Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear testing

  • The Silent Fallout: The Legacy of Soviet Nuclear Testing in Kazakhstan and Its Modern-Day Impacts

    The Silent Fallout: The Legacy of Soviet Nuclear Testing in Kazakhstan and Its Modern-Day Impacts

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    Article by Dinmukhammed  Kairolda

    How has Soviet nuclear testing at the Semipalatinsk Test Site shaped Kazakhstan’s public health, national identity, and global disarmament stance in the post-independence era?

    Introduction

    From 1949 to 1989, the Soviet Union carried out 456 nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk Test Site, also known as the  Polygon, in northern Kazakhstan. Selected for its geographical remoteness and its subservience to Moscow, it was one of the most intensively used nuclear testing grounds on the planet. Over the course of four decades, the explosions irradiated an estimated 1.5 million individuals, frequently without alert or protection. Fallout poisoned land, water, and air, bequeathing a legacy of cancers, birth defects, and intergenerational trauma.

    The cessation of testing in 1991 was contemporaneous with a renewed national consciousness of this history. During the final Soviet years, the Nevada–Semipalatinsk Movement, initiated by poet and parliamentarian Olzhas Suleimenov, organized popular resistance to nuclear testing. One of the initial mass civic movements in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, it was directly responsible for the shutdown of the site. Its impact was felt globally, putting Kazakhstan on the international disarmament agenda while generating a domestic identity based on peace and resistance.

    This article considers the effects of Soviet nuclear testing at Semipalatinsk in three areas: public health, international diplomacy, and national identity. Based on historical research, policy reports, scientific studies, and opinion surveys distributed to young Kazakhs, the article examines how Kazakhstan turned its nuclear past into both an opportunity for global leadership and a source of national unity.

    Public Health and Environmental Impacts

    The human impact of nuclear testing in Semipalatinsk continues to be significant. From 1949 to 1989, regional populations were subjected to ongoing radioactive contamination with little protection. Radioactive soil, water, and air have had long-lasting consequences spanning generations, such as increased cancer rates, birth defects, immune disorders, and mental trauma (PMC, 2017).

    These are not just statistics and numbers but experienced truths. One survivor remembered: “After the tests, there were awful headaches[…] children were born abnormally. There were a lot of cases of cancer.” Survey evidence corroborates this general impression: 94% of those questioned think testing did great harm to public health, and more than 91% know about the existence of the site (Figure 1).

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    Figure 1 above shows the answers to the question, ”How much do you think the nuclear tests have affected the health of local people?” from the Survey “Public Opinion on Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Legacy.”

    Although the government has recognized this legacy and issued targeted support, healthcare assistance and compensation remain insufficient. The nuclear legacy continues to have health consequences on a large population of Kazakhstan’s citizens, as well as the wider moral and political terrain on the country as a whole.

    Nevada–Semipalatinsk Movement: Civil Mobilization and Moral Authority

    In February 1989, at a televised poetry reading in Almaty, Olzhas Suleimenov demanded the immediate suspension of nuclear testing. His appeal gained momentum with the formation of the Nevada–Semipalatinsk Movement, which brought together Kazakh and American anti-nuclear activists. Hundreds of thousands of citizens, scientists, artists, and ecologists participated in peaceful protests for two years, shutting down the Semipalatinsk complex even before Kazakhstan declared independence (Astana Times, 2021).

    The importance of this grassroots movement is not solely due to the outcome of shutting down of the Semipalatinsk Test Site, but also as that of the Soviet Kazakhstan first experiencing civic activism. Activists such as Sultan Kartoev and Kairat Umarov describe in interviews how moral indignation and collective action combined broke through the cover-up of the Soviet nuclear program (Astana Times, 2019).The movement also exposed Kazakhstan to the global anti-nuclear debate, opening opportunities to advocate for disarmament across national borders.

    In spite of the focus of subsequent state reports on regional measures, the movement is a good example of peaceful resistance and civic courage, illustrating the potential of grassroots efforts to shape Kazakhstan’s future after the Soviet period.

    Kazakhstan’s Role in Global Disarmament

    Kazakhstan’s disarmament leadership in the world is based on its firsthand experience of the ravages of nuclear testing. Following independence, it was the first to shut down a principal test site and voluntarily give up one of the world’s largest inherited nuclear arsenals, establishing a precedent that security and sovereignty were compatible with disarmament. In a detailed and comprehensive account entitled The Atomic Steppe, Dr. Togzhan Kassenova describes both the effort to end nuclear testing, as well as to transfer the approximately one thousand weapons that Kazakhstan inherited after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Today, Kazakhstan is an active promoter of non-proliferation. It was among the first signatories of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and has chaired TPNW significant forums, including the Third Meeting of States Parties (3MSP) to the TPNW in 2025. As co-chair, with Kiribati, of the Working Group on Articles 6 and 7, it has influenced international norms for victim assistance and environmental remediation. Kazakhstan also chaired the 2024 Preparatory Committee for the 11th Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

    In addition to the work in ongoing multilateral disarmament processes, Kazakhstan and Kiribati introduced a historic resolution on nuclear justice at the 2023 Session of the UNGA First Committee. This was the first resolution that called upon member-states to submit their views on victim assistance and environmental remediation to the Secretary-General. A subsequent resolution in 2024 calls for the Secretary-General to convene an international meeting on victim assistance and environmental remediation at an appropriate time in 2026. (Nuclear Justice Resolution 2024)

    Public opinion is consistent with this foreign policy: 74.3% of the respondents approve of Kazakhstan’s leadership in disarmament, and 77.1% are in favor of a worldwide prohibition of nuclear weapons (Figures 2 and 3). These findings indicate that the state’s position on nuclear disarmament is based on both strategic interests and collective memory.

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    Figure 2, shows  answers from the question, ”How much do you think the nuclear tests have affected the health of local people?” from the Survey “Public Opinion on Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Legacy.”

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    Figure 3, shows the responses from the question, ”How much do you think the nuclear tests have affected the health of local people?” from the Survey “Public Opinion on Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Legacy.”

