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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

October 27, 2020 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

White House Gangster Wants to Avoid Nuclear-Armed Stigma

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is about to won its 50th state ratification on Saturday, October 24th, the golden number needed for the treaty to enter into force. The list of 50 signatories can be seen at ICANw.org, website of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning coalition that helped navigate the treaty.

Formal ratification of the new law — TPNW for short — is a nation’s binding promise “never under any circumstances … develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” The United Nations opened the TPNW for consideration by a vote of 122 to 2 in July 2017.

On January 22, 2021, a mere 90 days after the 50th nation state ratification, the TPNW will enter into force as international law, binding on countries that have seen it ratified.

Now, in a fashion reminiscent of lawless dictatorships the world over, the Trump White House has written to countries that have adopted the treaty urging them to withdraw their ratifications.

According to the Associated Press, which obtained the U.S. letter, the Trump Administration claims that the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France and all 30 NATO allies “stand unified in our opposition to the potential repercussions” of the treaty.

The AP reported that Beatrice Fihn, executive director of ICAN, said several diplomatic sources had confirmed to her that they and other states that ratified the TPNW had been sent letters by the U.S. requesting their withdrawal.

Fihn told the AP that the “increasing nervousness, and maybe straightforward panic, with some of the nuclear-armed states and particularly the Trump administration,” shows that they “really seem to understand that this is a reality: Nuclear weapons are going to be banned under international law soon.”

So, while the US and the other nuclear-armed countries have opposed the ban treaty, they do recognize the stigma of violating a civilized prohibition that is coming into force. Like a drug cartel with the terroristic muscle and political connections to operate outside the law, the White House wants to pressure its lesser associates.

The absurdity of the White House letter is flabbergasting. It’s like imagining that President Lincoln had urged countries to reinstate slavery.

Ray Acheson, director of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom disarmament program, said in a tweet: “It’s incredible that a nuclear-armed state is demanding other countries withdraw from a treaty banning nuclear weapons.”

Back on March 27, 2017 when negotiations for the treaty ban began, Governor Nikki Haley, then US Ambassador to the UN, led a 40-state boycott of the proceedings. Speaking at the UN, Haley made two verbal slips that spoke the truth.

Haley said, “We would love to have a ban on nuclear treat….” She caught herself and said “weapons” instead of “treaties.”

Later, Haley flubbed her claim that: “… one day we will hope that we are standing here saying, ‘We no longer need nuclear weapons.'”

Evidently, the Trump administration doesn’t hope for a ban on nuclear weapons but instead would love to have that ban on nuclear treaties.

An earlier version of this article was published at Counterpunch.org on October 23, 2020.

Filed Under: Nuclear Weapons, On The Bright Side, Weekly Column

October 11, 2020 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Nuclear Free Future Awards

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2020
Jack and Felice Cohen-Joppa, above, in St. Mary’s, Georgia where they reported on the trial of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7.

This year’s winners of the international Nuclear Free Future Award include our friends and colleagues Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa, editors of the Nuclear Resister. The editors were honored in part because, “Over the past 40 years, the Nuclear Resister has chronicled more than 100,000 anti-nuclear and anti-war arrests around the world, while encouraging support for more than 1,000 jailed activists.”

The Nuclear Free Future Foundation, in Munich, Germany, established the award to “honor the largely unsung heroes of the worldwide anti-nuclear movement for the work they do to end both the military and civilian use of nuclear energy.”

Congratulations!

Filed Under: Direct Action, Newsletter Archives, On The Bright Side, Quarterly Newsletter, Uncategorized

October 11, 2020 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Progresses

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2020
By Christine Manwiller

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which opened for signatures in New York on Sept. 20, 2017, is winning increasing support from nations around the world. Malta became the 84th state to sign on August 25, 2020.

Ireland, Nigeria, Niue, and Saint Kitts & Nevis ratified the treaty in August, honoring the 75th anniversaries of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The number of treaty ratifications is now 44, just six short of the 50 required for it to enter into force as international law. The progress comes in spite of the effect that Covid-19 restrictions have on campaigning for the Ban Treaty.

On July 15, the African Commission on Nuclear Energy marked the 11th anniversary of the Treaty of Pelindaba, establishing Africa as a nuclear-weapons-free zone. The commission called on all African states to ratify the TPNW, while also noting the anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Bringing into force the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons would be a most fitting tribute to the victims and survivors of the atomic bombings.”

In Minnesota, a petition calling for support of the Treaty now has 23,000 signatures. Although face-to-face meetings with the state’s congressional delegation are postponed due to pandemic rules, the End War Committee of Women Against Military Madness and the Minneapolis/St. Paul chapter of Veterans for Peace have organized over 100 people who are calling the state’s US Senators monthly, urging their support of the Treaty. Please join this effort if you live in Minn., or start the ball rolling in your own state.

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, On The Bright Side, Quarterly Newsletter

October 11, 2020 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Huge Cost Overruns May Defeat Small Reactor Prototype as Investors Flee

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2020

With projected costs leaping from a 2017 estimate of $3.6 billion, to $4.2 billion in Nov. 2019, and reaching $6.1 billion last July, municipal investment in a Utah scheme to build the nation’s first so-called small modular reactors (SMRs) is starting to dry up.

To date, Logan, Utah and Lehi City have quit the project, and Bountiful, Utah’s power department says the chances are greater than 50-50 that it too will withdraw.

“[I]f we can’t bring this power in at a competitive price we just won’t build this project,” said LaVarr Webb, a spokesperson for the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), Reuters reported. UAMPS is the Utah state agency that delivers electricity to member cities in six western states. Webb told the Washington Examiner he expected other members could decide to leave too.

The experimental reactor venture is being built at the Idaho National Laboratory. UAMPS is partnered with dozens of regional cities, the companies NuScale, Fluor, and Worldwide Construction, and the US Dept. of Energy. The plan is to build the first of 12 small modular reactors by 2029. Cities including Brigham City, Hyrum, Logan and Lehi joined the effort to subsidize some of the development costs for the first SMR, which is being engineered to produce 60 megawatts.

A major financial shock was the Energy Department reneging on its promise to provide $1.4 billion for the first reactor, the Cache Valley Daily reported. Then in early August, the Utah Taxpayer’s Association issued a scathing report urging all the municipalities to quit the project citing cost overruns, construction delays, and “dependence on unpredictable federal subsidies.”

Edwin Lyman, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Director of Nuclear Power Safety, told Reuters, “the only hope for the UAMPS project, or any other of these first-of-a-kind projects, is that the Department of Energy will end up financing it.”

—JL

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, On The Bright Side, Quarterly Newsletter

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