Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: United Nations

  • The Silent War: Iraq’s Women and Children are Casualties Amid Economic Sanctions

    Originally Published by the Ventura County Reporter

    Mohamed, a recently married Iraqi friend who works in the hotel where we stay in Baghdad, is expecting a child soon. Shortly before we left nearly three weeks ago, he approached some members of our seven-member peace delegation with troubling information about his wife’s pregnancy. She will need a Cesarean section—unfortunately, on his salary, Mohamed cannot afford the operation.

    Our team feels helpless listening to Mohamed’s story amid the millions of others like it in Iraq. Even so, it isn’t wise for us to get a reputation as problem-solvers. We do what we can, but working against the United Nations-imposed economic sanctions on Iraq can often be overwhelming.

    This Iraqi clasroom may soon gain over one-third new capacity. More than 35 percent of girls drop out of primary school due to the need to help support their families.

    As a woman visiting Iraq, I often have entrance into particular social situations unfamiliar to men, like holding hands or sitting next to mothers at the hospitals that tend their sick children. I grow particularly empathetic as I imagine myself in their shoes. I know the rage I feel here in the United States toward misguided economic policies meant to target Saddam Hussein but that directly affect the most vulnerable people in society: the women and children.

    In Iraq, life for women (especially mothers) was much better prior to the United Nations sanctions, imposed in August of 1990. From 1975 to 1985, the Iraqi government invested large amounts of money in social programs, such as education and health care. A program to eradicate illiteracy among Iraqi women was exceedingly successful, and women have traditionally enjoyed freedoms not found in other contemporary Arab and Muslim countries.

    In an Oct. 1 New York Times article, Nicholas Kristof reported on the liberal attitudes toward women in Iraq. He wrote that women routinely serve in non-combat positions in the military. They pray, dine and swim together with men. Girls compete in sports as often as boys do.

    Compare these tremendous opportunities with those in neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia, where repressive attitudes cloister women from public life into sometimes dangerous situations. In March, a group of Saudi girls was incinerated, having been denied exit from a burning building because they were not covered by a hijab, or head scarf.

    Although more openminded in its attitudes, Iraq has become decidedly more dangerous for women and children since the Gulf War due to the breakdown in medical care and especially in preventive medicine. Mohamed’s wife knows this predicament all too well.

    In Basra, where much of the Gulf War fighting transpired, 25 of the 26 obstetrics and gynecology students are women. During my first visit to Iraq in August 2001, however, I spoke with a physician at the Basra Pediatric Hospital who said that 90 percent of the women in Southern Iraq suffered from severe anemia, a health indicator with serious implications for women and children.

    Severely anemic nursing mothers cannot provide their babies adequate nutrition. Thus, even breastfeeding has become problematic during the past 12 years of economic sanctions.

    A UNICEF document from April of this year states that many Iraqi mothers have stopped breastfeeding and that only 17 percent breastfeed during their baby’s first four months. Under the Oil for Food Programme of 1995, a food basket handout for Iraqi families contains powdered formula that mothers increasingly use.

    This is problematic for many reasons, among them that the formula requires water for preparation. Nearly 62 percent of women said they report giving their babies water in the first month of life, and nearly 32 percent of the children drink unboiled water—but the water in Iraq is severely contaminated. Many of the water purification, sewage treatment and electrical facilities were bombed during the Gulf War and remain largely unrepaired and are functioning at minimal capacity for a growing nation of 24 million.

    Last fall, Thomas Nagy, a Washington, D.C. professor, released a study called The Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq’s Water Supply. In this paper, he details information in government documents from 1991 about how the Gulf War strategy included destroying Iraq’s civilian infrastructure, which violates Geneva Convention articles.

    “It notes,” Nagy reported, “that Iraq’s rivers ‘contain biological materials [and] pollutants and are laden with bacteria. Unless the water is purified with chlorine, epidemics of such diseases as cholera, hepatitis and typhoid could occur.’ Iraq will suffer increasing shortages of purified water because of the lack of required chemicals and desalination membranes. Incidences of disease, including possible epidemics, will become probable unless the population were careful to boil water.”

    Currently, the killer of children in Iraq is gastroenteritis, caused by drinking contaminated water. One in eight children do not see their first birthdays. Imagine the helplessness of being a mother in Iraq, knowing what life was like before the Gulf War and before economic sanctions, wanting nothing more than to be a good mother and provide a healthy, nutritious, safe life for her children.

    In a meeting with the chief medical officer at the Basra Pediatric Hospital, I inquired about the status of preventive health care for women in Iraq. His response was that there is none. This is quite remarkable for Iraq, which until 1990 had eradicated all childhood illnesses and had the most comprehensive health care system in the Middle East.

    While abysmally lacking resources and training programs, the medical field is nowhere as bleak as the education climate in Iraq, especially for young girls. More than 35 percent of girls drop out before the end of primary school due to the high price of school supplies and the need to help supplement the family’s income by going to work, likely begging.

    It seems we are condemning the women and children of Iraq to a fate similar to that of the 25 percent of American children who live in poverty, the 45 million people without health insurance and the 30,000 homeless in New York City alone.

    “Conflict is the last thing people in Iraq need,” UNICEF in Iraq reports. And when our group inquired about the potential effects of President Bush’s growing military campaign, an official at the World Food Programme office in Baghdad sighed: “The poorest people in Iraq will suffer the most.”
    *Leah C. Wells, a Santa Paula teacher, serves as peace education coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara. She recently paid a second visit to Iraq and opposes the economic sanctions and no-fly-zone incursions on that country.

  • United Nations Launches Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education

    If disarmament and non-proliferation goals are to be furthered the public must be educated about these issues on a wide scale, particularly in areas of conflict. To help bolster such education efforts the United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs launched the U.N. Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education Wednesday October 9 after two years of work and deliberations.

    In March 2000 a group of experts from around the world were appointed to examine existing disarmament and nonproliferation education and training programs, and to give recommendations for furthering such work, particularly through the U.N. system. The resulting analysis stems largely from consultations with non-governmental, academic, research and media communities from throughout the world.

    Though the study’s 34 recommendations are varied, they include specific actions that can be taken to increase the availability and distribution of disarmament education resources; to improve collaboration between organizations currently working on disarmament education; and to take advantage of appropriate education technology.

    The study emphasizes that there must be education efforts at all levels, from young school children to military personnel, and that different methods must be used to reach the public on all levels, with particular sensitivity to cultural and language differences

    The First Committee of the United Nations will now begin discussing the document, and it is hoped that the study will lead to an increase in the available resources for effective disarmament education initiatives.

    The study calls for increased action by a number of actors, including municipal leaders; religious leaders and institutions; grassroots organizations; and a number of U.N. actors. While impact of some of its suggestions may be difficult to measure, any steps taken by the U.N. General Assembly, the Department of Disarmament and Public Information, U.N. affiliated organizations, U.N. member states, and international non-governmental organizations will be clearly visible.

    Disarmament education is a key step in moving towards a more peaceful and non-violent global environment. It is hoped that the study’s suggestions will be enthusiastically implemented.

