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January 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a 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

January 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Germany’s US Bombs in Spotlight

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021
By Kelly Lundeen

In Germany this year, 41 peace activists have been put on trial for protest actions at Germany’s Büchel air force base, where the US stations 20 of its B61 H-bombs.

Nuclear abolitionists Dennis DuVall, a US Veteran for Peace now living in Dresden, and Margriet Bos, a Catholic Worker from Amsterdam, go on trial Dec. 7, 2020 in Cochem, charged with trespass and damage to the base’s fence. The trials will draw wide attention because a Dutch national television crew is reporting.

Pilots wave from a Tornado fighter jet.

Over a dozen resisters including DuVall are appealing their lower court convictions, and hope to win a judicial order condemning Germany’s “sharing” of US nuclear weapons—a policy that many contend violates binding international treaty law.

Nukewatch staffer and Quarterly editor John LaForge, who was similarly charged last year for actions in 2018 and 2019, is scheduled for trial February 1 in Cochem.

Just before trial, Margriet said in part, “Along with North American peace activists Susan Crane, Ralph Hutchison and Andrew Lanier, I entered the nuclear military base in Büchel to hinder and frustrate the machine of death and destruction that’s preparing a third world war with thermonuclear bombs. We cut the fence and walked towards the runway to prevent the Tornados from flying. Tornado jet fighters practice every weekday and expel 12,000 kilos of Co2 every hour they fly, the same amount as driving a diesel car nonstop for 62.5 days.”

Filed Under: Direct Action, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, US Bombs Out of Germany

January 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Legal Fight Against Nuclear Navy Risktaking

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021
By Christine Manwiller

A lawsuit against the nuclear navy in Washington State’s Puget Sound began June 19, 2012, over the safety and environmental impact of a second Explosives Handling Wharf in Hood Canal, home of Bangor Trident submarine base. The $715 million wharf, 15 miles west of Seattle, is for loading and off-loading heavy nuclear-armed missiles. The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility brought suit against the navy’s plan for failure to consider the risks of accidental explosions at the new wharf, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Can you spot the two submarines in the photo, each two football fields long? The combined total of 48 missiles on them hold rocket fuel with explosive force equal to 7.4 million pounds of TNT—their 240 nuclear warheads (5 on each missile) equal 114 million tons of TNT.

Navy officials did not even “comply with the navy’s own explosives-siting regulations,” Ground Zero reports, and the military’s Explosives Safety Board flat out denied permission to build the second wharf “in part, because the navy would not study the risk of a chain reaction explosion while loading two subs,” KOMO-TV news reported. “If both full subs explode [48 missiles in all], the equivalent power is 7.44 million pounds of TNT,” the ABC News affiliate said.

Glen Milner with Ground Zero told KOMO-TV, “They’ve doubled the amount of explosives. And they’ve doubled the number of times that missiles are being handled.” The lawsuit warns of the risk of one exploding missile igniting 47 others. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 85% of the weight of each missile is the highly explosive rocket fuel.

The lawsuit faced significant setbacks in 2012 when certain navy records were sealed after the navy claimed publication would place national security at risk. The records were sealed by the court and a gag order regarding their contents was imposed on the plaintiffs just a few days before a scheduled hearing where they were to be used as the basis of the peace group’s arguments.

In 2014, the NEPA lawsuit was dismissed by US District Court Judge Ronald Leighton, and the plaintiffs appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. While the Ninth Circuit shockingly ruled against the NEPA failure to assess risk claims, it struck down the gag order and the sealing of documents. Judge Leighton released the records and lifted the gag this past August 20. Another judge later ordered the navy to pay the two peace groups’ legal fees incurred to obtain the records and fight the gag order.

—Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, Oct. 29, 2020; KOMO-TV News, Seattle, Oct. 28, 2013

 

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

January 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons Becomes Law

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021

WHAT YOU CAN DO on January 22, 2021 to Celebrate the Entry Into Force of the TREATY on the PROHIBITION of NUCLEAR WEAPONS

A letter from from the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Nukewatch, The Nuclear Resister, and the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability:

Dear nuclear abolitionists,

Now that nuclear weapons are outlawed, it’s time to take action!

On January 22, 2021, people around the world will celebrate the day that the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons enters into force, a day the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) describes so eloquently as “the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.”

Please join us—the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Nukewatch, the Nuclear Resister and the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability—to help maximize the global impact of this historic event with a wide variety of public actions across the US on January 22 and beyond. (See list in progress online at ICANw.org/events)

We envision organized, nationwide public actions that spotlight the treaty ban as a victory for humanity on this historic day, with coordinated publicity and documentation of these events. Places to act (including some where action planning is already underway) include: nuclear weapons facilities, military bases, federal buildings, congressional offices, churches, public squares, overpasses, financial institutions, corporate facilities, and academic institutions that are participating in nuclear weapons activities. See the materials produced by PAX/The Netherlands and ICAN available at ICANw.org.

We hope to develop an enduring collaboration with organizations who recognize that the treaty is an opportunity to renew the disarmament effort in the US.