    National Identity and Collective Memory

    The heritage of Semipalatinsk has become a central element of Kazakhstan’s national identity. Defined as a “national tragedy,” it is used as a moral foundation for post-Soviet values and as a narrative of the shift from victimization to leadership. According to Nazerke Kanatbekova, state media, such as the 2020 TV series Polygon, often emphasizes the role of political leaders in ending the testing and underestimates the role of grassroots activism. This is symptomatic of a top-down approach to nation building.

    There are also differences of generation in remembering. Older witnesses remember more diplomatic triumphs and acts of heroism, while younger participants, especially from traumatized areas, are recording emotional responses to trauma but lack an abundance of detailed history. Memorials such as Stronger than Death and nationwide commemorations establish connections between former suffering and present responsibility.

    Opinion surveys indicate that 70.6% of the interviewed persons believe Kazakhstan’s nuclear past continues to be important to national identity (Figure 2). How the city of Semipalatinsk was transformed from a place of silence to a sign of survival attests to the fact that the collective memory may both serve as a warning and a site of civic unity.

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    Figure №4, shows Pie chart, answers to the question, ”Do you believe that Kazakhstan’s history with nuclear weapons influences its national identity today?” from the Survey “Public Opinion on Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Legacy.

    Conclusion

    The Soviet nuclear testing legacy of Kazakhstan continues to impact its public health, identity, and foreign policy. The Nevada–Semipalatinsk Movement is the quintessential example of how civil society can convert national disaster into international activism.

    Kazakhstan’s rapid ratification of the TPNW and leadership within disarmament communities are expressions of an experience driven by principled foreign policy. Under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Kazakhstan has continued to play its role as a strong supporter of nuclear non-proliferation and humanitarian resolution of nuclear legacies.

    From a nuclear testing site to a global leader in disarmament, Kazakhstan’s transformation is a lesson in integrity and moral responsibility, demonstrating that a country can reconcile the legacy of pain with a vision for a nuclear-weapon-free world.

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  • The Toxic Legacy: French Nuclear Testing in Algeria’s Sahara Desert

    The Toxic Legacy: French Nuclear Testing in Algeria’s Sahara Desert

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    Article by Baya Attard

    On the morning of February 13, 1960, a plutonium-filled atomic bomb detonated in the vast expanse of Algeria’s Sahara Desert. The explosion of “Blue Jerboa,” as the French military named this bomb, sent a mushroom cloud towering into the sky, with the extreme heat transforming the surrounding sand into black, glassy shards. Within 45 minutes of the blast, French President Charles de Gaulle triumphantly declared, “Hoorah for France. This morning she is stronger and prouder.”

    This moment marked the beginning of one of the most troubling chapters in colonial and post-colonial history, a six-year period during which France conducted 17 nuclear weapons tests in the Algerian Sahara, leaving behind a toxic legacy that continues to poison relations between the two nations and devastate local communities more than six decades later.

    Colonial Violence Extends Beyond Independence

    The French nuclear testing program in Algeria represents a particularly stark example of the persistence of colonial violence even after the colonial relationship formally ends. What makes this case especially egregious is that most of these tests, 13 of the 17, occurred after Algeria had achieved independence in 1962, following a brutal eight-year war of liberation. The newly independent Algerian government was forced to accept a five-year lease allowing France to continue using the Saharan test sites, a concession they had long resisted but were compelled to make as part of the Evian Accords that ended the war.

    The first test, Blue Jerboa, was three times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. General Charles Ailleret, who commanded the operation, justified the location by claiming that “the total absence of all signs of life” made it ideal for nuclear testing. This assertion was demonstrably false. The town of Reggane, located just 50 kilometers from the test site, had more than 6,000 inhabitants at the time of the first detonation, according to local activist Abderrahmane Toumi, who founded a charity to support radiation victims.

    Between 1960 and 1961, France conducted four atmospheric tests near Reggane in southwestern Algeria. When international criticism mounted, as radioactive fallout was detected as far away as Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and Sudan, the French military moved operations 700 kilometers east to the Hoggar mountain range near In Ekker, where a further 13 underground tests took place through 1966.

    Widespread Exposure and Lasting Contamination

    The scale of exposure was enormous. French operations employed 6,500 engineers, soldiers, and researchers alongside 3,500 Algerian manual laborers. Beyond these workers, thousands more were exposed to radiation, including local Tuareg populations who had lived in the region for generations. The entire Sahara region was blanketed with nuclear fallout, with elevated atmospheric radioactivity detected as far as Khartoum in Sudan, more than 3000 kilometers from the test sites.

    Even the supposedly safer underground tests proved catastrophic. During the “Beryl” test, the underground shaft was improperly sealed, spewing radioactive matter into the atmosphere and heavily contaminating nine soldiers and numerous government officials who had been invited to observe the blast. As scholar Jill Jarvis notes, “Radioactive dust still emanates from the Sahara, from those nuclear bombs, whose effects are absolutely indelible. In this sense, even the sand itself has been occupied by colonial occupation.”

    Local researchers estimate that thousands of Algerians have suffered from the effects of nuclear radiation across the Saharan region. Many contaminated individuals died from what they were told were “rare illnesses,” without ever learning the true nature of their conditions. The long-term health effects began manifesting approximately 20 years after the first test and continue to affect new generations.

    Mohamed Mahmoudi, a 49-year-old activist who believes he was exposed to radiation during military service near Reggane in the early 1990s, exemplifies the ongoing impact. He reports that authorities never informed him of the radiation risks, leaving him and others to discover the dangers only after developing health problems. Despite his efforts to document over 800 eligible compensation cases, he himself does not qualify for French compensation due to restrictive criteria.

    The Failure of Justice

    The inadequacy of France’s response to this humanitarian crisis is staggering. In 2010, the French parliament passed the Morin law, theoretically offering compensation to nuclear testing victims. However, the law’s restrictive requirements, including proof of residency during the testing period and recognition of only certain illnesses, have effectively excluded most Algerian victims. As of 2021, only one of 545 people who received compensation was Algerian, with the remainder being from French Polynesia, where France conducted nuclear tests from 1966 until 1996.