    U.N. Undersecretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, Jayantha Dhanapala and Director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, William C. Potter, stated, in a recent International Herald Tribune article:

    “Young people live in a world ravaged by conflict and awash in arms. In an age of weapons of mass destruction, they also must contend with the fear of total annihilation. As diplomats and educators we have a responsibility to provide them with hope founded on reality. Disarmament and nonproliferation education is an important but underused tool to accomplish that end.”
    *Devon Chaffee is the Research and Advocacy Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • The Bush Administration’s Assault on International Law

    The Bush Administration’s Assault on International Law

    Originally Published in World Editorial & International Law

    A war initiated by the United States to oust Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq under the present circumstances, and without U.N. Security Council authorization, would be tantamount to a “war of aggression,” an international crime for which high-ranking leaders of the Axis countries during World War II were held to account at the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo.

    The chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Robert Jackson, described such war as “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Thus, the seriousness of the international law violation that such a war would entail would exceed the seriousness of the Iraqi violations that the Bush administration has cited to justify it. Such a war would also symbolize the complete reversal of official U.S. policy toward international law since World War II.

    In the immediate aftermath of the allied war against Nazi and Japanese aggression, the United States led other nations in establishing the United Nations Charter “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” and in founding the United Nations “to maintain international peace and security,” “to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace,” and “to bring about by peaceful means” settlements of international disputes.

    A war against Iraq at this time, whether initiated by the United States alone or with authorization from the U.N. Security Council, would violate these founding U.N. principles by permitting an unprovoked major war to occur, most likely with massive loss of life and the threat of wider conflict and conflagration.

    Furthermore, because the law of the U.N. Charter is less than ideal—reserving permanent Security Council membership to the great powers, including the United States, with veto authority over the council’s resolutions—a U.S.-imposed Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq would highlight and exacerbate the U.N.’s weaknesses, and would constitute a major setback to its fundamental goals and aspirations.

    If noncompliance with U.N. resolutions and secret weapons programs were legitimate grounds for the Security Council to authorize force, then the United States, if it were consistent, would be preparing a force-authorizing resolution for its own invasion, as well as for invasions of other permanent members of the council, and of Israel, India, Pakistan, and others.

    If the Security Council, however, manages to withstand U.S. pressure to authorize an invasion, and if, as it has threatened, the Bush administration invades Iraq without such authorization, the damage to international law would be equally great, given that the United States would be demonstrating its contempt for the U.N. Charter and the United Nations in the clearest possible terms.

    As the chief architect of the U.N. Charter, and as the world’s most powerful nation—militarily, economically, and politically—the United States has a special responsibility to uphold the founding principles of the United Nations, and to lead the world, not repeatedly to war, but in setting international precedents and developing global models for the peaceful resolution of conflict consistent with the rules, principles, and procedures of the U.N. Charter.

    With such leadership, the world could then turn its attention to broader applications of international law to other areas of profound concern, including global warming, preserving the oceans, protecting human rights, raising standards of living for the world’s poor, ending global starvation, ending the global arms bazaar, ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a just solution, and ending the threat of nuclear war—issues for which the Bush administration has shown only hostility. The alternative is international anarchy, irreversible environmental degradation and destruction, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and perhaps also a proliferation of wars unconstrained by the principles of a peaceful world order that the United States helped establish a half-century ago. Even the Bush administration’s efforts to reduce the terrorist threat to the United States would likely be damaged by an unprovoked war against an Arab state in the Middle East.

    International law is essential in the twenty-first century because powerful technologies and integrated economies cannot be constrained by national boundaries. The adverse effects of pollution, disease, and weapons of war are uncontrollable without standards contained in law. The sanctity of the earth’s biosphere, including human survival, has become dependent upon the strengthening of these standards. Sadly, however, the United States under the Bush administration has initiated an intense assault on international law in order to pursue short-term and short-sighted interests that avoid, evade, ignore, or violate the standards painstakingly developed by the international community, including the United States, over many decades.

    If the United States continues to shirk, even denounce, its responsibilities to uphold international law across a range of global problems and concerns, it will tear open the fabric of world security and international cooperation, and leave the future of the human race, including the United States, in extreme peril.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His most recent book isChoose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • Text of Iraq’s Letter to U.N.

    Following is the text of the letter from Iraqi Foreign Affairs Minister Naji Sabri to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan as released by Annan’s spokesman.
    Dear Secretary-General,

    I have the honor to refer to the series of discussions held between Your Excellency and the Government of the Republic of Iraq on the implementation of relevant Security Council resolutions on the question of Iraq which took place in New York on 7 March and 2 May and in Vienna on 4 July 2002, as well as the talks which were held in your office in New York on 14 and 15 September 2002, with the participation of the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States.

    I am pleased to inform you of the decision of the Government of the Republic of Iraq to allow the return of the United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq without conditions.

    The Government of the Republic of Iraq has responded, by this decision, to your appeal, to the appeal of the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, as well as those of Arab, Islamic and other friendly countries.

    The Government of the Republic of Iraq has based its decision concerning the return of inspectors on its desire to complete the implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions and to remove any doubts that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction. This decision is also based on your statement to the General Assembly on 12 September 2002 that the decision by the Government of the Republic of Iraq is the indispensable first step towards an assurance that Iraq no longer possesses weapons of mass destruction and, equally importantly, towards a comprehensive solution that includes the lifting of sanctions imposed in Iraq and the timely implementation of other provisions of the relevant Security Council resolutions, including resolution 687(1991). To this end, the Government of the Republic of Iraq is ready to discuss the practical arrangements necessary for the immediate resumption of inspections.

    In this context, the Government of the Republic of Iraq reiterates the importance of the commitment of all Member States of the Security Council and the United Nations to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Iraq, as stipulated in the relevant Security Council resolutions and article (II) of the Charter of the United Nations.

    I would be grateful if you would bring this letter to the attention of the Security Council members.

    Please accept, Mr. Secretary-General the assurances of my highest consideration.

    Dr. Naji Sabri
    Minister of Foreign Affairs
    Republic of Iraq

  • Scene of the Crime

    Iraqi President Saddam Hussein levels a sneer at the thought of combat with the United States, the specter of which looms more vivid with the seasons. His derision may visit him out of habit these days—military conflict, one area peace advocate contends, is only one more phase in a de facto war waged on the country for the better part of the last 12 years.

    “Sanctions are a form of war,” the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Leah Wells said. “Essentially, what they amount to is one in eight children not reaching their first birthday and 5,000 children a month under the age of 5 dying as a result of malnutrition and water-borne diseases.”

    The United Nations imposed numerous embargoes on fundamental goods to Iraq following its 1990 attack on Kuwait and amid speculation that Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction.

    Wells, who will leave for Baghdad Sept. 19 on a fact-finding mission for her Santa Barbara-based nonprofit peace group, has experienced such degradation firsthand. Her trip to Iraq last August yielded the sight of raw sewage mixed with water supplies as children played around them.

    Iraq’s educational infrastructure founders under the sanctions, Wells added—an irony given the nation’s stature among world cultures.

    “That’s the area where the art of writing was invented—it’s the cradle of civilization,”Wells said. “The love of learning has always been very rich there. I’m really curious to see what the effects of this war preparation have on teachers and students.”

