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January 20, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Treaty Seeks End to Nuclear Madness

By Ralph Hutchison and John LaForge

 

It is the beginning of a new movement that will see the elimination of the existential nuclear threat.

On January 22, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will enter into force. The treaty bans the development, production, possession, deployment, testing, use and just about anything else you can imagine related to nuclear weapons.

Fifty years later, nine nuclear-armed militaries possess more than 13,000 nuclear weapons, arsenals that mock their claimed commitment to disarm “at an early date.”

Approved at the United Nations by 122 countries in 2017, and subsequently signed by 86 and ratified by 51 nations, the nuclear weapons ban will join the venerated status of international prohibitions already established against lesser weapons of mass destruction. These earlier agreements include the Geneva Gas Protocol, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Ottawa Treaty or  Mine Ban Convention and the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is no magic wand. Nine nuclear-armed states claim that the treaty doesn’t apply to them, and it’s true that only governments that are “states parties” to the treaty are subject to its prohibitions and obligations. However, the treaty can be a kind of a lever and a beacon for achieving the elimination of nuclear weapons, a goal every government on earth claims to desire.

Decades of refusal to conclude “good faith” negotiations for nuclear disarmament “at an early date,” which the United States and four other nuclear nations agreed to in the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, have left the rest of the world fed up. Fifty years later, nine nuclear-armed militaries possess more than 13,000 nuclear weapons, arsenals that mock their claimed commitment to disarm “at an early date.”

As with bans on other weapons of mass destruction, scofflaw states that continue to produce and use nuclear weapons will increasingly be condemned and shunned as outliers and rogue actors. And nuclear-armed states have already been stung by the treaty’s imminent entry into force. Last October, the Trump White House urged those governments that had ratified the treaty to withdraw their ratifications. Happily, none did.

For more than a decade, public support for the elimination of nuclear weapons remains consistently strong. Current polls — Belgium, 64%; Germany, 68%; Italy, 70%; Netherlands, 62% — show strong majorities in countries that now host U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe. The treaty heralds a new global, civil, diplomatic and economic environment in which nuclear weapons are banned. In Belgium, one of five NATO countries that currently station U.S. nuclear weapons inside their territories, the parliament in January 2020 nearly expelled the U.S. weapons in a close vote. When the first NATO country still hosting the U.S. nuclear bombs demands their removal, others are expected to follow suit.

Elsewhere, financial divestment campaigns in Europe are succeeding, pressing hundreds of institutions to get out of the business of genocidal atomic violence. The Dutch pension fund APB, the fifth largest of its kind in the world, has announced  it will exclude companies involved in production of nuclear weapons. It joins more than seventy other European banks, pension funds, and insurance companies that have already adopted divestment policies.

January 22 marks the culmination of the effort led by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, civil society, and non-nuclear-armed states to create the treaty. It is also the beginning of a new movement that will, in the end, see the elimination of the existential nuclear threat.

Given the need to stop the Biden administration from continuing the $2 trillion commitment to “modernize” U.S. nuclear weapons, build new bomb plants, and invest in new nuclear weapons, the treaty and its message could not be timelier or more compelling.

As supporters the world over have noted, this treaty is the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.

Filed Under: Direct Action, Nuclear Weapons, Uncategorized

January 20, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Treaty Banning the Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction Enters Into Force

BUS activists join 2019 protest against US nuclear weapons deployed at Germany's Buechel Air Basey John LaForge

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) takes effect Friday, January 22, 2021.

After decades of campaigns of every kind to “ban the bomb”, to prevent the nuclear arms race, and later to freeze the arms race, and, the nuclear weapons prohibition outlaws not just their development, testing and possession, but forbids any threatened use — commonly known as “nuclear deterrence.” Like with other multi-generational struggles against slavery, torture, the death penalty, child labor, TPNW campaigners justly call it “the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.”

The new international law  — which for the first time in weapons treaty law requires reparations and compensation to victims of H-bomb testing and production — is similar to earlier global prohibitions such as the Geneva Protocol (outlawing gas warfare), the Hague Conventions (forbidding poisoned weapons), the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Ban the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the anti-personnel Mine Ban.