    The 2021 Stora report, commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron to improve Franco-Algerian relations, addressed the nuclear issue but offered only vague proposals for joint cleanup efforts without concrete commitments to compensation or full site decontamination. As Mohamed Mahmoudi wryly observed, “Stora is like a tailor. He sewed up exactly what France needs.”

    Perhaps most troubling, many contaminated sites remain under the surface, and the Algerian government never received complete maps of the French experiments. Abderrahmane Toumi emphasizes this ongoing danger: “There is nuclear waste underground and we do not even know where it is located. Patients simply want to live in their hometowns without nuclear waste, that is all.”

    A Pattern of Nuclear Colonialism

    The French nuclear testing program in Algeria must be understood within the broader context of what scholars call “nuclear colonialism,” the systematic use and destruction of Indigenous and minority communities for uranium mining, weapons testing, and waste storage. From the American Southwest to the Pacific Islands to the Australian Outback, nuclear powers have consistently imposed the most dangerous aspects of their weapons programs on marginalized populations.

    This pattern reflects how former colonial powers cemented their claims to global political influence through nuclear weapons programs, even as they transferred the greatest risks and costs to their former colonies and Indigenous communities. The disproportionate impact on Black, Indigenous, and communities of color worldwide reveals the deeply racist foundations underpinning a world awash in nuclear weapons.

    The Ongoing Struggle for Justice

    Today, the fight for transparency and justice continues. Algerian military leaders have called on France to acknowledge its historic responsibilities and comply with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was negotiated in 2017 and which calls on nuclear powers to address past harms. Local activists continue documenting cases and demanding site cleanup and fair compensation.

    The toxic legacies of nuclear weapons and colonialism are inseparable. As the nuclear age began during the collapse of formal empires, post-colonial states inherited not only political independence but also the devastating environmental and health consequences of their former colonizers’ weapons programs. Truly ending the ongoing effects of colonialism requires not only acknowledging these historical injustices but taking concrete steps toward abolishing nuclear weapons and restoring justice for all those impacted by their existence.

    The radioactive sand of the Sahara continues to blow across North Africa, carrying with it the indelible marks of colonial violence and serving as a reminder that the promise of decolonization remains unfulfilled so long as communities continue to suffer from the toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing. Until France fully acknowledges its responsibilities and takes meaningful action to address the ongoing contamination in Algeria, the mushroom cloud that rose over Reggane in 1960 will continue to cast its shadow over Franco-Algerian relations and the health of Saharan communities.

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  • Trinity Anniversary: Dawn of the Nuclear Age and its Enduring Global Implications

    Trinity Anniversary: Dawn of the Nuclear Age and its Enduring Global Implications

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    On 23 July 2025, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) and its youth initiative Reverse the Trend (RTT) hosted a virtual event titled “The Trinity Test: Dawn of the Nuclear Age and Its Enduring Global Implications,” honoring the 80th anniversary of the first atomic bomb test conducted in New Mexico. This event, moderated by Policy and Advocacy Director Christian Ciobanu, highlighted the intergenerational toll of nuclear weapons testing, the lived experiences of frontline communities, and the urgent need for global disarmament, justice, and environmental remediation. Speakers included: Mary Dickson, Writer and Downwinder from Utah; Esther Yazzie-Lewis, Diné Elder and Co-Author of The Navajo People and Uranium Mining; Susan Gordon, Coordinator of the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment (MASE); Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Senior Lecturer at Columbia University; and Anderson Peck, Youth Activist with NAPF and its youth initiative, RTT.

    Ciobanu opened the event, echoing the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), that before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. bombed its own people—testing the same plutonium bomb design on communities in New Mexico during the Trinity Test.

    Mary Dickson followed with a powerful statement by explaining, “Trinity unleashed the Nuclear Age, an age from which humanity has never recovered.” Growing up in Salt Lake City, she was unknowingly exposed to radioactive fallout from U.S. nuclear tests, having been provided inadequate warning and guidance. “We drank milk delivered to our doorstep… How were we to know a silent poison was threading through our bodies?”

    Having grown up in a neighborhood where 54 people developed cancer, tumors, or autoimmune disorders, as well as having her own thyroid cancer diagnosis in her 20s, Dickson has dedicated her life to advocating for justice for radiation-exposed communities. “If we died immediately, it would have been a national catastrophe. Instead, we became invisible.” She emphasized the deep, generational trauma of nuclear testing and urged global accountability: “if we’ve learned anything, it’s this: we all live downwind.”

    Esther Yazzie-Lewis of the Navajo First Nation delivered a powerful reflection connecting the 1945 Trinity Test to decades of radioactive harm on Indigenous lands. She explored the hypocrisy of the U.S., benefitting from nuclear testing while passing on the heavy costs to indigenous communities. “We live in a rich country,” she said, “and yet we’re still hauling our water and hauling our wood.” She described uranium mining’s lasting toll—on the land, the water, and Navajo families, including her own brother who worked in the mines.

    Critiquing the origins of the Navajo Nation’s tribal government, she asserted, “It wasn’t for us—it was for the development of the corporate world to make money.” On the 80th anniversary, Yazzie-Lewis called for a full reckoning, both political and moral, of the cost of nuclear weapons. She urged the U.S. to acknowledge the people it sacrificed within its own borders to achieve atomic power and military dominance.

    Sharing her dismay with the current institutions, Yazzie-Lewis declared, “our government people [tribal government] and the people that regulate the laws and policies are not going to be there to help us. We have to do it ourselves, for our own selves, for our families and our communities. Yet in the midst of this bleak picture, Yazzie-Lewis concluded her segment with a statement of hope amidst an era of growing turmoil. She praised the number and diversity of youth who attended the session and called upon them to carry the struggle forward despite these injustices: “Forge ahead, you young people… Learn their strategies. This grid will fall—return to your roots, your land, and your knowledge to survive what comes next.”

    Following Yazzie-Lewis’ remarks, Susan Gordon of MASE, explained in detail the nuclear legacy of uranium mining in Western states. Gordon highlighted the often forgotten radiation exposure to Navajo communities—a result of uranium mines that endangered already established indigenous communities— and also called attention to the 1979 Church Rock Uranium Mill spill, which remains the largest release of radioactive waste by volume in U.S. history.