    Wells, 26, will return from Baghdad Sept. 29.

  • Text of President Bush’s speech to the United Nations

    Source: The Associated Press

    PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. Secretary-General, Mr. President, distinguished ladies and gentlemen: We meet one year and one day after a terrorist attack brought grief to my country, and to the citizens of many countries. Yesterday, we remembered the innocent lives taken that terrible morning. Today, we turn to the urgent duty of protecting other lives, without illusion and without fear.

    We have accomplished much in the last year – in Afghanistan and beyond. We have much yet to do – in Afghanistan and beyond. Many nations represent here have joined in the fight against global terror – and the people of the United States are grateful.

    The United Nations was born in the hope that survived a world war – the hope of a world moving toward justice, escaping old patterns of conflict and fear. The founding members resolved that the peace of the world must never again be destroyed by the will and wickedness of any man. We created a United Nations Security Council, so that – unlike the League of Nations – our deliberations would be more than talk, and our resolutions would be more than wishes. After generations of deceitful dictators, broken treaties and squandered lives, we dedicate ourselves to standards of human dignity shared by all, and to a system of security defended by all.

    Today, these standards, and this security, are challenged.

    Our commitment to human dignity is challenged by persistent poverty and raging disease. The suffering is great, and our responsibilities are clear. The United States is joining with the world to supply aid where it reaches people and lift up lives … to extend trade and the prosperity it brings … and to bring medical care where it is desperately needed.

    As a symbol of our commitment to human dignity, the United State will return to UNESCO. This organization has been reformed and America will participate fully in its mission to advance human rights, tolerance, and learning.

    Our common security is challenged by regional conflicts – ethnic and religious strife that is ancient but not inevitable. In the Middle East, there can be no peace for either side without freedom for both sides. America stands committed to an independent and democratic Palestine, living beside Israel in peace and security. Like all other people, Palestinians deserve a government that serves their interests and listens to their voices. My nation will continue to encourage all parties to step up to their responsibilities as we seek a just and comprehensive settlement to the conflict.

    Above all, our principles and our security are challenged today by outlaw groups and regimes that accept no law of morality and have no limit to their violent ambitions. In the attacks on America a year ago, we saw the destructive intentions of our enemies. This threat hides within many nations, including my own. In cells and camps, terrorists are plotting further destruction and building new bases for their war against civilization. And our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale.

    In one place – in one regime – we find all these dangers, in their most lethal and aggressive forms … exactly the kind of aggressive threat the United Nations was born to confront.

    Twelve years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait without provocation. And the regime’s forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources. Had Saddam Hussein been appeased instead of stopped, he would have endangered the peace and stability of the world. Yet this aggression was stopped – by the might of coalition forces, and the will of the United Nations.

    To suspend hostilities and to spare himself, Iraq’s dictator accepted a series of commitments. The terms were clear: to him, and to all. And he agreed to prove he is complying with every one of those obligations.

    He has proven instead only his contempt for the United Nations, and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge – by his deceptions, and by his cruelties – Saddam Hussein has made the case again himself.

    In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolution 687, demanded that Iraq renounce all involvement with terrorism, and permit no terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq. Iraq’s regime agreed. It broke its promise. In violation of Security Council Resolution 1373, Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organization that direct violence against Iran, Israel, and Western governments. Iraqi dissidents abroad are targeted for murder. In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American President. Iraq’s government openly praised the attacks of September 11th. And al-Qaida terrorists escaped from Afghanistan are known to be in Iraq.

    This demand goes ignored. Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human rights found that Iraq continues to commit “extremely grave violations” of human rights and that the regime’s repression is “all pervasive.” Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating, burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands; children in the presence of their parents – all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state.

    In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolutions 686 and 687, demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq’s regime agreed. It broke its promise. Last year the Secretary-General’s high-level coordinator of this issue reported that Kuwaiti, Saudi, Indian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Bahraini, and Omani nationals remain unaccounted for – more than 600 people. One American pilot is among them.

    In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolution 687, demanded the Iraq renounce all involvement with terrorism, and permit no terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq. Iraq’s regime agreed. It broke its promise. In violation of Security Council Resolution 1373, Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organization that direct violence against Iran, Israel, and Western governments. Iraqi dissidents abroad are targeted for murder. In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American President. Iraq’s government openly praised the attacks of September 11th. And al-Qaida terrorists escaped from Afghanistan are known to be in Iraq.

    In 1991, the Iraqi regime agreed to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, and to prove to the world it has done so by complying with rigorous inspections. Iraq has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge.

    From 1991 to 1995, the Iraqi regime said it had no biological weapons. After a senior official in its weapons program defected and exposed this lie, the regime admitted to producing tens of thousands of liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents for use with Scud warheads, aerial bombs, and aircraft spray tanks. U.N. inspectors believe Iraq has produced two to four times the amount of biological agents it declared, and has failed to account for more than three metric tons of material that could be used to produce biological weapons. Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.

    United Nations inspections also reveal that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard, and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons.

    And in 1995 – after four years of deception – Iraq finally admitted it had a crash nuclear weapons program prior to the Gulf War. We know now, were it not for that war, the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993.

    Today, Iraq continues to withhold important information about its unclear program – weapons design, procurement logs, experiment data, an accounting of nuclear materials, and documentation of foreign assistance. Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. And Iraq’s state-controlled media has reported numerous meetings between Saddam Hussein and his nuclear scientists, leaving little doubt about his continued appetite for these weapons.

    Iraq also possesses a force of Scud-type missiles with ranges beyond the 150 kilometers permitted by the U.N. Work at testing and production facilities shows that Iraq is building more long-range missiles that could inflict mass death throughout the region.

    In 1990, after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the world imposed economic sanctions on Iraq. Those sanctions were maintained after the war to compel the regime’s compliance with Security Council resolutions. In time, Iraq was allowed to use oil revenues to buy food. Saddam Hussein has subverted this program, working around the sanctions to buy missile technology and military materials. He blames the suffering of Iraq’s people on the United Nations, even as he uses his oil wealth to build lavish palaces for himself, and arms his country. By refusing to comply with his own agreements, he bears full guilt for the hunger and misery of innocent Iraqi citizens.

    In 1991, Iraq promised U.N. inspectors immediate and unrestricted access to verify Iraq’s commitment to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. Iraq broke this promise, spending seven years deceiving, evading and harassing U.N. inspectors before ceasing cooperation entirely. Just months after the 1991 cease-fire, the Security Council twice renewed its demand that the Iraqi regime cooperate fully with inspectors, “condemning” Iraq’s “serious violations” of its obligations. The Security Council again renewed that demand in 1994 and twice more in 1996, “deploring” Iraq’s “clear violations” of its obligations. The Security Council renewed its demand three more times in 1997, citing “flagrant violations” and three more times in 1998, calling Iraq’s behavior “totally unacceptable.” And in 1999, the demand was renewed yet again.

    As we meet today, it has been almost four years since the last U.N. inspectors set foot in Iraq – four years for the Iraqi regime to plan and build and test behind a cloak of secrecy.