The difference here is that the world community has finally added to the list of despicable, loathsome, appalling and shunned weapons of war those devices whose effects contain and exceed beyond comprehension the accumulated evil of the all the rest—nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons have been earnestly condemned for 75 years by legal scholars, religious leaders, peace groups, military commanders, prime ministers, presidents and corporate CEOs. They’ve been called “the ultimate evil” by the International Court of Justice in 1996 and any use of them was declared by the UN General Assembly as early as 1961 “a crime against [hu]mankind and civilization.” The TPNW’s language makes clear why: “Cognizant that the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons cannot be adequately addressed, transcend national borders, pose grave implications for human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security and the health of current and future generations, and have a disproportionate impact on women and girls, including as a result of ionizing radiation…”

Yet nuclear-armed countries all hold that their plans and threats to commit atomic violence are legal. For example, the US Navy Field Manual says, “There is at present no rule of international law expressly prohibiting States from the use of nuclear weapons in warfare. In the absence of express prohibition, the use of such weapons … is permitted.”

No more. The TPNW rebukes and nullifies this artful dodge, which is partly why its establishment is a monumental accomplishment. Forbidding nuclear weapons by name is also a triumph of harrowing urgency, considering the number of doddering heads of state with access to nuclear launch codes and especially in view of the atomic scientists’ “Doomsday Clock” being set at 100 seconds to midnight.

Countries with nuclear arsenals rejected the UN negotiations in 2017 that produced the TPNW, and they dismiss its obligations because the law applies only to states that ratify it. The duplicity of the nuclear-armed governments was displayed by then US UN Ambassador Nicki Haley who led 35 countries in a boycott of the talks. Haley said the treaty would end up disarming the nations “trying to keep peace and safety”. At the time, the United States was militarily occupying and/or at war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Niger. Haley’s speech must have reminded the more than two-thirds of the UN Ambassadors that “hypocrisy is the respect that vice pays to virtue.”

The power of the new Treaty is worth celebrating for now, but then it must be employed by us all to end the public’s ignorance, denial, forgetfulness, and habituation regarding plans for nuclear war, and to bring the nuclear weapons states into compliance. ###

— John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, and with Kelly Lundeen co-edits its newsletter, Nukewatch Quarterly.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/20/treaty-banning-the-ultimate-weapon-of-mass-destruction-enters-into-force/

http://www.peacevoice.info/2021/01/19/treaty-banning-the-ultimate-weapon-of-mass-destruction-enters-into-force/

 

 

Filed Under: B61 Bombs in Europe, Environment, Environmental Justice, Nuclear Weapons, On The Bright Side, Radiation Exposure, US Bombs Out of Germany, War, Weekly Column

January 15, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Treaty Seeks End to Nuclear Madness

The US delegation standing just outside the Büchel Air Base, and in front of inflatable mock B61 nuclear bombs, included from left, Brian Terrell, Andrew Lanier, Susan Crane, Cee’Cee’ Anderson, Ralph Hutchison, Richard Bishop, Cindy Collins, Kevin Collins, and John LaForge. Not pictured, Fred Galluccio and Dennis DuVall.

By Ralph Hutchison, John LaForge, 15 Jan. 2021

On January 22, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will enter into force. The treaty bans the development, production, possession, deployment, testing, use and just about anything else you can imagine related to nuclear weapons.

Fifty years later, nine nuclear-armed militaries possess more than 13,000 nuclear weapons, arsenals that mock their claimed commitment to disarm “at an early date.”

Approved at the United Nations by 122 countries in 2017, and subsequently signed by 86 and ratified by 51 nations, the nuclear weapons ban will join the venerated status of international prohibitions already established against lesser weapons of mass destruction. These earlier agreements include the Geneva Gas Protocol, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Ottawa Treaty or  Mine Ban Convention and the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is no magic wand. Nine nuclear-armed states claim that the treaty doesn’t apply to them, and it’s true that only governments that are “states parties” to the treaty are subject to its prohibitions and obligations. However, the treaty can be a kind of a lever and a beacon for achieving the elimination of nuclear weapons, a goal every government on earth claims to desire.

“the nuclear weapons ban will join the venerated status of international prohibitions already established against lesser weapons of mass destruction”

Decades of refusal to conclude “good faith” negotiations for nuclear disarmament “at an early date,” which the United States and four other nuclear nations agreed to in the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, have left the rest of the world fed up. Fifty years later, nine nuclear-armed militaries possess more than 13,000 nuclear weapons, arsenals that mock their claimed commitment to disarm “at an early date.”

As with bans on other weapons of mass destruction, scofflaw states that continue to produce and use nuclear weapons will increasingly be condemned and shunned as outliers and rogue actors. And nuclear-armed states have already been stung by the treaty’s imminent entry into force. Last October, the Trump White House urged those governments that had ratified the treaty to withdraw their ratifications. Happily, none did.

