-grade nuclear materials.

    Secrecy in the Nuclear Age has expanded beyond technological considerations to encompass policy decisions and information that governments find embarrassing. The revelations, for example, that the U.S. government conducted secret experiments with radioactive materials on hospital patients and prisoners without their consent has come to light decades after the experiments took place.

    The real danger of secrecy is that it undermines democracy. Citizens in democracies cannot make intelligent choices about their societies if they are lacking the requisite information. Just as we have accepted that informed consent is necessary in a medical context regarding our bodies, we must apply the same principle to decisions of the body politic.8 If citizens are not informed of government decisions because they are taking place behind a wall of secrecy, then citizens have lost control of their political process and, therefore, of their future.

    In the Nuclear Age the only way that individuals in governments can be held accountable for their acts is by transparency: open decisions openly arrived at. Citizens should demand that if government actions cannot be done in full public view, they shouldn’t be done.

    4. International cooperation. The power of our technologies, most dramatically represented by nuclear technology, has globalized many of the problems we face. These problems include the transportation and storage of nuclear wastes, the safety of nuclear power plants, the diversion of nuclear materials from the nuclear fuel cycle for weapons, the prevention of nuclear terrorism, and the inspection and verification of disarmament agreements.

    National boundaries are largely permeable. National governments cannot prevent people, pollution, projectiles (missiles), or ideas from crossing their borders. Thus, sovereignty is eroding in the face of technological advances. Information travels the world instantaneously. Electronic communications make events anywhere in the world available instantaneously to people everywhere. The spread of pollutants by accident or design, including radioactive pollutants, has a slower migration, but is equally without respect for national borders.

    In the Nuclear Age there are problems that can only be solved at the global level. Among these are problems of transboundary pollution, transportation of hazardous wastes, proliferation of nuclear weapons, and protection of the common heritage of humankind (the oceans, the atmosphere and outer space). These problems cannot be solved by any one nation or group of nations; they can only be solved by global cooperation. They force us to recognize our common humanity and our common future. Global cooperation, through the United Nations and its affiliated agencies, is the key to providing for our common security. However, there is much that needs to be done to transform the United Nations into an institution that is democratically empowered to meet the challenges that confront it.

    5. The power of the individual. The greatest threat to the future of humanity in the Nuclear Age may not be nuclear weapons or nuclear waste. It may be the lack of compassion, commitment and vision of individuals, including our leaders, in the global community. Apathy is disempowering. We must overcome it by education that opens our eyes to the threats that confront us if we fail to take required actions.

    There is only one place in the universe that we know of where life exists, and it is our Earth. As far as we know, we humans are life’s fullest expression of intelligence to date. Visitors from another planet, were they to exist and were they to visit us, might not think so. We are not doing so well in managing our planetary home. But we can change this. It is within our power as individuals to do so. We can make the world a better place. We can fulfill our responsibility to future generations to pass on the planet, intact, to the next generation. We must begin from where we are, with an awareness of the dangers and challenges of the Nuclear Age. We must not be silent nor passive. We must stand up and act for a safer and saner world, a better tomorrow. By our actions, we must restore a sense of hopefulness about our common future.

    If Gandhi could lead the Indian subcontinent to independence from Britain and Nelson Mandela could spend 27 years in prison and come out to end apartheid in South Africa and become president of that country, each of us can also play a role in changing the world. We may not all be Gandhis or Mandelas, but we can play a role in meeting the challenges of the Nuclear Age. Each of us can make a difference.

    Conclusion – Two Ways Out

    Knowledge gained cannot be unlearned, but we can manage and control our dangerous technologies. The genie of knowledge may not fit back into the bottle. There is no reason, however, that the most dangerous tools created with that knowledge cannot by agreement be dismantled and systems established to prevent these tools from being recreated. It is within our power to end the nuclear weapons era, if not the Nuclear Age. Whether or not we will succeed will depend upon the clarity of our vision and the steadiness of our commitment.

    There are only two ways out of the Nuclear Age. One is by death and destruction, by nuclear conflagration, by Nuclear Winter, by the poisoning of our life support systems. Few would consciously choose this path, but many of our decisions, based on national rather than global priorities, have led us in this direction. There is, however, a second option, and that is to affirm without reservation that the power of life is greater than the power of death. Technology is already breaking down barriers between nations. Education and spiritual grounding in the miracle of Creation must now provide the basis for breaking down the barriers in our minds that separate us. We are one humanity. We share one Earth.

    If we awaken to who we truly are not only Americans, not only Russians, not only Japanese, not only Indians, but above all citizens of Earth then our choices will be clear, and we will do everything within our power to preserve this extraordinary planet and its abundant forms of life. Our first step forward on this path will be our absolute commitment to ridding the world of nuclear weapons, the only weapons capable of destroying the future of human life on this planet. In achieving this goal, we will know what we are truly capable of accomplishing, and we will get on with the serious problems of creating cultures that are committed to liberty, justice, human dignity, and ecological integrity.

    Notes

    1. See Krieger, David and Bas Bruyne, “Preventing Proliferation By Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Supporting a Limited Extension of the NPT,” Global Security Study No. 20, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, September 1994.

    2. “Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament,” 1995 Review and Extension conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT/CONF. 1995/L.5, 9 May 1995.

    3. “Commission for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World,” Press Release of Australian Government, November 27, 1995.

    4. Report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, August 14, 1996, p. 4.

    5. “Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons,” International Court of Justice, General List No. 95, July 8, 1996.

    6. The Nobel Lecture given by The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1995 Joseph Rotblat, Oslo, December 10, 1995. Copyright The Nobel Foundation, Stockholm 1995.

    7. United Nations General Assembly, A/C.1/50/L.46/Rev.1, 14 November 1995.

    8. See Hull, Diana, “Informed Consent: From the Body to the Body Politic,” in Krieger, David and Frank Kelly (Editors), Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age, Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1988

    * David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.