    We know that Saddam Hussein pursued weapons of mass murder even when inspectors were in the country. Are we to assume that he stopped when they left? The history, the logic and the facts lead to one conclusion. Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime’s good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.

    Delegates to the General Assembly: We have been more than patient. We have tried sanctions. We have tried the carrot of “oil for food” and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we may be completely certain he has nuclear weapons is when, God forbid, he uses one. We owe it to all our citizens to do everything in our power to prevent that day from coming.

    The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be irrelevant?

    The United States helped found the United Nations. We want the U.N. to be effective and respected and successful. We want the resolutions of the world’s most important multilateral body to be enforced. Right now these resolutions are being unilaterally subverted by the Iraqi regime. Our partnership of nations can meet the test before us, by making clear what we now expect of the Iraqi regime.

    If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and all related material.

    If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it, as all states are required to do by U.N. Security Council resolutions.

    If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi’a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans and others – again as required by Security Council resolutions.

    If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown. It will return the remains of any who are deceased, return stolen property, accept liability for losses resulting from the invasion of Kuwait, and fully cooperate with international efforts to resolve these issues – as required by the Security Council resolutions.

    If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. It will accept U.N. administration of funds from that program, to ensure that the money is used fairly and promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

    If all these steps are taken, it will signal a new openness and accountability in Iraq. And it could open the prospect of the United Nations helping to build a government that represents all Iraqis – a government based on respect for human rights, economic liberty and internationally supervised elections.

    The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people, who have suffered for too long in silent captivity. Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it and the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq.

    We can harbor no illusions. Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in 1980, and Kuwait in 1990. He has fired ballistic missiles at Iran, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Israel. His regime once ordered the killing of every person between the ages of 15 and 70 in certain Kurdish villages in Northern Iraq. He has gassed many Iranians and 40 Iraqi villages.

    My nation will work with the U.N. Security Council on a new resolution to meet our common challenge. If Iraq’s regime defies us again, the world must move deliberately and decisively to hold Iraq to account. The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced – the just demands of peace and security will be met – or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.

    Events can turn in one of two ways.

    If we fail to act in the face of danger, the people of Iraq will continue to live in brutal submission. The regime will have new power to bully, dominate and conquer its neighbors, condemning the Middle East to more years of bloodshed and fear. The region will remain unstable, with little hope of freedom and isolated from the progress of our times. With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons, our own options to confront that regime will narrow. And if an emboldened regime were to supply these weapons to terrorist allies, then the attacks of September 11th would be a prelude to far greater horrors.

    If we meet our responsibilities, if we overcome this danger, we can arrive at a very different future. The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world. These nations can show by their example that honest government, and respect for women, and the great Islamic tradition of learning can triumph in the Middle East and beyond. And we will show that the promise of the United Nations can be fulfilled in our time.

    Neither of these outcomes is certain. Both have been set before us. We must choose between a world of fear and a world of progress. We cannot stand by and do nothing while dangers gather. We must stand up for our security, and for the permanent rights and hopes of mankind. By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand. Delegates to the United Nations, you have the power to make that stand as well.

    Thank you.

  • The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade – New Agenda Position Paper

    Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Preparatory Committee, New York
    April 2002

    I Background

    In 1995, the States parties extended the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty indefinitely and undertook to make every effort to achieve its universality. The Review Process of the Treaty was strengthened and Principles and Objectives to address the implementation of the Treaty were adopted. The Resolution on the Middle East was adopted as an integral part of the 1995 package.

    In 1996, the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice concluded unanimously that: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control”.

    The Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference represents a positive step on the road to nuclear disarmament. In particular, nuclear-weapon States made the unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals and agreed on practical steps to be taken by them that would lead to nuclear disarmament. To this end, additional steps were necessary to improve the effectiveness of the strengthened review process for the Treaty.

    II Fundamental Principles

    The participation of the international community as a whole is central to the maintenance and enhancement of international peace and stability. International security is a collective concern requiring collective engagement. Internationally negotiated treaties in the field of disarmament have made a fundamental contribution to international peace and security.

    Unilateral and bilateral nuclear disarmament measures complement the treaty based multilateral approach towards nuclear disarmament. It is essential that fundamental principles, such as transparency, verification and irreversibility, be applied to all disarmament measures.

    We reaffirm that any presumption of the indefinite possession of nuclear weapons by the nuclear-weapon States is incompatible with the integrity and sustainability of the nuclear non-proliferation regime and with the broader goal of the maintenance of international peace and security.

    Irreversibility in nuclear disarmament, nuclear reductions, and other related nuclear arms control measures is imperative. A fundamental pre-requisite for promoting nuclear non-proliferation is continuous irreversible progress in nuclear arms reductions.

    Each article of the Treaty is binding on the respective State parties at all times and in all circumstances. It is imperative that all States parties be held fully accountable with respect to the strict compliance of their obligations under the Treaty.

    Further progress on disarmament must be a major determinant in achieving and sustaining international stability. The 2000 NPT undertakings on disarmament have been given and the implementation of them remains the imperative.

    A nuclear-weapon-free world will ultimately require the underpinning of a universal and multilaterally negotiated legally binding instrument or a framework encompassing a mutually reinforcing set of instruments.

    III Developments since the 2000 NPT Review Conference

    To date, there have been few advances in the implementation of the thirteen steps agreed to at the 2000 NPT Review Conference. We remain concerned that in the post Cold War security environment, security policies and defence doctrines continue to be based on the possession of nuclear weapons. The commitment to diminish the role of nuclear weapons in security policies and defence doctrines has yet to materialise. This lack of progress is inconsistent with the unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to achieve the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals. In addition, we are deeply concerned about emerging approaches to the future role of nuclear weapons as part of new security strategies.

    The Conference on Disarmament has continued to fail to deal with nuclear disarmament and to resume negotiations on a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devises taking into consideration both nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation objectives. The expectations of progress that resulted from the 2000 NPT Review Conference have to date not been met.

    Although implementation of the CTBT’s international monitoring system has proceeded, the CTBT has not yet entered into force. There are no indications that nuclear-weapon States have increased transparency measures. Measures have been taken by one nuclear-weapon State to unilaterally reduce the operational status of its nuclear weapons systems. To date, there is no evidence of any agreed concrete measures to reduce the operational status of nuclear weapon systems.

    There is no sign of efforts involving all of the five nuclear-weapon States in the process leading to the total elimination of nuclear weapons. On the contrary, there are worrying signs of the development of new generations of nuclear weapons. While welcoming the statements of intent regarding substantial cuts by the United States and the Russian Federation to deployed nuclear arsenals, we remain deeply concerned at the continuing possibility that nuclear weapons could be used. Despite the intentions of, and past achievements in bilateral and unilateral reductions, the total number of nuclear weapons deployed and stockpiled still amounts to thousands.

    There is concern that the notification of withdrawal by one of the State parties to the treaty on the limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile systems (ABM), the additional element of uncertainty it brings and its impact on strategic stability as an important factor contributing to and facilitating nuclear disarmament, will have negative consequences on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. It could also have grave consequences for the future of global security and create an apparent rationale for action based solely on unilateral concerns. Any action, including development of missile defence systems, which could impact negatively on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, is of concern to the international community. We are concerned about the risk of a new arms race on earth and in outer space.