For more than a decade, public support for the elimination of nuclear weapons remains consistently strong. Current polls — Belgium, 64%; Germany, 68%; Italy, 70%; Netherlands, 62% — show strong majorities in countries that now host U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe. The treaty heralds a new global, civil, diplomatic and economic environment in which nuclear weapons are banned. In Belgium, one of five NATO countries that currently station U.S. nuclear weapons inside their territories, the parliament in January 2020 nearly expelled the U.S. weapons in a close vote. When the first NATO country still hosting the U.S. nuclear bombs demands their removal, others are expected to follow suit.

Elsewhere, financial divestment campaigns in Europe are succeeding, pressing hundreds of institutions to get out of the business of genocidal atomic violence. The Dutch pension fund APB, the fifth largest of its kind in the world, has announced  it will exclude companies involved in production of nuclear weapons. It joins more than seventy other European banks, pension funds, and insurance companies that have already adopted divestment policies.

January 22 marks the culmination of the effort led by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, civil society, and non-nuclear-armed states to create the treaty. It is also the beginning of a new movement that will, in the end, see the elimination of the existential nuclear threat.

Given the need to stop the Biden administration from continuing the $2 trillion commitment to “modernize” U.S. nuclear weapons, build new bomb plants, and invest in new nuclear weapons, the treaty and its message could not be timelier or more compelling.

As supporters the world over have noted, this treaty is the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.

Ralph.jpg Ralph Hutchison is coordinator for the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

John LaForge.JPG John LaForge is a co-director of Nukewatch in Wisconsin.

This column was produced for the Progressive Media Project, which is run by The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.

Filed Under: B61 Bombs in Europe, Environment, Nuclear Weapons, Office News, On The Bright Side, US Bombs Out of Germany, War, Weekly Column

January 5, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Honoring Sister Ardeth Platte

We join in mourning the death of our friend, mentor, comrade, and relentless advocate for nonviolence, disarmament and the abolition of nuclear weapons, Sister Ardeth Platte, OP, at right with documents. Sr. Ardeth died Sept. 29, 2020 at age 84. On July 18, 2017, she and Sister Carol Gilbert, OP, center (holding banner) explained the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to Col. Gregor Schlemmer, commander of Germany’s air base Büchel, where 20 US hydrogen bombs are stationed. The Colonel amazingly made a personal visit to the group of over 30 protesters who were in the midst of an active blockade of the highway leading to his base. Ardeth presented a copy of the then 11-day-old treaty to Col. Schlemmer. Photo by Marion Küpker.

Filed Under: Direct Action, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter

January 2, 2021 by Nukewatch 1 Comment

Long-Sought Anti-War Landmark: Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons Becomes Law

Graphic by Bonnie Urfer
Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021

Congratulations are in order!

On Oct. 24, Honduras became the 50th country to ratify the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Consequently, the treaty will “enter into force” on January 22, 2021, becoming legally binding for those states that have agreed to it. From then on, signatory countries will completely eliminate and forgo any and all involvement with nuclear weapons.

In view of this monumental watershed in peace activism and the law of nations, we’ve devoted almost half the newsletter to news and analysis of the new treaty. While long, hard work remains to push the nuclear-armed states to follow the world’s lead and accept the new norm—see actions ideas on page 4—advocates, activists, resisters, and campaigners all deserve to take time to celebrate and even revel in what thousands have called the accomplishment of a lifetime. Hats off!

The treaty specifically prohibits the use, development, testing, production, manufacturing, acquiring, possession, stockpiling, transferring, receiving, threatening to use, stationing, installation, or deployment of nuclear weapons. The treaty makes it illegal for the countries that ratify it to allow any violations within their jurisdiction.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons —which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to shepherd what’s known as the treaty ban through the United Nations—said in a highly-anticipated announcement, “This is a historic milestone for this landmark treaty. Prior to its adoption on July 7, 2017, nuclear weapons were the only weapons of mass destruction not banned under international law, despite their catastrophic consequences.

“Now, with the treaty’s entry into force, we can call nuclear weapons what they are: prohibited weapons of mass destruction.”

Eighty-four countries have signed the treaty, formally indicating their intent to ratify, so the number of treaty ratifications will continue to grow.

ICAN’s executive director, Beatrice Fihn, welcomed the breakthrough moment calling it “a new chapter for nuclear disarmament.” Acknowledging as she regularly does the dogged work of ICAN’s 547 member organizations, Nukewatch included, Fihn said, “Decades of activism have achieved what many said was impossible: nuclear weapons are banned. The 50 countries that ratify this treaty are showing … that nuclear weapons are not just immoral but illegal.”