    Happening just three months after the Three Mile Island Accident—a partial nuclear meltdown in Pennsylvania—Gordon noted how the nuclear power industry made efforts to downplay and ignore the impact of the Church Rock Spill. Gordon explained,“I think this happened for two reasons, one, they wanted to promote nuclear power as safe, two accidents that close together would have been problematic. Second, this happened on the Navajo land, land belonging to people of color.”

    Sharing with the audience a quote from Edith Hood, President of the Red Water Pond Road Community Association, Gordon recounted, “We have waited far longer than other communities in the U.S. for this poison to be cleaned up. When is it our turn to feel safe? How many more generations have to wait?”
    Gordon concluded her remarks by detailing numerous Trump Administration Executive Orders that would increase the risk of uranium exposure by fast-tracking environmental assessment and federal approval—a process that typically could take up to years—to instead take around 20 days without tribal and public input.

    Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes of NAPF stressed the uniquely devastating nature of nuclear weapons. “The stories you’ve heard are part of a larger tapestry of suffering,” she said, tracing the global spread of nuclear testing from Trinity to the Marshall Islands, where the local Marshallese community members were told to relocate “for the good of all mankind,” Hughes recalled how, just months after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear detonations resumed, while the United Nations simultaneously called for complete disarmament.

    Hughes went on to explain the current threat that nuclear weapons posed. Today, she warned, over 12,000 nuclear weapons remain—many far more powerful than those used in 1945. “Even a limited nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan could starve billions,” she noted. Hughes emphasized that abolition, not mere reduction, is essential. “We must eliminate, abolish, and prohibit nuclear weapons—before they eliminate us.”

    Providing the youth perspective on the Trinity test, Anderson Peck of NAPF and its youth initiative, RTT, explained that the 80th anniversary of the 1945 Trinity explosion as the beginning of the Nuclear Age was the “beginning of a protracted legacy of nuclear injustice.” “How can a country that prides itself on justice ignore the suffering of its own people,” he asked. Amid deepening geopolitical tensions and fragile ceasefire arrangements, Peck called on young people to position themselves as a resource and “denounce the present-nuclear related escalation”.

    In preparing for the event, he created an Instagram poll on his personal account asking whether anyone had heard of the Trinity explosion. Nearly 70 percent of respondents, most of them between 18 and 20 years old, indicated they had never heard of Trinity. Peck expressed his concern over such a finding, stating, “too many young people remain unaware of the event which ushered the world into the nuclear age.” Referencing UN Secretary-General Guetteres, Peck closed by expressing the urgency of the present moment: “The 80th anniversary of Trinity gives us an occasion for a much-needed raising of awareness.”
    As the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test prompts reflection, voices from frontline communities, scientists, and youth urge a reckoning with nuclear injustice. Their message is clear: remembrance must lead to action. A safer, more just future demands abolition—not only of nuclear weapons, but of the systems that sustain them.

    [/fusion_text][fusion_imageframe image_id=”30159|full” aspect_ratio=”” custom_aspect_ratio=”100″ aspect_ratio_position=”” skip_lazy_load=”” lightbox=”no” gallery_id=”” lightbox_image=”” lightbox_image_id=”” alt=”” link=”” linktarget=”_self” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” sticky_display=”normal,sticky” class=”” id=”” max_width=”” sticky_max_width=”” align_medium=”none” align_small=”none” align=”center” mask=”” custom_mask=”” mask_size=”” mask_custom_size=”” mask_position=”” mask_custom_position=”” mask_repeat=”” style_type=”” blur=”” stylecolor=”” hue=”” saturation=”” lightness=”” alpha=”” hover_type=”none” magnify_full_img=”” magnify_duration=”120″ scroll_height=”100″ scroll_speed=”1″ margin_top_medium=”” margin_right_medium=”” margin_bottom_medium=”” margin_left_medium=”” margin_top_small=”” margin_right_small=”” margin_bottom_small=”” margin_left_small=”” margin_top=”” margin_right=”” margin_bottom=”” margin_left=”” bordersize=”” bordercolor=”” borderradius=”” z_index=”” caption_style=”off” caption_align_medium=”none” caption_align_small=”none” caption_align=”none” caption_title=”” caption_text=”” caption_title_tag=”2″ fusion_font_family_caption_title_font=”” fusion_font_variant_caption_title_font=”” caption_title_size=”” caption_title_line_height=”” caption_title_letter_spacing=”” caption_title_transform=”” caption_title_color=”” caption_background_color=”” fusion_font_family_caption_text_font=”” fusion_font_variant_caption_text_font=”” caption_text_size=”” caption_text_line_height=”” caption_text_letter_spacing=”” caption_text_transform=”” caption_text_color=”” caption_border_color=”” caption_overlay_color=”” caption_margin_top=”” caption_margin_right=”” caption_margin_bottom=”” caption_margin_left=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_color=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_delay=”0″ animation_offset=”” filter_hue=”0″ filter_saturation=”100″ filter_brightness=”100″ filter_contrast=”100″ filter_invert=”0″ filter_sepia=”0″ filter_opacity=”100″ filter_blur=”0″ filter_hue_hover=”0″ filter_saturation_hover=”100″ filter_brightness_hover=”100″ filter_contrast_hover=”100″ filter_invert_hover=”0″ filter_sepia_hover=”0″ filter_opacity_hover=”100″ filter_blur_hover=”0″]https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Trinity-Dawn-of-the-Nuclear-Age-and-its-Enduring-Global-Implications-Flyer.jpg[/fusion_imageframe][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

  • The Forgotten Fallout: The Unacknowledged Costs Faced by Downwinders of the Nevada Test Site

    The Forgotten Fallout: The Unacknowledged Costs Faced by Downwinders of the Nevada Test Site

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    On June 7th, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) expired. The Senate passed an expanded version of the act earlier this year, but the Speaker of the US House of Representatives failed to bring it to a vote. This failure marked a critical shift in the US’s outlook towards shouldering responsibility for the harms of the nuclear age, including from atomic testing in New Mexico and Nevada from 1945 to 1992. By not extending RECA, the US Government underscored a glaring shortcoming in the nation’s acknowledgment and assistance for the long-term impacts of nuclear testing. This decision provides an impetus for discussions of the broader consequences of nuclear testing conducted in the US, which have left irreversible scars on the land and its people.