    The achievements and promise the bilateral START process held, including the possibility it offered for development as a plurilateral mechanism including all the nuclear-weapon States, for the practical dismantling and destruction of nuclear armaments, undertaken in the pursuit of the elimination of nuclear weapons, is in jeopardy.

    In the United Nations Millennium Declaration, the heads of State and Government resolved to strive for the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, in particular nuclear weapons, and to keep all options open for achieving this aim, including the possibility of convening an international conference to identify ways of eliminating nuclear dangers.

    We are concerned by the continued retention of the nuclear-weapons option by those three States that operate unsafeguarded nuclear facilities and have not acceded to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, as well as their failure to renounce that option.

    There has been progress in the further development of nuclear-weapon-free zones in some regions, and, in particular, the movement towards freeing the Southern Hemisphere and adjacent areas from such weapons. In this context, the ratification of the treaties of Tlatelolco, Rarotonga, Bangkok and Pelindaba by all the States of the region, and all concerned States is of great importance. They should all work together in order to facilitate adherence to the protocols to nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties by all relevant States that have not yet done so. States parties to those treaties should be encouraged to promote their common objectives with a view to enhance cooperation among the nuclear-weapon-free zones and to working together with the proponents of other such zones. On the other hand, no progress has been achieved in the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones in the Middle East, South Asia and other regions.

    IV The Way Ahead

    We remain determined to pursue, with continued vigour, the full and effective implementation of the substantial agreements reached at the 2000 NPT Review Conference. That outcome provides the requisite blueprint to achieve nuclear disarmament.

    Multilaterally negotiated legally binding security assurances must be given by the nuclear-weapon States to all non-nuclear-weapon States parties. The Preparatory Committee should make recommendations to the 2005 Review Conference on the modalities for immediate negotiations on this issue. Pending the conclusion of such negotiations, the nuclear-weapon States should fully respect their existing commitments in this regard.

    The nuclear-weapon States must increase their transparency and accountability with regard to their nuclear weapons arsenals and their implementation of disarmament measures.

    Further efforts by nuclear-weapon States to effectively reduce their nuclear arsenals unilaterally are required. Formalisation by nuclear-weapon States of their unilateral declarations in a legally binding agreement including provisions ensuring transparency, verification and irreversibility is essential. Nuclear-weapon States should bear in mind that reductions of deployments are a positive signal but no replacement for the actual elimination of nuclear weapons.

    Nuclear-weapon States should implement the NPT commitments to apply the principle of irreversibility by destroying the nuclear warheads in the context of strategic nuclear reductions and avoid keeping them in a state that lends itself to their possible redeployment. While deployment reduction, and reduction of operational status, give a positive signal, it cannot be a substitute for irreversible cuts and the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

    Further reductions of non-strategic nuclear weapons should be a priority. Nuclear weapon States must live up to their commitments. Reductions of non-strategic nuclear weapons should be carried out in a transparent and irreversible manner and to include reduction and elimination of non-strategic nuclear weapons in the overall arms reductions negotiations. In this context, urgent action should be taken to achieve:

    • further reduction of non-strategic nuclear weapons, based on unilateral initiatives and as an integral part of the nuclear arms reduction and disarmament process;
    • further confidence-building and transparency measures to reduce the threats posed by non-strategic nuclear weapons;
    • concrete agreed measures to reduce further the operational status of nuclear weapons systems; and to formalising existing informal bilateral arrangements regarding non-strategic nuclear reductions, such as the Bush-Gorbachev declarations of 1991, into legally binding agreements.

    Nuclear-weapon States must undertake the necessary steps towards the seamless integration of all five nuclear-weapon States into a process leading to the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

    We underline the importance and urgency of signatures and ratifications to achieve the early entry into force of the CTBT without delay and without conditions. This gains additional urgency since the process of the installation of an international system to monitor nuclear weapons tests under the CTBT is more advanced than the real prospects of entry into force of the treaty. This is a situation not consistent with the idea of elaborating a universal and comprehensive test ban treaty.

    In the interim, it is necessary to uphold and maintain the moratorium on nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosions pending entry into force of the CTBT. The strict observance of the CTBT’s purposes, objectives and provisions is imperative.

    The Conference on Disarmament should establish without delay an ad hoc committee to deal with nuclear disarmament.

    The Conference on Disarmament should resume negotiations on a non discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices taking into consideration both nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation objectives.

    The Conference on Disarmament, as the single multilateral negotiating forum, has the primary role in the negotiation of a multilateral agreement or agreements, as appropriate, on the prevention of an arms race in outer space in all its aspects. The Conference should complete the examination and updating of the mandate contained in its decision of 13 February 1992, and to establish an ad hoc committee as early as possible.

    The international community must redouble its efforts to achieve universal adherence to the NPT and to be vigilant against any steps that would undermine its determination to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Those three States [India, Pakistan and Israel] which are not yet parties to the NPT, must accede to the Treaty as non-nuclear weapon States, promptly and without condition, and bring into force the required comprehensive safeguards agreements, together with the additional model protocol, for ensuring nuclear non-proliferation, and to reverse clearly and urgently any policies to pursue any nuclear weapons development or deployment and refrain from any action that could undermine regional and international peace and security and the efforts of the international community towards nuclear disarmament and the prevention of nuclear weapons proliferation.

    The Trilateral Initiative between the IAEA, the Russian Federation and the United States must be implemented, and consideration should be given to the possible inclusion of other nuclear-weapon States.

    Arrangements should be made by all nuclear-weapon States to place, as soon as practicable, fissile material no longer required for military purposes under IAEA or other relevant international verification.

    International treaties in the field of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation must be observed, and all obligations flowing from those treaties must be duly fulfilled.

    All States should refrain from any action that could lead to a new nuclear arms race or that could impact negatively on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

    V The Strengthened Review Process

    The Preparatory Committee should deal with the procedural issues necessary to take its work forward but also with matters of substance as was decided in the 1995 and 2000 outcomes, and to ensure that the issues of substance deliberated upon are recorded in the factual summary of the Preparatory Committee.

    The Preparatory Committee should substantively focus on nuclear disarmament so as to ensure that there is a proper accounting in their reports by States of their progress in achieving nuclear disarmament. Accountability will be assessed in the consideration of these reports that the States parties agreed to submit. The Preparatory Committee should consider regular reports to be submitted by all States parties on the implementation of article VI and paragraph 4(c) of the 1995 Decision.

    The strengthened review process envisioned in the 2000 NPT Final Document concerning the implementation of the Treaty and Decisions 1 & 2 as well as the Resolution on the Middle East adopted in 1995 should be fully implemented.

    These reports should be submitted to each session of the Preparatory Committee. The reports on article VI should cover issues and principles addressed by the thirteen steps and include specific and complete information on each of these steps (inter alia, the number and specifications of warheads and delivery systems in service and number and specifications of reductions, dealerting measures, existing holdings of fissile materials as well as reduction and control of such materials, achievements in the areas of irreversibility, transparency and verifiability). These reports should address current policies and intentions, as well as developments in these areas.