Imminent Entry Into Force

News of the treaty ban’s imminent entry into force spread like wildfire through the peace, anti-nuclear and disarmament communities, and celebratory declarations were published widely.

Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland, has written and published for decades on the health and environmental dangers of nuclear weapons and reactors, as well as the threat they pose to international law. In a blog post celebrating the new treaty, Makhijani writes:

“One of the most salient aspects of the nuclear weapons ban treaty is that its motivating factors included not only ‘the catastrophic … consequences that would result from any use of nuclear weapons,’ but also the vast and lasting damage to human health and the environment caused by nuclear weapons production and testing, with disproportionate impacts on women and children. Nuclear weapons, the treaty says ‘… pose grave implications for human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security and the health of current and future generations, and have a disproportionate impact on women and girls, including as a result of ionizing radiation.’ It also notes the devastating impact that nuclear weapons testing has had on indigenous peoples … It is noteworthy then, that many of the countries that have ratified the treaty and have led the way to making nuclear weapons illegal are also among the ones most threatened by the devastation of climate disruption due to human activities.”

Greg Mello with the Los Alamos Study Group in New Mexico wrote, “It is difficult to overstate the accomplishment represented by this treaty. It makes a sea-change…. The primary purpose of this treaty is indeed to stigmatize and dismantle structures of nuclear deterrence, as Article VI of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has long required.”

The Netherlands-based divestment group Don’t Bank on the Bomb, announced that, “Nothing makes a weapon more controversial than a treaty making that weapon illegal…. In about 90 days nuclear weapons will be illegal forever.”

The Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy with the Western States Legal Foundation said the treaty, “reaffirms the need for all states at all times to comply with international humanitarian law forbidding the infliction of indiscriminate harm and unnecessary suffering,” and it emphasizes “that any use of nuclear weapons would be contrary to international humanitarian law.” The lawyers also nodded to long-standing laws of war that the nuclear-armed states have ratified, writing, “The threat or use of … nuclear weapons, which are indiscriminate in effect and are of a nature to cause destruction of human life on a catastrophic scale, is incompatible with respect for the right to life and may amount to a crime under international law.”

The Physicians for Social Responsibility, a Washington-based member of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, said, “This treaty … marks a historic milestone for a decades-long, intergenerational movement to abolish nuclear weapons.”

Also in New York, António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, said the treaty’s coming into force is “the culmination of a worldwide movement to draw attention to the catastrophic … consequences of any use of nuclear weapons.” Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said it was “a victory for humanity, and a promise of a safer future.”

England’s Trident Ploughshares, which targets Britain’s Trident submarines (armed with US-made Trident missiles that are then “leased” to the UK’s navy) posted an Open Letter to the Prime Minister Dec. 1, 2020. The letter rebuts regular complaints about the treaty ban made by H-bomb governments and nuclear industry lobbyists. “It is time,” Trident Ploughshares wrote, “for governments to relinquish the expectation that nuclear disarmament will only be delivered at a time of the nuclear-armed states’ choosing … and to recognize that the [new treaty] provides the missing legal instrument that can ensure progress instead of stalling on Nonproliferation Treaty Article VI.”

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, is a national coalition of watchdog groups that track US nuclear weapons production sites. ANA pointedly said, “Nations that possess or stage nuclear weapons, including the United States, will now find themselves standing outside the bounds of international law. Today, the international ‘norm’ changes and nuclear weapons are illegal.”

Maurer wrote, “Ten years ago, the ICRC called for a new debate on nuclear weapons, saying: ‘The existence of nuclear weapons poses some of the most profound questions about the point at which the rights of States must yield to the interests of humanity, the capacity of our species to master the technology it creates, the reach of international humanitarian law, and the extent of human suffering we are willing to inflict, or to permit, in warfare.’”

Later, in preparation for the treaty ban negotiations, the Red Cross and Red Crescent produced overwhelming evidence of the medical community’s devastating inability to respond to the catastrophic consequences of even a single nuclear weapon’s detonation on a city. Mr. Maurer added, “This treaty first became possible when the nuclear weapons debate shifted from focusing on the possessors of these weapons and their motives, to the weapon itself and its profound humanitarian impact…. [We] are proud to have contributed to these efforts. Today is a victory for humanity.”

Filed Under: Direct Action, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter

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