    According to a 1997 press release from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), testing at the Nevada National Security Site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site, exposed American children to 15-70 times more radiation than what the government had previously reported. This finding reflects the exponentially larger scale at which downwind communities, both near and far, were impacted by these tests on US soil. The radiation exposure resulted in a significant increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer, particularly in children, due to their higher consumption of milk. Cows grazed in radiation-contaminated pastures and as a result, their milk contained high concentrations of iodine-131 and strontium-90, radioactive isotopes that accumulate in the thyroid. This is one of many examples of how radiation fallout impacted those downwind from the tests.

    The health consequences of radiation exposure experienced by the downwind communities, either during the tests or due to environmental contamination over time, left lasting scars on entire communities that continue to affect individual’s well-being today. Many individuals witnessed multiple family members across different generations develop deadly cancers such as thyroid and lymphoma. In an interview for the KAWC in 2021, Laura Hanley, an attorney who processed RECA claims, despondently referred to the widespread cases of medical complications due to radiation exposure as “death mile.” Hanley was referring to the devastation of whole families and neighborhood communities. 

    In acknowledging the extreme physical and emotional burden of the health consequences of radiation exposure, it is important to recognize that these consequences have also led to adverse and less understood impacts on the economic well-being of these regions. While it is understood that the treatment of individuals in these regions furthered the financial insecurity of families who underwent treatment; what is less studied is how this impacted workforce capacity and thus the resulting economic vitality in these regions. In establishing a closer study of these economic consequences, progress can be made toward better acknowledging and more comprehensively shouldering the economic burden affected families face.

    It is important to note that any effort to study and effectively respond to the economic burden affected families face must also better acknowledge the mounting burden of direct financial costs associated with necessary medical treatment, which was unmatched by any financial coverage provided through RECA. Under RECA, individuals in certain counties downwind from the Nevada National Security Site were eligible for a one-time, lump sum of $50,000. However, beyond the fact that RECA is no longer in effect, its coverage did not shoulder most of the cost of healthcare treatments, especially for those who do not have health insurance.

    Principal Investigator of the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program (RESEP) Dr. Laura Shaw is one of many calling out this shortcoming of RECA and underscoring the need for more expansive coverage. In particular, Dr. Shaw highlights that the true costs of treatment for cancers developed as a result of radiation exposure amount to around $150,000. Her remarks are backed by the National Cancer Institute, which additionally notes that this cost only pertains to the treatment of one type of cancer when, in reality, many can face more than one cancer over their lifetimes. 

    The economic fallout from nuclear testing conducted in the US reflects the additional long-term financial strains imposed on downwinders, in addition to the physical and emotional detriment caused by radiation exposure. Establishing a comprehensive study of these socioeconomic impacts will provide an essential tool in forwarding a readoption and expansion of RECA to address the gaps in its coverage and the indirect long-term costs posed to affected communities.

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  • Expendable Lands and Colonial Legacies: Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands

    Expendable Lands and Colonial Legacies: Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands

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    Nuclear colonialism refers to the practice whereby colonial powers choose territories inhabited by marginalized and indigenous populations to conduct nuclear testing with little regard for the effects on the local populations. The term encapsulates the colonialist view of Indigenous peoples and their territories as expendable. This attitude of expendability is foundational to colonialism and its legacies; nuclear colonialism represents one particularly dramatic phase in a lengthy, destructive history and its perpetuating legacy.

    Beginning in 1945 and throughout the Cold War, over two thousand nuclear tests were conducted in various territories by various states, with the U.S. responsible for the majority of these tests. The U.S. Government’s process of selecting the Marshall Islands for nuclear testing reveals the colonialist attitudes that informed its decision. The search criteria required that the territory be remote, away from U.S. populations, and under U.S. control. When testifying to Congress, officials brazenly said of the site, “Above all, it had to be away from population centers of U.S. …  and yet in an area controlled by the U.S.” The Marshall Islands fulfilled every criterion: a remote island archipelago in the Pacific Ocean under U.S. occupation since 1944, following two years in which the U.S. military transformed the territory into a battlefield while driving out the Japanese military administration. The U.S. wasted no time in using the already ravaged islands for military ends: on July 1, 1946—less than a year after the devastating nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the first peacetime nuclear test was conducted on Bikini Atoll. Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. conducted 66 additional nuclear tests on the islands concentrated on two atolls, but the fallout blanketed many of the other 27 atolls that make up the Marshall Islands.

    In 1947, the United Nations officially placed the Marshall Islands under the trusteeship of the U.S. The stipulations of this agreement included paradoxical obligations, spelled out in Articles 5 and 6 of the document. Article 5 obligated the U.S. to ensure the trust territory contributed to “the maintenance of international peace and security,” thus validating its use for military ends. Article 6, conversely, sets forth the obligations of the governing state to ensure and promote the governed territory’s independence, protection, and security. It explicitly states the obligation to “protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources.” While the agreement lacked explicit permission to use the territories for nuclear testing, both the broad administrative and military control it granted the U.S. and the narrative that the tests were imperative to national security justified the testing that took place. The known effects of nuclear testing meant that any nuclear explosions on the islands rendered the obligation from Article 6 impossible to uphold; in fact, any testing directly ensured the violation of the obligation. Not only have the Marshallese experienced devastating health consequences—including higher incidences of cancer—but significant radiological contamination remains on the islands, including in the locally grown foods, rendering parts of the Marshall Islands uninhabitable. This contamination robs displaced Marshallese people of the opportunity to safely inhabit their native lands and live according to their culture and tradition. Although certain compensation schemes have been set up over the last few decades, they remain egregiously inadequate to address the scale of the problem, including the devastating health impacts and the ongoing environmental challenges.  