  • Taking Stock of the Non-Proliferation Regime

    From 8-19 April 2002, States parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) met at the United Nations in New York for the first Preparatory Committee (Prep Com) meeting to the 2005 review conference of the treaty. This was the first meeting of the States parties to the NPT since the 2000 Review Conference at which the Thirteen Practical Steps to Implement Article VI Obligations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty were adopted. While the NPT is the most universal arms control regime, there are serious problems facing its survival as the cornerstone for nuclear disarmament.

    Reporting

    The issue of reporting sparked heated debate during the meeting. In the final consensus document of the 2000 Review Conference, the States parties agreed to “regular reports, within the framework of the strengthened review process for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, by all States parties on the implementation of article VI and paragraph 4 (c) of the 1995 Decision on “Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament”, and recalling the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of 8 July 1996.” However, at the Prep Com, the nuclear weapons states, led by the US, resisted the idea of a standardized procedure that was put forward by Canada and advocated by many other countries.

    While reporting would be a means to ensure that States are more transparent and accountable for their actions, the US argued that reporting should be left to the determination of individual States parties. Ambassador Javits of the United States delegation stated, “Engaging in technical or legal interpretation of the [13] steps [agreed to at the 2000 NPT Review Conference in the Final Document] individually or collectively would not, in our judgement, be a useful exercise. The question that should be before us on Article VI is not whether any given measure has or has not been fulfilled, but rather: is a nuclear weapon state moving toward the overall goal? For the United States, the answer is an emphatic yes.”

    While the reduction of large nuclear stockpiles that were built up during the Cold War is certainly welcomed, the nuclear weapons States must not simply limit their reporting to these reductions while ignoring specific commitments they made in the context of the NPT. It is a complete hypocrisy for the nuclear weapons States on the one hand to claim that they are fulfilling their obligations to eliminate nuclear weapons by making large reductions in strategic stockpiles, while on the other hand taking no action to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons. In fact, the nuclear weapons States continue to rely on nuclear deterrence, modernize nuclear arsenals and develop new nuclear weapons.

    The US Nuclear Posture Review

    Many statements made by delegations expressed concern, whether explicitly or indirectly, with the US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that leaked to the media in March 2002. Fears about US plans and the future of the NPT were heightened when the US said during its opening statement that it only “generally” agrees with the conclusions of the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

    Despite commitments to reduce its reliance on nuclear weapons, the NPR reaffirms the role of nuclear weapons in US national security policy. In the past, nuclear weapons have been viewed as a deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons. However, the NPR reveals that the US intends to integrate nuclear weapons into a full spectrum of war-fighting capabilities, including missile defenses. The NPR unveils that nuclear weapons are no longer weapons of last resort, but instruments that could be used in fighting wars. States at the NPT Prep Com also raised concerns about the possible resumption by the US of full-scale nuclear testing and plans to develop and deploy new “earth-penetrating” nuclear weapons.

    The NPR contains contingency plans for using nuclear weapons against seven states — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Russia and China — constituting a disturbing threat in particular to the named states and in general to international peace and security. Contrary to long-standing US assurances not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear States, five of the named states for which the US has contingency plans are non-nuclear states. As Reverend Joan Brown Campbell noted in a Middle Powers Initiative presentation, when the US reserves to itself the right of first strike, it gives up the moral high ground and the right to tell other nations to give up their weapons of mass destruction.

    Counter-proliferation or Prevention?

    After 11 September, there has been an effort to divert attention from key issues facing humanity to the war on terrorism. However, in the post-11 September environment there remains an opportunity to address the prospect of terrorism from weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in a way that deligitimizes their use. There is a legitimate concern about WMD and missile proliferation. However, the only way to ensure that WMD do not reach terrorists is to abolish them and their means of delivery.

    Serious concerns were raised about US plans to deploy missile defenses. Despite agreeing to preserving and strengthening the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in the 2000 Thirteen Practical Steps document, the US delivered formal notification to the States of the former Soviet Union on 13 December 2001 that it will withdraw from the treaty in June 2002 in order to proceed with the deployment of missile defenses. While the stated purpose of missile defenses is to defend against missile attacks, it is unlikely that they could do so effectively. The deployment of missile defenses will only produce instability and insecurity in critical regions of the world, including in North East Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia. Additionally, the inherent link between the deployment of missile defenses and the weaponization of outer space means that withdrawal from the ABM Treaty will allow the US to research and develop space weapons and space-based weaponry using technological overlaps from missile defenses.

    Regional Issues

    In light of the current conflict in the Middle East, many delegations condemned Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons and failure to join the NPT. There was also concern that no action has been taken by the States parties to promote the achievement of a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East, nor the realization of the goals of the 1995 resolution on the Middle East.

    There was little talk about India and Pakistan, despite the escalating conflict between the two nuclear rivals in the last several months. Neither India nor Pakistan has joined the NPT. The US called on all four non-NPT parties — Cuba, India, Israel and Pakistan — to show restraint in their nuclear programs and to “protect against the proliferation of technology and materials to others seeking nuclear weapons.”

    NGOs and the NPT

    Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are playing an increasing role in the NPT process that is largely reflective of a more globalized world. During the Cold War, States were the primary actors in the world. However, today, groups and individuals are playing greater roles. The challenge for NGOs is to increase their role in the NPT process and at the same time to reach beyond the governmental process to the people. As UN Undersecretary for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala noted in his address during the Middle Powers Initiative presentation on the first day of the Prep Com, there is a need to reactivate civil society on the nuclear issue because of the complacency and apathy that set in after the Cold War.

    At the Prep Com, NGOs were given one meeting of the session to deliver 14 prepared statements on issues related to the NPT. Following the presentations, there was a roundtable for NGOs and delegates to exchange information. Several delegations complimented the NGOs on the level of expertise and professionalism in both the presentations and in the literature that NGOs brought to the Prep Com. NGOs also held a number of panel presentations outside of the Prep Com.

    Conclusion

    The time leading up to the 2005 NPT Review Conference is critical. NGOs bear great responsibility to raise awareness in civil society about the issues facing the survival of the non-proliferation regime and efforts towards eliminating nuclear weapons. NGOs also must transform the discussion of nuclear abolition into a dynamic of action by urging individuals everywhere and non-nuclear weapons States to put pressure on the nuclear weapons States to fulfill their obligations of verifiable and irreversible nuclear disarmament.

    Resources

    Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Briefing Book on the Status of Nuclear Disarmament
    https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/new/programs/index.htm

    The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its Importance to Disarmament Efforts
    http://www.nuclearfiles.org/prolif/index.html

    Chairman’s Factual Summary of the NPT 2002 Prep Com
    http://www.nuclearfiles.org/articles/2002/020424ongchairman.htm

    NGO Presentations at the NPT Prep Com
    http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/npt/ngostate2002.html

    Reaching Critical Will NGO Shadow Report to the Prep Com http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/npt/shadowreport/ngoshadrepindex.html

    Thirteen Practical Steps to Implement Article VI Obligations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
    http://www.nuclearfiles.org/docs/2000/0713nptsteps.html

  • Moving Humanity Toward a Great Future

    The sight of 152 national leaders streaming into the United Nations headquarters for a Millennium Summit meeting filled me with rejoicing. The leaders were called together by the Secretary General to develop plans for action to move toward lasting peace and a sustainable future for every one on Earth. They endorsed an eight-page plan to deal with the world community’s hardest problems – and the UN staff has responded to the Summit mandate.