Please join us!

If you have any questions or want more information contact: nuclearbantreatyEiF@gmx.com

Yes, celebrate—and organize. Any celebration should include an action item that raises the profile of the treaty ban in the United States. The first goal is to make people aware of the treaty. Goal 2 is to make sure they know that it is entering into force. And Goal 3 is to begin to use public awareness to pressure the government to recognize, sign, ratify and comply with the treaty ban. If that sounds like a lot it is, and it will take time. And it will never happen if we don’t make it happen.

What follows are several options that you can mix and match with your own ideas. Some can be done all by yourself, others work better with small groups —with pandemic precautions please.

And please, report back! This is crucial—even if your action seems like a simple one. We gain strength from working together and knowing that people all over are taking action. And your effort, large or small, is amplified when it is shared. We hope to build a database of actions and to demonstrate widespread support for the treaty across the country. You can post your actions on Facebook at the Nuclear Ban Treaty EIF group. We will publicize other sites as they become available.

  1. Everyone can learn about the treaty, and you don’t have to wait until January 22. A quick google search will turn up resources, some as brief as 90 seconds. Others are deep-dive webinars. There is a Fact Sheet with basic information here: https://orepa.org/nuclear-ban-treaty-entry-into-force-resources/.
  2. Hang or hold a banner in a public space. Activists will be hanging banners at nuclear weapons sites and nuclear military bases across the country. We have a template that you can use to have a banner made (around $50 if you go on-line) that you can hang or hold at any federal building, your local post office, federal courthouse, or representative’s office. You download the template here: https://orepa.org/nuclear-ban-treaty-entry-into-force-resources/

2b. Is a banner too much? Here is a template for a poster size version of the treaty that you can      hold or deliver or post in the place of your choice.

  1. Focus on the $$$. Our friends in Europe have been successful in pushing investment funds and corporations to divest from companies or investment funds that profit from nuclear weapons production—and the treaty gives us even more leverage. You can find a list of the companies and banks that invest in nuclear weapons at Don’t Bank on the Bomb. You can hold a poster outside the local Bank of America or Wells Fargo branch office. If your credit card is issued by a nuke-bank, you can change cards or write to the issuer and ask them to get out of the illegal nuclear weapons business. See: https://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/
  1. There is a list of US universities and colleges that are directly involved in supporting nuclear weapons production. Some of them even operate nuclear weapons sites! If your school is not on the list, you could find out where their endowment funds are invested—chances are there is a link to a nuclear weapons corporation or fund. See Schools of Mass Destruction at: https://universities.icanw.org/
  1. Write your representatives in the House and Senate. Tell them you expect their name to be on the first bill introduced in the new Congress that addresses the treaty ban. Tell them you’ll be watching.
  2. Write a letter to the editor. This is an important way to broaden your reach throughout the public arena. Mention your congressional representatives by name so their staff will clip the letter and show it to their boss.
  3. Share the news! If you use Instagram or Facebook or if you tweet, you can share ICAN’s pages and other news about the Entry Into Force.
  4. Donate! Please write a check or give on-line. There are dozens of groups around the country that are dedicating themselves to long-haul work to make the promise of the treaty a reality at home and around the world. They rely on donations and public support to keep going. Even a small contribution counts.
  5. Commit for the long haul. Find the group nearest and dearest to your heart and join so you can stay involved, track the progress of the treaty, and learn about more things you can do to help make it a reality. Get on their mailing list, either on-line or on paper.
  6. Ask your local place of worship to ring its bell for peace on January 22 or place a notice in the bulletin.
  7. Ask your local government to join the ICAN Cities appeal—present a copy of the treaty and ask for a resolution calling on the United States to join.
  8. Deliver copies of the treaty in person or send via mail (link to printable format) to congressional representatives and other public officials, and business, financial and educational institutions with ties to nuclear weapons activities, with a warning of their unlawful complicity.
  9. Watch for more ideas: Please post your plans on the Nuclear Ban Treaty EIF Facebook group, and look at what others are planning to do.

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

January 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

US Minuteman III ICBM Test Made in Response to 50th Ratification of Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty 

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021

The US air force “Global Strike Command” launched a dummy Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg air force Base in California early on October 29, just five days after the 50th ratification of the treaty ban was delivered. It was the third air force ICBM test since August. The Pentagon says its missile tests are planned months in advance, but the decision to not cancel October’s needless demonstration was charged with contempt for civil society. Rick Wayman, CEO of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, in Santa Barbara, said October 28, “In addition to undermining the treaty through threatening letters, the US government demonstrated its active defiance of the treaty’s provisions by testing a nuclear-capable missile.” Wayman’s mention of “threatening letters” was reference to letters sent from the White House urging treaty ban signers to withdraw their ratifications. “While most of the world’s countries are evolving to a view that nuclear weapons are unacceptable under all circumstances, the United States is testing a nuclear missile built to fight the Cold War, one which is designed to cause the indiscriminate slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.

—JL

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter

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