    The Broader Context of U.S. Colonial Exploitation

    The willingness of the U.S. to exploit the Marshall Islands under nuclear colonialism is only one piece of a vast colonial legacy. Since the 19th century, the U.S. has continuously annexed territories under conditions that sanction their exploitation, as evidenced by the U.S.’s acquisition of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines following the conclusion of the Spanish-American war in 1898. Shortly following the annexation of these territories, U.S. senator Albert Beveridge remarked “that God ‘has made us the master organizers of the world…that we may administer…among savages and senile peoples.’” After acquiring these territories, the Supreme Court ruled that they would remain under U.S. control as unincorporated territories in the Insular Cases. This served to prevent the full realization of constitutional rights for the citizens of these territories. In keeping the territories unincorporated, the U.S. retained plenary power over these regions, enabling them to implement policies and decisions without the consent of the governed. The strategic classification of the territories as constitutional exceptions was informed by the settler colonization of Native American peoples and territories and made on the basis that the inhabitants—like Native Americans—were “unfit for automatic citizenship or for territorial sovereignty.” The colonialist attitudes that informed the decision to deprive these territories of constitutional protections paved the avenue for their exploitation. Like all other colonized territories, Puerto Rico draws remarkable parallels to the Marshall Islands. Puerto Ricans posed minimal resistance to U.S. control in 1898 under the impression that U.S. occupation would facilitate their independence. However, U.S. interest in Puerto Rico was strategic, fueled by the compelling economic and military value the territory would provide. The region was ideal for expanding U.S. commercial and military reach.

    In pursuit of these military and economic ends, the U.S. displaced Puerto Ricans, exploited their lands, and disrupted their ways of life. These actions have resulted in significant environmental damage and health issues, such as contamination of land and water sources, increased cancer rates, and other chronic illnesses among the local population. Today, the Marshall Islands and Puerto Rico remain hindered by their history of occupation. Both territories struggle to realize economic independence due to the systemic exploitation of their resources and people by colonial powers. Their ongoing economic challenges and public health crises result directly from the policies and actions of the U.S. and its failure to compensate the territories adequately.

    This history of exploitation and disregard for Indigenous and marginalized populations underscores the broader patterns of colonialism that persist in various forms. Nuclear colonialism, as illustrated by the U.S. actions in the Marshall Islands, is a stark reminder of how colonial legacies continue to inflict harm and maintain inequities. Nuclear testing is extraordinary in the novelty and nature of the weapons and their effects but very typical in terms of how former colonial powers treat smaller populations and territories under their control—as expendable.   

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  • First They Bombed New Mexico – the Oppenheimer Sequel

    First They Bombed New Mexico – the Oppenheimer Sequel

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    By Anastasia Shakhidzhanova 

    On Feb. 9, 2024 our Government, Development, and Outreach Coordinator, Anastasia Shakhidzhanova, and board member Father Larry Gosselin attended the screening of “First They Bombed New Mexico” at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. The film was followed by a panel and Q&A session led by the central figure of the documentary Tina Cordova and director Lois Lipman. 

     “First They Bombed New Mexico” focuses on the catastrophic aftermath of Trinity, the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in history, conducted in New Mexico in 1945, just a month before the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Despite hundreds of thousands of people living in New Mexico at the time, and thousands in less than a 20-mile radius from the test site, the individuals, communities, and lands were not considered in decision-making about the test. The exposure to radiation has led to an epidemic of cancers throughout the region that continues to plague communities to this day.

    Tina Cordova is a lifelong activist and a native New Mexican; the film follows her experience fighting for financial compensation and recognition from the federal government for the horrific damage the Trinity test and the broader nuclear industry has forced upon innocent citizens living in New Mexico. Through door-knocking, public demonstrations, and government lobbying in Washington, Cordova organizes her community to stand up for the help they deserve. Firsthand testimonies from cancer victims and survivors describe the utter lack of accurate information provided by the federal government regarding the radiation exposure brought about by the explosion. Scenes of Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project provide a realistic counterpart and parallel to the blockbuster film released in 2023, which omitted any mention of the impact on the people of New Mexico.

    The film portrays both the strength and the desperation of downwind communities and effectively pulls forth evidence to prove how careless the federal government has been with the health of New Mexicans: a prime example of environmental racism.

    While it is sobering to witness the past histories and present realities depicted on-screen, Cordova and Lipman also take extensive care to show the positive future possibilities for this region of the United States and its inhabitants. The film ends with a firm and direct call to action: contact your members of Congress and urge them to support the RECA amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would add the New Mexican downwinders to the list of eligible communities to apply for compensatory funding for health damages. 

    The deadline is June 2024 and you can learn more about how to take action here: https://www.trinitydownwinders.com/single-post/call-to-action and here: https://www.trinitydownwinders.com/about.

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  • Civil Society Statement for the International Day Against Nuclear Tests

    Civil Society Statement for the International Day Against Nuclear Tests

    Selina N. Leem delivered this statement on behalf of NAPF at the UN General Assembly’s event to commemorate the International Day Against Nuclear Tests on August 26, 2020.

    President of the UN General Assembly, Delegates, and Distinguished Guests,

    As a child, seeing two of my baby cousins, nuclear babies born with defects and only a few days to live, taking their last breath left me a sea of anger. The injustice.

    As my aunt painted the crouching lady, curled into herself, her head held low, mourning one too many times for bodies her own gave and a war took. Her tears followed the pool of despair from 1946. This is my family’s legacy.

    The US only recognizes four of our islands as being contaminated from nuclear tests: Enewetak, Rongelap, Utrik, Bikini. Take the first letter of each name and you get ERUB- the Marshallese word for broken, destroyed. An only apt description of how we were treated and left. It’s been 74 years since my fellow Bikinians left their home island for “the good of mankind and to end all world wars”- words by Commodore Ben H. Wyatt of the United States’ military. Except our people were already good. World wars? We were not involved in one. We were brought into two.

    Delegates,

    My people, our islands were sacrificed for ‘the good of mankind and to end all world wars.’ 75 years have passed, and I have failed to see that accomplished. It WAS NOT for the end of the world my people left, it was for all of you, myself, and my generation and the future generations after me.

    Delegates,

    The international community adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996, but it has still not entered into force, due to a lack of support amongst certain states. A certain nuclear weapon state is even considering the resumption of nuclear testing.