    That gathering was particularly encouraging for me because it came close to being what I had envisioned thirty-three years ago in articles for the Center Magazine and the Saturday Review. Those articles focused on the signs I saw then of the coming transformation of humanity – when people everywhere would act to meet the needs of every member of the human family. I saw the creative powers of human beings being released in a glorious surge of new achievements.

    In the Center Magazine I proposed that the Secretary General should be authorized by the UN to present annual reports on the state of humanity – reports based on information drawn from all of the nations and broadcast around the world each year. I contended that the reports should emphasize the noblest deeds and wisest statements of human beings in every field. These reports should salute Heroes of Humanity – men and women who were highly creative and compassionate, who served one another and helped one another, who broke the bonds that kept others from developing their abilities, who displayed the deepest respect for the inherent dignity of each human person.

    The Millennium Summit was certainly based on the transforming principles that I expected to see. Secretary General Kofi Annan asked the leaders there to take every possible step to enable the people of every country to move upward in health and prosperity – and to make a strong effort to reduce the number of people living in dire poverty by 50 percent by the year 2015. His goals were clearly similar to those of an American President – Harry Truman – who declared in an inaugural address in 1949: “Only by helping the least fortunate of its members to help themselves can the human family achieve the decent, satisfying life that is the right of all people.”

    The gathering of the world’s political leaders of the UN in the year 2000 must be followed year-by-year by reports to humanity from the Secretary General. Year after year, the people of this planet must be reminded of what wonderful, mysterious, amazing beings they actually are. There must be continuing celebrations of human greatness.

    I do not believe that political leaders – even the best ones among them – can adequately represent the brilliance, the beauty, and enormous diversities of human beings. Future Summit Meetings and future reports must involve singers and dancers, choirs of voices, painters and sculptors, novelists and historians and poets, musicians and composers, mystics and spiritual servants, meditators and mediators, theologians, retreat masters, and scientists, homebuilders and architects, craftsmen and teachers, administrators and free wheelers – people from every field. Every celebration should proclaim and reflect the inexhaustible energies of love.

    The Millennium Summit revived for many people the torrent of hope with which we began the New Year. On the first day of the year 2000 there were television broadcasts from places we had never seen before — showing people welcoming the New Era with songs and dances, with outbursts of exuberant joy. We felt the kinship of belonging to one human family – but the wave of linkage subsided as the patterns of previous centuries took over again. The new perspectives which we had glimpsed through global communications were not absorbed into our thinking and acting.

    But the gathering of leaders at the UN brought back our awareness of the fact that we do live in a Time of Transformation. With all their capacities and their limitations, the leaders made informal contacts with one another that they had never experienced before. When Fidel Castro came close to Bill Clinton and shook Clinton’s hand before anyone could stop him, there was a moment of change that would not be forgotten. And the President heard comments from other leaders who milled around him and approached him as a person. He responded to them and he had a personal impact on each one of them.

    The effects of the Millennium Summit will be felt in countless ways. The UN has already gained new vitality from it – new attention from the media, new understanding from people who had largely ignored it. The leaders who mingled there, who talked in the halls and encountered one another unexpectedly, will feel wider responsibilities to the world community as well as to their own nations.

    Yet this Time of Transformation goes far beyond the repercussions of a conference of presidents and prime ministers – it has started dialogues in the homes of people everywhere – and around the Earth through the Internet. It calls for a continuous recognition of the creative events occurring in all countries. It demands a wider awareness of the fast currents of change that are carrying us into new circles of conflict and compassion, new embraces, new surges of evolution, tall feelings of Hope that great things are coming.

    In July of this year, fifty passionate advocates of long-range thinking and constructive action took part in a three-day Peace Retreat sponsored by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and La Casa de Maria, a conference and retreat center in Santa Barbara, with the purpose of connecting their lives to one another and becoming more effective in benefiting humanity and a threatened world. Much attention was given to the ideas of Joanna Macy, a Buddhist philosopher and activist, who believes that many signs indicate a Great Turning in human attitudes. She asserts that many people are turning away from the destructive habits of an industrial society toward a Life Sustaining Society – toward cooperative actions to save the Earth. She believes that this movement “is gaining momentum today through the choices of countless individuals and groups.”

    The men and women in the sessions at La Casa cited these goals: “To provide people the opportunity to experience and share with others their innermost responses to the present condition of our world; to reframe their pain for the world as evidence of their interconnectedness in the web of life and hence their power to take part in its healing; to provide people with concepts – from system science, deep ecology, or spiritual traditions – which illumine this power along with exercises which reveal its play in their own lives . . . to enable people to embrace the Great Turning as a challenge which they are fully capable of meeting in a variety of ways, and as a privilege in which they can take joy . . .”

    The soaring presence of joy permeated the gathering in Santa Barbara. We danced and we sang, we looked at one another face-to-face, finding deep realities in each other’s eyes; we imagined what the people of the next century might ask us if we were confronted by representatives of future generations. We went far forward in time and in our sharing of our thoughts and emotions. We laughed together and some of us cried. We felt the potential greatness of the human species.

    That experience in the beautiful surroundings of La Casa de Maria in Santa Barbara reinforced my conviction that Summit Meetings for Humanity should be held annually or possibly more often. It made me determined again to uphold a Right of Celebration as a human right essential for a full understanding of the immortal power in the depths of human beings.

    Walter Wriston, author of “The Twilight of Sovereignty,” has given us a vivid description of the increasing impact of the global communications system which now provides unlimited channels for education and illumination: “Instead of merely invalidating George Orwell’s vision of Big Brother watching the citizen, information technology has allowed the reverse to happen. The average citizen is able to watch Big Brother. Individuals anywhere in the world with a computer and a modem can access thousands of databases internationally. And these individuals, who communicate with each other electronically regardless of race, gender, or color, are spreading the spirit of personal expression – of freedom – to the four corners of the earth.”

    Noting that we are now living in what can be called “a global village,” Wriston observed: “In a global village, denying people human rights or democratic freedoms no longer means denying them an abstraction they have never experienced, but rather it means denying them the established customs of the village. Once people are convinced that these things are possible in the village, an enormous burden falls upon those who would withhold them.”

    This is the Age of Open Doors – and the doors cannot be closed against anyone. More than fifty years ago, the UN General Assembly endorsed a revolutionary statement drafted by a committee headed by an American woman, Eleanor Roosevelt – the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Assembly called upon all member countries and people everywhere “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or terrorists.” The Declaration is now part of the human heritage – an essential element in the aspirations of people all over the planet.

    The Declaration proclaims a bedrock fact: “Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the Foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” Every Summit Meeting for Humanity in all the years to come should begin with a reading of the thirty specific articles in that Declaration. It encourages us to become intensely aware of our own marvelous gifts – the package that came to us in the process of becoming human. It sanctions the pleasure of trying new thoughts, of taking new steps on new paths, and tossing our fears behind us. In the light of it, we welcome the hunger to know and to grow that we see in all the glorious beings around us.

    Many scientists now acknowledge that human beings embody the creative power of the universe in a special way. We are connected with the divine power which shaped the stars and brought all things into existence. We are limited only by the range of our imagination – our visions of what can be done.

    Herman Hesse, a great novelist, described our situation most beautifully. He wrote:

    “What then can give rise to a true spirit of peace on earth? Not commandments and not practical experience. Like all human progress, the love of peace must come from knowledge.

    It is the knowledge of the living substance in us, in each of us, in you and me. . . . the secret godliness that each of us bears within us. It is the knowledge that, starting from this innermost point, we can at all times transcend all pairs of opposites, transforming white into black, evil into good, night into day.

    The Indians call it Atman; the Chinese, Tao; the Christians call it grace.

    When the supreme knowledge is present (as in Jesus, Buddha, Plato, or Lao-Tzu) a threshold is crossed, beyond which miracles begin. There war and enmity cease. We can read of it in the New Testament and in the discourses of Gautama. Anyone who is so inclined can laugh at it and call it ‘introverted rubbish,’ but to one who has experienced it his enemy becomes his brother, death becomes birth, disgrace honor, calamity good fortune . . .

    Each thing on earth discloses itself two-fold, as ‘of this world’ and not of this world. But ‘this world’ means what is outside us. Everything that is outside us can become enemy, danger, fear, and death. The light dawns with the experience that this entire ‘outward world’ is not only an object of our perception but at the same time the creation of our soul, with the transformation of all outward into inward things, of the world into the self.”

    As humanity moves from one summit to another, as the deep connections of the human family shift from the outward world to the world within us, as we know one another fully at last, the inner knowledge enfolds all of us. A glorious age is around us and in us, and we will take it all into ourselves.

     

  • Non-Proliferation Treaty Stays Alive – for now

    With the exception of a few cloistered academics, almost no one would seriously argue that the spread of nuclear weapons would make the world a safer place. Most individuals, including policy makers, understand that it is essential to future security to keep nuclear weapons from spreading. Based on this understanding, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was put forward and signed by the US, UK and USSR (three countries with nuclear weapons) in 1968. The Treaty entered into force in 1970. Since then the Non-Proliferation Treaty has become the centerpiece of international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Currently there are only four countries in the world that have not signed and ratified the NPT: India, Israel, Pakistan and Cuba. The first three of these have nuclear weapons.

    At the heart of the NPT is a basic bargain: the countries without nuclear weapons agree not to acquire or otherwise develop these weapons in exchange for the nuclear weapons states agreeing to engage in good faith efforts to eliminate their arsenals. This bargain is found in Article VI of the Treaty, which calls for “good faith” negotiations on nuclear disarmament. Many of the non-nuclear weapons states have complained over the years that the nuclear weapons states have not upheld their end of the bargain.

    In 1995, when the Treaty was extended indefinitely after powerful lobbying by the nuclear weapons states, these states promised the “determined pursuit” of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally with the ultimate goal of their elimination. Over the next five years, however, these countries continued to rely upon their nuclear arsenals to the dismay of many countries without nuclear weapons.

    When the five-year Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference was held in April and May 2000, the parties to the Treaty, including the nuclear weapons states, agreed to take a number of “practical steps” to implement promises under Article VI of the Treaty. Thirteen steps were listed. I would like to highlight just two. The first of these is an “unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapons States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals….” The second is “early entry into force and full implementation of START II [Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II] and the conclusion of START III as soon as possible while preserving and strengthening the ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty as a cornerstone of strategic stability and as a basis for further reductions of strategic offensive weapons….”

    The “unequivocal undertaking” is language that the New Agenda Coalition (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden and South Africa) has been pressing for, along with practical steps to achieve “the total elimination” of nuclear weapons. In essence this commitment is a reaffirmation of what the nuclear weapons states promised many years ago when they first signed the Treaty in 1968.

    Moving forward with START II and START III are also in the offing. After many years, the Russian Duma finally ratified START II, and President Putin has indicated that he is prepared to proceed with reductions to 1,000 to 1,500 strategic nuclear warheads in START III. The US has responded for inexplicable reasons that it is only prepared to discuss reductions to the 2,500 level at this point, a response hardly in keeping with its promises to pursue good faith efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons globally.

    An even greater problem, however, lies in US determination to deploy a National Missile Defense. It can hardly do this and keep its promise of “preserving and strengthening” the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The US has been trying unsuccessfully to convince the Russians that the ABM Treaty should be amended to allow the US to deploy a National Missile Defense. However, this is exactly what the ABM Treaty was designed to prevent, based on the reasoning that a strong defense would lead to further offensive arms races, and the Russians want nothing to do with altering the ABM Treaty.

    US officials have told the Russians that the National Missile Defense that the US seeks to deploy is aimed not at them, but at “states of concern” (the new US name for states they formerly referred to as “rogue states”). These officials have actually encouraged the Russians to keep their nuclear armed missiles on hair-trigger alert and not reduce the size of their arsenal below START III levels in order to be able to successfully overcome a US National Missile Defense. In their eagerness to promote the National Missile Defense, these officials are actually encouraging Russian policies that will make an accidental or unintended nuclear war more likely. Russia is not buying this, and has made clear that if the US proceeds with deployment of a National Missile Defense, thereby abrogating the ABM Treaty, Russia will withdraw from START II and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

    US insistence on proceeding with a National Missile Defense will be even more destabilizing in Asia. The Chinese have made clear that their response to US deployment of a National Missile Defense will require them to further develop their nuclear forces (at present the Chinese have only 20 nuclear armed missiles capable of reaching US territory). Should China increase its nuclear capabilities, India is likely to follow suit and Pakistan would likely follow India. How Japan, North Korea, South Korea and Taiwan would respond remain large question marks.

    At the recent Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference the US committed itself to “preserving and strengthening” the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. US plans to move forward with a National Missile Defense are incompatible with this promise. If the US wants to uphold the Non-Proliferation Treaty and prevent the disintegration of this Treaty, it must act in good faith. This means finding another way to deal with potentially dangerous states than building an unworkable, provocative and hugely expensive missile defense system.

    The 2000 NPT Review Conference offered some promise of progress on nuclear disarmament. Unfortunately, the fine words Final Document of the Conference notwithstanding, this promise will be dashed if the US continues in its foolhardy and quixotic attempt to put a shield over its head. Such a course will lead only to a leaky umbrella and global nuclear chaos. A far safer course for the US would be to carry out its promise of seeking “the total elimination” of the world’s nuclear arsenals. Without US leadership this will not happen. With US leadership a nuclear weapons free world could become a reality in fairly short order. It is past time for this issue to enter the public arena and move up on the public agenda. The American people deserve to become part of this decision which will so dramatically affect their future and the future of the planet.