    The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted in 2017 and will soon enter into force. The nuclear ban treaty not only seeks the total abolition of nuclear weapons, including nuclear testing, but also requires, for the first time, international cooperation to assist victims of nuclear testing and help remediate contaminated environments. The ban treaty has the support of the vast majority of the world’s states but faces opposition from those few who continue to profit from a system, where a few states wield the power to destroy humanity. I applaud those 44 states that have so far ratified the nuclear ban treaty — the small island state of St. Kitts and Nevis was the most recent, earlier this month — as well as those 84 states that have so far signed the treaty-our event chair, herself, signed the ban treaty yesterday on behalf of Malta. And I urge the rest of the world to swiftly join this treaty also.

    We simply cannot wait for certain states to create an environment for nuclear disarmament. Ne reba kon malon, konej malon? If they tell you to drown, are you to follow suit? It is past time for us to abolish nuclear weapons.

    Survivors are demanding action! No one should live in fear. Everyone should embrace the TPNW, the international legal instrument that prohibits nuclear weapons. Sign and ratify.

    No more Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Enewetak, Rongelap, Utrik, Bikini!

    “For the good of mankind and to end all world wars.”

    Komool tata. Thank you.

  • 20 Years of Nuclear tests by India and Pakistan: the Real Nuclear Danger in Asia That Nobody is Talking About

    20 Years of Nuclear tests by India and Pakistan: the Real Nuclear Danger in Asia That Nobody is Talking About

    [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” overlay_color=”” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” padding_top=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” padding_right=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” center_content=”no” last=”no” min_height=”” hover_type=”none” link=””][fusion_text]While the global diplomatic circuits, international media and opinion makers are busy discussing whether North Korea would de-nuclearise itself, or if Iran would go nuclear, there seems to be a complete silence this month as the world’s only nuclear-armed neighbours with ongoing conflicts complete 20 years of their nuclear tests conducted in May 1998.

    Real and escalating danger

    Even a cursory look at these 20 years would dispel the carefully-crafted myths around nuclear weapons, and would bring out their sheer absurdity. Far from providing security and strategic stability, introduction of nuclear weapons in the region has pushed both the countries into an ever-spiraling arms race – of both nuclear and conventional kinds.

    Ever since the 1998 nuclear tests – in the Pokharan desert by India on 11th and 13th May and in Chagai Hills by Pakistan on 28th May – both countries have spent heavily on expanding military infrastructure mostly imported from the US, Russia, Israel, and China. As per the March 2018 SIPRI Report titled ‘Trends in International Arms Transfer’, India leads the global imports of conventional weapons while Pakistan is on the 9th position this year. India has become the world’s largest arms importer, with a share of 14% in the entire world’s weapons’ trade. India’s weapons imports have grown by 90%, between 2006-10 and 2011-15. There is a steep upward curve in this trend and India has topped global weapons imports for most years since 1998. The security that the nuclear weapons were supposed to bestow is conspicuously absent.

    The overall military expenditure has also grown in this period. In terms of military budget, India is now the world’s fifth largest spender on the military, spending $55.5 billion in 2017, a hike of 6% since the previous year. The country’s defence expenditure has escalated sharply particularly since 2006, its share in the world’s military expenditure rose from 2.5%-3%. This amounts to 2.3% of India’s total GDP.

    The obscenity of this massive militarism becomes apparent when compared with the widening wealth gap, and the steep decline in government expenditure in crucial sectors such as health and education. More than 194 million Indians go hungry daily and 37% of deaths in India are still caused by “poor country” diseases such as TB and malaria. Even India’s middle classes – flag-bearer of nuclear nationalism – are actually poor as shown by recent data and their numbers are often inflated.  Similarly, Pakistan’s 22% population is hungry and it was ranked 107 in a ranking of 118 developing nations in the Global Hunger Index. On other indices, such as child undernourishment and mortality rates, education, sanitation, both India, and Pakistan are among the worst-performing nations on the world map.

    On average, India and Pakistan have flight-tested one nuclear-capable missile every year since 1998. A 2012 report by the Nobel-winning International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear Weapons(IPPNW) warned of a severe nuclear war-induced famine in South Asia that would kill a staggering two billion people in its hypothetical study on the consequences of a nuclear exchange in the region.

    Rising belligerence and nuclear war-drums

    The risk in South Asia has become worse with the rise of ultra-nationalist politics in both India and Pakistan with avowed religious fervour. Open nuclear threats to each other by top-most political and military leaders have severely undermined faith in strategic stability in the recent years.  While the former Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar made a dangerously frivolous statement in 2016 about revising India’s nuclear doctrines of No-First-Use and credible minimum deterrence, his counterpart in Pakistan raised concerns internationally when he threatened Israel with nuclear war, merely over a fake tweet! Revision of the ‘No-First-Use’ policy and a ‘credible minimum deterrence’ posture, that India adopted in 2003 as part of its Nuclear Doctrine, is being openly discussed by strategic experts and political leaders as the incumbent PM Narendra Modi fought his elections in 2014 with a poll promise to revise the nuclear posture.

    The Doomsday Clock statement this year mentioned the “simmering tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan”. It refers to the “threats of nuclear warfare” hanging in the background “as Pakistan and India faced each other warily across the Line of Control in Kashmir”, a reference to the surgical strikes by the Indian military across the LoC on September 29. The 2017 statement also mentioned the militant attacks on two Indian army bases in 2016 – the September 18 Uri attack that killed 20 soldiers and the Nagrota attack on November 29, in which seven soldiers died – that led to the exchange of not-so-veiled nuclear threats in South Asia.

    Inching closer to nuclear midnight

    Unsurprisingly, the escalating nuclear tensions between India and Pakistan have been cited in the Atomic Doomsday Clock in the past two consecutive years, as the clock reached closest ever to midnight.

    Even as the world saw some progress towards disarmament last year as the UN adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or the Nuclear Ban Treaty, India and Pakistan joined the Nuclear Weapons States(NWS) in boycotting the negotiations and voting. This went against India’s carefully crafted image of a reluctant nuclear-armed nation ready to disarm if the world discusses it seriously going beyond the NPT. When the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons(ICAN) was awarded Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo last year, diplomats of both India and Pakistan remained away from the ceremony, citing rather lame excuses.

    Celebration of murderous weapons

    A few weeks ago, when the doctors of IPPNW organised an international seminar in New Delhi on the Nuclear Ban Treaty, they met with shockingly disappointing treatment devoid of basic courtesy. The Indian government did not just deny the visa for participants from Pakistan and Bangladesh, the government-appointed Chair of the cross-party Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence refused to meet their delegation despite prior approval. While the world has made progress in criminalising nuclear weapons, a Bollywood movie glorifying nuclear tests is getting released this month to commemorate the Pokharan nuclear tests of 1998. Such apathy towards nuclear insanity does not bode well for the region, and calls for an urgent attention by the international civil society.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container][fusion_global id=”13042″]

  • No Money for New Nuclear Weapons or Testing

    The United States detonated 1,032 nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, under the ocean, and underground between 1945 and 1992 that devastated local communities. Though the U.S. has not conducted a full-scale underground nuclear test in 25 years, resurgent nuclear threats are gaining intensity in the Trump administration. More than inflammatory rhetoric from the President, neocons, nuclear lab managers, and others are urging Trump to hit the accelerator on new nuclear warheads and the underground explosions needed to test them.

    Public pressure from ordinary Americans was essential in halting explosive U.S. nuclear testing in the atmosphere and underground 25 years ago. We must act now to halt funding for a new arms race.

    Join us as we urge White House Budget Office Director, Mick Mulvaney, and the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees of the US Congress not to fund programs that may lead to resumption of nuclear test explosions or new nuclear weapons.

  • Rethinking the 3 Rs

    Until quite recently, ‘the 3 Rs’ simply meant reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic. One could very well get by with basic competencies in literacy and math. Yet once Ida Noddack proposed her theory of nuclear fission, the rethinking of our knowledge base began. As Hans Bethe revealed in his interview with Dr. Mary Palevsky, we might not have had nuclear bombs if the discovery of fission had not coincided with the movements of world war.

    Reframing

    John Borrie of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) explains ‘reframing’ as a move from what is deemed acceptable. The shift we see through acceptance of a total and legally binding ban on nuclear weapons is, at its core, an ideological and philosophical one. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is a milestone in the ongoing reframing of global security concepts. While some may see the ban treaty as a stand against nuclear weapons states, we can also understand the action as taking a stand for peace by legally de-legitimizing weapons of mass destruction.

    However, reframing is directly linked to access to knowledge. The less we know, the less we question what is acceptable. The more we know the more action we are likely to take when the human consequences of the nuclear cycle are recognized. Hence, the 3 Rs of Human Security embedded in the nuclear ban treaty: Recognition, Restitution, and Remediation.

    Recognition

    The nuclear ban treaty recognizes the “unacceptable suffering of and harm caused to” those who experienced – and continue to experience – the effects of nuclear weapons, those whom Bo Jacobs and Mick Broderick term “Global Hibakusha.” The ban treaty also recognizes “the disproportionate impact of nuclear weapons activities on indigenous peoples” like the Pacific populations of the Marshall Islands, Australia, Kiribati, Hawai’i, and Te Ao Maohi.

    It is the lived experiences of those who continue to suffer from the effects of nuclear attacks and nuclear weapons testing, and their unwavering activism, that have led us to reframe and define Human Security through a lens of humanitarian consequence and human rights.

    Moreover, the treaty recognizes nuclear physics applied through tools of war – quite simply the intentional twisting of science into devastation. Or as Oppenheimer famously quoted the Bhagavad Gita when he witnessed the Trinity test, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

    Restitution

    Victims of nuclear activity are entitled to restitution. Full stop.

    During negotiations on the nuclear ban treaty, government and civil society delegations lobbied vigorously for the inclusion of article 6(1), which addresses “victim assistance.” This key point is an imperative for countries like the Marshall Islands where more than USD$2 billion have been awarded to the Enewetak, Rongelap, Utrik, and Bikini communities through the Nuclear Claims Tribunal – awarded claims that the United States refuses to honor.

    Remediation

    When my oldest son was 6 years old, he told me that he wanted to be a scientist. I said that was great but asked why. He replied that he wanted to be a scientist so he could figure out a way to clean up his islands; if scientists could figure out a way to put poison in his islands, there must be a way to take the poison out.

    To those who continue to experience the effects of ionizing radiation, like my sons, remediation is a responsibility not an option.

    Article 6(2) of the treaty compels state parties to take responsibility for their nuclear actions through “necessary and appropriate measures towards the environmental remediation of areas so contaminated.” In other words, taking the poison out of our children’s islands.

    Recentering  

    Nuclear states would like us to believe in deterrence, yet Borrie argues the need to critically analyze the knowledge base for such a one-sided theory. In light of the Pacific finding itself in the crosshairs of current nuclear aggressions, can nuclear states provide empirical evidence that deterrence works? The burden lies with nuclear states to prove that the consequences of nuclear weapons do not poison systems of sustainability thus cultivating global insecurity.

    Not all 122 states that voted for the ban treaty in July have ratified the legally binding instrument. Some are following their own constitutional procedures to ensure ratification, while others are constrained by agreements and conflicting treaties. However, the very existence of a nuclear ban treaty illuminates the philosophical shift resulting from more than 70 years of active reframing. The treaty shows us that we have evolved beyond the use of atomic science as a show of weaponry force; instead, recentering humanity to establish an era of remediation and peace.

    We must continue to broaden our context of security through well-researched policy with privilege given to lived experience, and recognition of insecurity as a result of atomic “peace.”

    How much longer must we live in fear?

    Brooke Takala is a mother, PhD candidate at the University of the South Pacific, and co-coordinator of an Enewetak NGO called Elimon̄dik.

    For information on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons https://www.un.org/disarmament/ptnw/

    For more information on US human radiation experimentation, including experimentation on the Marshallese people, refer to http://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/radiation/

    Follow the treaty signatures/ratifications at http://www.icanw.org/status-of-the-treaty-on-the-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons/