CNANW

The Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons | Le Réseau canadien pour l’abolition des armes nucléaires

Statement: “Nuclear Disarmament in Times of Unprecedented Risk”

November 22, 2024

 

Five Recommendations Arising From the Roundtable

On October 24, 2024, Canada’s four leading nuclear disarmament organizations—the Canadian Pugwash Group, the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, and Project Ploughshares—convened an expert Roundtable on “Nuclear Disarmament in Times of Unprecedented Risk.” This was held in response to rapidly escalating nuclear threats. The convening organizations share the profound conviction that Canada must urgently reassert its voice and leadership in the global disarmament arena.
 
The gravity of today’s nuclear threats, underscored by the heightened possibility of nuclear weapons’ use, demands that Canada act with bold urgency. In our Report, we call on the Government of Canada to reaffirm its role as a constructive middle power by embracing these recommendations. By doing so, Canada can strengthen its legacy of peacebuilding and advance the imperative of nuclear disarmament in times of unprecedented risk.  Read the report here: ND4 Report to GoC 2024

Reducing the Nuclear Weapons Risks in the Ukraine Conflict

September 18, 2023

Report on November 29, 2022 Special Meeting of CNANW

In a recent statement, NATO’s Secretary General, a former social-democratic Norwegian Prime Minster, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance will continue to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes”. He added: “We will not back down.” Prominent columnists have challenged the very idea that a ceasefire in the Ukraine crisis is possible or have even suggested that it might lengthen the war on Russian President Putin’s terms. Some press for a “fight to victory” by Kyiv, given recent gains on the battlefield. Sometimes the nuclear weapons threat is seen as blackmail, a bluff, or a risk worth ignoring.

How then can Canada constructively contribute to peace?

Panelists at the CNANW discussion in late November were asked to consider opportunities for reducing the nuclear weapon threat, and prospects for peace. All acknowledged the dire situation in Ukraine following the illegal Russian invasion.

English: Report-on-Nov-29-Special-Meeting-of-CNANW_finalDownload
Français: RAPPORT-Réunion-spéciale-du-CNANW_Nov2022Download
The Hill Times: CollinsLemieux_UkrainePeaceJan0923_HTDownload

Jaramillo: Latin America and the Quest for Nuclear Abolition: From the Treaty of Tlatelolco to the Ban Treaty

September 18, 2023

photo credit: OPANAL

On February 14, 2014, as the Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons came to an end, conference Chair Juan Manuel Gomez Robledo—then deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mexico—captured the sentiment in the room in the powerful last few words of his closing remarks: in global efforts toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, this conference marked a “point of no return.” His optimistic conclusion was met with a roar of applause.

Read further: here 

How Many Intensive Care Beds Will A Nuclear Weapon Explosion Require?

September 18, 2023

Tom Sauer and Ramesh Thakur

A novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China late last year, hopping in one way or another from other animals to humans. Initially the rest of the world thought this outbreak was a local problem and then was shocked at the brutality of the lockdown that the Chinese authorities clamped on Wuhan to quarantine the infection cluster. Despite China’s efforts at containment, soon the virus rode the highways and byways of globalisation to quickly circle the world. Other countries realised their hospital systems could be overwhelmed unless they drastically slowed the surge of new infections. No country had the number of beds in its intensive care units (ICUs) to manage patient loads under worst-case scenarios of letting this new coronavirus spread through the community to acquire herd immunity.

To those of us whose primary professional interest lies in nuclear weapons and the dangers they pose, the coronavirus pandemic is a striking validation of the Humanitarian Initiative, which took off 10 years ago with three core propositions: First, no country individually has the capacity to cope with the humanitarian consequences of a nuclear war, and the international system doesn’t have it collectively, either. Second, it is therefore in the interests of all humanity that nuclear weapons never be used again, under any circumstances. And finally: The only guarantee of non-use is the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. These precepts were the powerful impetus behind the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty that 122 states at the United Nations adopted in July 2017.

The pandemic speaks to the truth of the first proposition about the power of the bomb. The near-universal response to the panic created by COVID-19 leads us to the conclusion that the number of ICU beds needed to deal with a disaster should become a new norm, and a new way to judge when radical action is needed to respond to a global threat. So what other types of global catastrophes could call for more hospital infrastructure and personnel than is now available? The bomb is one obvious answer. Are the number of ICU beds sufficient to respond to a disaster caused by the explosion of one nuclear weapon or, in a war, many? No, they are not sufficient. Not even close.

A serious threat assessment consists of estimating the size of a threat and its probability. For the nuclear threat, estimating the size is rather straightforward; the probability is more difficult. A nuclear cataclysm is low probability in the short term, almost certain in the long run, and high impact whenever it happens. Let’s put it another way: For nuclear peace to hold, deterrence and fail-safe mechanisms must work every single time. For nuclear catastrophe to occur, either deterrence or fail safe mechanisms need to break down only once. This is not a comforting equation. Moreover, deterrence stability depends on rational decision-makers being always in office in every single nuclear-armed country. The leaders of the nine countries with the bomb today—China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Paki- stan, Russia, the UK, and the United States—do not universally reassure on this score.

So let’s take the number of available intensive care beds as the new measure and apply it to potential nuclear catastrophes. With the help of Stephens Institute of Technology researcher Alex Wellerstein’s Nukemap, we can model the approximate results of a hit on a target city by a nuclear warhead of choice. The largest bomb tested by Pakistan—which has a yield equal to 45 kilotons of TNT—would kill 358,350 people and injure 1.28 million, if used in an airburst over Delhi. But there would almost certainly be many more injuries; almost four million people live within the 7 kilometre radius in which the detonation would break glass windows and create other “light” blast effects—which actually are not light and would cause major injuries. If Russia launched one of its nuclear-armed, 800-kiloton Topol missiles against NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, 536,180 people would die and 572,830 would be injured. If a 5,000-kiloton Chinese Deng Fong-5 missile reaches Brussels, 839,550 will die and another 876,260 people will be seriously injured. Belgium’s 1,900 ICU beds (minus those of Brussels and surroundings, which would of course be instantly destroyed or rendered unusable) could not begin to cope with a humanitarian disaster of this magnitude. And what if more than one nuclear warhead explodes? What about a nuclear war that produces dozens or hundreds of nuclear explosions?

No society is prepared for such a man-made disaster. Worse, no society can ever be prepared for such a scenario. Nevertheless, many nations (including our home countries of Belgium and Australia) base their defense policies on the threat that the United States will use nuclear weapons in their defense, if necessary.

We cannot predict when and with what ferocity the next global pandemic will hit. But we can be certain that Covid-19 will not be the last pandemic disease to afflict humanity, and we should be making preparations to forestall such a disaster. We also cannot predict when and where nuclear weapons will be used again, and by whom. But we can be grimly confident that a nuclear warhead will be detonated someday, somewhere, if not by choice and design, then inadvertently, through accidental launch, rogue launch, or system failure.

Nuclear deterrence has proven itself to be anything but foolproof. Syria and Egypt attacked Israel in 1973, even though the Jewish state possessed nuclear weapons; in 1991, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein also disregarded Israel’s nuclear arsenal, firing Scud missiles at Tel Aviv. Argentina attacked the nuclear-armed UK in the Falkland Islands war. India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, fought the Kargil war in 1999 (more than 1,000 people died) and had a dog-fight in February last year. We would not call these conflicts—any one of which might have resulted in the use of nuclear weapons—expressions of security or stability. A policy based on hope and luck (as US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara described the conduct of the Cuban Missile Crisis) cannot be the basis of a serious defense policy.

What is the probability of a nuclear war or simply the explosion of a single nuclear weapon? Certainly it is more than zero. And the probability seems to be rising rather than falling. If US President Donald Trump does not extend New START by the end of this year, for the first time in 50 years the world will end up without any bilateral arms control treaty that includes verification. The nuclear-armed countries have not negotiated one new arms control treaty since 2010. North Korea now has nuclear weapons, and Iran may be the next in line.

The world is facing a clear threat of an “outbreak” of nuclear weapons proliferation.

As of now, there are no treatments or preventive measures that work against the new coronavirus circling the world. But a “vaccine” against nuclear weapons use already exists— the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, often known simply as the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty. Unfortunately, despite their legal obligations under Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the five nuclear weapon states and their allies, and also the four nuclear armed states outside the NPT, are refusing to take the prophylactic medication the ban treaty prescribes. The nuclear weapon “haves” refuse to give up their nuclear privileges, even though they promised to do so under the NPT. The US alone will spend $50 billion this year on the maintenance and modernisation of nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles.

Doctors know better. They know that they won’t be of any help in a nuclear war. That is why the World Medical Association stands behind the Nuclear Ban Treaty since 2018. The same for the World Federation of Public Health Associations, the International Council of Nurses, and International Red Cross.

The world has experienced epidemics and pandemics before. It suffered but endured. The coronavirus pandemic too shall pass, and life will go on. But the world is unlikely to return to the pre-pandemic state of affairs. Countries will rebuild domestic manufacturing capacity for critical medical supplies and equipment and create institutional structures to manage a surge in ICU capacity for future epidemiological crises. They will rebuild some vital border protections. And they will build functional redundancy into global supply chains to reduce exposure to single points of critical supply.

But such measures will not work as preparations against a nuclear war; no infrastructure, no matter how sophisticated or extensive, could cope with the horrible injury toll. Using ICU beds as a new norm informs us that no after-the-fact response to a nuclear bomb explosion can work. So prevention in the form of the Ban Treaty vaccine must be universally administered. In the post-pandemic world, therefore, eliminating nuclear weapons must be a top priority of the utmost urgency.

  The Authors      

Tom Sauer is an Associate Professor in international politics at the Universiteit Antwerpen in Belgium. Sauer is a former fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He received the 2019 Rotary International Alumni Global Service Award.

Ramesh Thakur is Emeritus Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy and Director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Australian National University; Senior Research Fellow with the Toda Peace Institute; and a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General.

  Toda Peace Institute    

The Toda Peace Institute is an independent, nonpartisan institute committed to advancing a more just and peaceful world through policy-oriented peace research and practice. The Institute commissions evidence-based research, convenes multi-track and multi-disciplinary problem-solving workshops and seminars, and promotes dialogue across ethnic, cultural, religious and political divides. It catalyses practical, policy-oriented conversations between theoretical experts, practitioners, policymakers and civil society leaders in order to discern innovative and creative solutions to the major problems confronting the world in the twenty-first century (see www.toda.org for more information).

Notes: 1. This article was first published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 28 April 2010 https://thebulletin.org/2020/04/how-many-intensive-care-beds-will-a-nuclear-weapon-explosion-require/

Contact Us

Toda Peace Institute
Samon Eleven Bldg. 5th Floor
3-1 Samon-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0017, Japan Email: contact@toda.org

Statements

September 18, 2023
  • Restoring Canada’s Nuclear Disarmament Policies Expert Seminar, February 2008:
    • Event Report (english, pdf)
    • Statement (english, pdf)
    • Séminaire d’experts sur la restitution de leadership Canadiene sur le désarmement nucléaire
    • Déclaration (pdf)
    • Text Box: Vers 2010: Priorités en vue d’un consensus à propos du TNP
      • Rapport de l’Initiative des puissances moyennes, Avril 2007
        [MPI Statement to Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs]
      • Mémoire de l’Initiative des puissances moyennes en prévision de la réunion du Comité préparatoire du TNP qui aura lieu à Vienne, en 2007 [rtf; pdf]
    • Canadians Call for End to Nuclear Weapons in NATO/Des Canadiens exigent la suppression du recours à l’armement nucléaire par l’OTAN:

CNANW Activities 2005-2008

September 18, 2023
  • Restoring Canada’s Nuclear Disarmament Policies Expert Seminar, February 2008:
    Event Report (english, pdf) Statement (english, pdf)
  • Séminaire d’experts sur la restitution de leadership Canadiene sur le désarmement nucléaire: Déclaration (français, pdf)
  • Canadians Call for End to Nuclear Weapons in NATO;
    Des Canadiens exigent la suppression du recours à l’armement nucléaire par l’OTAN:
    Statement, June 18, 2007 (english; en français)
    Media Release, June 18, 2007 (english; en français)
  • Recent Statements on Nuclear Weapons Issues: view here
  • 2005 Consultations: here
  • Launch on Warning: here
  • What we do
  • Hiroshima 1945, 8:15 A.M.
    Setsuko Thurlow’s Story: here
  • Testimony on Disarmament before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs by Ernie Regehr and Douglas Roche: here

Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons: “We believe that the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons are abhorrent and morally wrong. We call on the Government of Canada to work urgently with other nations to conclude a convention which will set out a binding timetable for the abolition of all nuclear weapons in the world.”

2004 reports from the NPT prepcom

September 18, 2023

(Debbie Grisdale, Physicians for Global Survival)

Report #1 Day 1 – Monday April 26, 2004

The day began with the daily delegation meeting at the Canadian Mission. We are 12 people – a combination of DFAIT people (from Ottawa, NY,Vienna and Geneva), DND, the Nuclear Safety Commission and 2 NGO reps (Ernie Regehr of Project Ploughshares and myself). We went over the day’s events, assigned tasks and discussed preparations for the next few days.

The prep com sessions run from 10-1pm and 3-6pm. This first day was devoted to opening statements by countries, including Canada. The UK and China were the 2 nuclear weapon states to present today. Overall the statements are quite repetitive – on dangers of proliferation, need to strengthen the NPT, bring the CTBT into force, achieve fissile material cutoff treaty, rejuvenate the paralysed Conference on disarmament etc. I am struck by the huge amount of time and resources and paper that are devoted to statements and briefs – words by the thousands. So much of what is said is repetitive and it all seems so inefficient when there is so much to do. This is why I am not a diplomat!

Canada is presenting a 3 part package on

  1. greater NGO access to the NPT process,
  2. increased reporting by States on their progress toward compliance with NPT and
  3. addressing the ‘institutional deficit’ of the NPT by creating a standing body with annual general conference mechanism etc to make the NPT more responsive to problems and emergencies as they arise (e.g. DPRK withdrawa in 2003l from NPT). The 3 parts fit quite well together and complement each other.

Several countries expressed interest is looking more at this last idea on institutional strengthening, while the UK minced no words saying ‘The idea is that such measures would strengthen the NPT process. We disagree. ..,.” Our job over the next 2 weeks is to talk up the three notions and get other states and NGOs (not so difficult!) interested in them so the ideas can be further developed and make to the 2005 Review Conference.

At noon the Middle Powers Initiative held a standing-room-only panel on ‘Ensuring Full Implementation of the NPT’ with the New Zealand Minister of Disarmament (only country with Minister of Disarmament), Cdn Ambassador for Disarm. Paul Meyer, former Swedish Ambassador for Disarmament and Tariq Rauf (a Canadian) of IAEA. The room had many government representatives as well as NGOs. Canada is well regarded and certainly featured prominently in this roundtable which was introduced by Doug Roche. (Canada is one of the very few delegations with an NGO rep on it – let alone 2.)

There is, overall, a good turnout of NGOS here – 69 are registered. Tomorrow they will have the whole afternoon to make their 11 presentations to the plenary. A core group has been working on them for the last 6 weeks. Ron McCoy will present IPPNWs on the human face of NW. After tomorrow aft. the government sessions will be closed to NGOs.

It is pouring rain, good thing this hotel is only one block from the UN – perfect location. Will report again after a couple of days.
Debbie

Report #2 from NPT PrepCom April 27-30 2004

Government Country Statements

On morning of the prepcom’s second day more countries gave their statements. Countries frequently mention the 3 “intertwined” pillars of the NPT — disarmanent, non-proliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear technology. The room filled up as names on the list moved down to the US government’s turn. The US focused mostly on issues of treaty non-compliance and how to “devise ways to ensure full compliance with the Treaty’s non-proliferation objectives”. The US seems to feel they are in full compliance with Article VI of the treaty (which deals specifically with nuclear disarmament) and went so far as to hold a special closed briefing at a lunch hour to govts providing “hard evidence” about how they are in compliance. Several countries later, Iran spoke — reading their prepared statement saying after a year of verification by the IAEA there was no indication of diversion of nuclear technology from peaceful uses to a weapons program. Then they added another para to reply to the US accusations saying the US needs to come clean about its violation of the treaty and its proliferation activities. The US has targeted Iran repeatedly in their statements.

The government statements were extremely repetitive. Issues touched on by many countries include: the universal reaffirmation of support for the NPT and its three intertwined pillars; serious concerns about and the need to tackle non-proliferation and compliance (DPRK, Iran, Libya); the need for progress on disarmament; negative security assurances (NW states assurance to non-nuke states that they will not use NW on them — this is fundamental to NPT agreement); the need to deal with the proliferation of nuclear technology; the continuing CD impasse; the establishment of a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East, the CTBT, the Additional Protocol and interest in the fuel cycle proposals. Many called for the PrepCom to make substantive, not only procedural, recommendations to the Review Conference. But to date, little progress is being made toward any substantive outcome from this prepcom.

NGO Presentations

On Tuesday afternoon 13 representatives from NGOs spoke to the plenary. There were several mayors, Sarah Estabrooks of Proj Ploughshares, Ron McCoy and a wonderful sight of a young German with bright fuschia hair. As the first several NGOs spoke, their directness in addressing the issues was a welcomed relief. The speeches ran long and took exactly the allotted 3 hours with no time for the hoped for Q+A. For details on NGOs recommendations see Report #3.

On Wed morning country statements were finally finished. For the afternoon session NGOs were no longer permitted on the conference room as has been the practice for the last number of years. They are allowed in for country statements only. Procedural issues were on the agenda — dates for next year’s review conference (May2-27), election of officers, agenda, rules of procedure etc. As countries debated the rules of procedure it was difficult to imagine how there could ever be agreement on an agenda, let alone anything of any substance. A number of issues were deferred — including a rule of procedure on NGO access to sessions.

Government Cluster&Mac226; Presentations

Over the next several days the governments delivered statements in what are called Clusters — of which there are 3 and deal with different aspects of the treaty -disarmament, nuclear safeguards and peaceful uses of nuclear technology. (These are supposedly different from their country statements but in actual fact go essentially over the same ground.)

The prepcom Chair (Indonesian Amb Sudjadnan) has kept a low key posture from the start, which is seen generously by some as exemplary of Indonesian subtletly, and by others as revealing a weak grasp of the process. It is believed by some that he is overly influenced by backroom sessions with the NWS, who are seeking a merely procedural outcome that does not attempt substantial recommendations. He did brief the NGOs at one of the early morning sessions.

NGO Access to Government Sessions

By Friday afternoon things had changed considerably for NGOs and they were permitted back into the “cluster” sessions The “cluster” sessions should finish Monday and it is not clear whether NGOs will be allowed to remain in during the remainder of the prepcom when, I believe and hope, there is more actual debate onn recommendations to go forward to the 2005 Review Conference.

Canada has been steadfast on NGO access and intervening on this issue whenever necessary. There are 2-3 other delegations with NGOs on them and so I have been asked a number of times by NGOs from other countries about how is it that Canada has one. I have been dividing my time between the govt sessions and the NGO panels.

NGO Sessions

The NGOs sessions are excellent, covering topics on missile proliferation, US weapons labs, civilian weapons inspectors, resolution of the crisis in the Korean Peninsula etc etc. One noon hour I went from a session by the UK government on their technical verification research program which also included outlining how they undertook mock inspections to a NGO session on “civilian weapons inspections” by representatives from churches and activist NGOs — the difference in the room was palpable in terms of personal engagement with the issue and the depth of the discussion. This holds true for most of the NGO sessions I have been to where they have very good presentations and information and are deeply aroused about nuclear disarmament and very frustrated with the lack of progress.

The question has been raised a number of times about how best to influence the government delegations and whether it is possible to do it here at the N. The answer that frequently comes back is that the work to be done is raising the awareness among civil society back home. For the Americans their first task is a change of president, but that is only the beginning. There was a very interesting presentation from Los Alamos Study Group on the social contract with nuclear weapons labs and the military in the state of New Mexico — the poorest state in the country, where 13% of the workforce is employed at the labs or in the military.

Over the weekend Abolition 2000 organized a town hall evening session on Friday, a rally on Sat (covered in the New York Times Metro section) and an all day general planning meeting on Sunday.

First thing this morning, Monday, Ambassador Meyer gave an “off the record” briefing to NGOs from the Canadian perspective.

The second week begins with the final slate of countries speaking on Cluster 1 issues — disarmament.

Report #3 from NPT Prepcom
Summary of Recommendations from NGO Statements to Plenary Session

Process of Developing the NGO Statements

It took over 6 months of intensive brainstorming, debating, selecting and refining to get to these 13 statements. Not everyone is agreement on all points but the presentations reflect the NGOs “unquenchable desire for nuclear abolition” and “to rid the planet of nuclear weapons, verifiably and irreversibly”.

There were a number of Mayors or deputy mayors who participated in the presentation of the statements.

Vertical proliferation is defined as increases in the size of arsenals; the introduction of new weapons and new capabilities to arsenals including new means of delivery; and changes in the role of nuclear weapons in defense policy. All the nuclear weapon states are seen as proceeding with vertical proliferation programs that undermine the treaty.

Summary of Recommendations as presented:

1.Disarm

  • Convene a Summit meeting on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation tasked with the creation of an International Nuclear Disarmament Organization with the appropriate political and legal authority and financial resources to eliminate all nw and monitor the nuclear-free status.
  • Summit would be a prelude to the opening of negotiations on a Model NW Convention. * Establish clear timetable for the total abolition of nw no later that 2020, and negotiations should begin as of the 2005 NPT Review Conf on a phased program of incremental steps leading to the total elimination
  • NPT States Parties should condemn all practices that violate the letter and spirit of the NPT – inter alia preemptive nuclear strikes, development of new generations of NW
  • disarmament of delivery systems and of warheads
  • Let the radiation history of Indigenous peoples, hibakusha, downwinders, nuclear industry workers, community in the global south and elswhere be living history for all humanity – let us learn from it and prevent history from repeating itself.
  • to address the “disarmament deficit” and to avoid future reliance on the UNSC as a global lawmaker, revitalize the existing NBC-treaty regimes and create new multi-lateral agreements – on non-state actors, fissile materials, a biological weapons verification regime and more.

2. No new nuclear reactors

  • Moratorium on building of new nuclear reactors and old ones close down.
  • Transfer of funds from Export Credit Agencies and governments to an International Sustainable Energy Fund.

3. Implement and strengthen the NPT in a non-discriminatory manner that demands accountability

  • consider development of a permanent NPT body and a UN-based inspectorate, drawing on UNMOVIC capabilities, to address concerns of suspected or confirmed horizontal proliferation within the NPT framework and thereby reinforcing it, similarly for addressing and halting vertical proliferation
  • make common cause with BTWC and CWC in pursuit of mutually reinforcing systems for verification and enforcement
  • reconfirm commitment to 13 Steps to ensure it remains a living document and use as means to assess progress and to plot future steps
  • engage in broad and intensive discussions to acquire commitment to disarmament in 2005. NGOs are prepared to help in any way.
  • NNWS are encouraged to cooperate through diplomatic alliances to propose progressive and concrete recommendations as unified voice.

4. Insist that international mean international

  • Bring SORT into conformity with goal of NPT to achieve global disarmament under “strict and effective international control”
  • NPT member states should send invitations for formal observers from Israel, India and Pakistan at the NPT prepcoms and Review Conferences, and develop mechanisms for giving them greater access to NPT deliberations
  • Start negotiations immediately on a multilateral treaty banning shipment of NBC weapons
  • excess weapon-grade fissile materials of the NWS must be brought under IAEA safeguards. Parts of the nuclear fuel cycle should be brought under multinational control and that export controls should be universalized.
  • Revise withdrawal clause of the NPT and the method of convening States Parties to deal with disputes.
  • Provide financial and political support to the safeguard and verification regime thereby supporting the IAEA in verification of peaceful nuclear activities.
  • Create international controls on uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technology through a multilateral agreement, as proposed by IAEA DG Mohamed ElBaradei
  • International oversight on the UNSC resolution on non-proliferation is required

5. Enhance NGO Access

  • Grant to NGO participants increased access to the proceedings, including fewer closed sessions allowing NGOs to attend cluster discussions and timely access to documentation.

6. Strengthen Member State Reporting

  • All states parties must be held to higher standard of reporting on treaty compliance in order to strengthen this as transparency tool.
  • Increase States’ participation in reporting before negotiating a standard format

7. Create an NPT Secretariat

  • Establish Secretariat to prevent functions and responsibilities and institutional memory of NPT from either falling to wayside or being dealt with in ad hoc fashion
  • Consider modeling on OCPW

8. Missiles, Missile Defences and Space Weapons: prevent an arms race

  • stop testing missiles and missile defence systems
  • initiate negotiations for an international treaty banning tests of ballistic missiles and of missile defence systems
  • initiate negotiations for a global treaty banning ballistic missiles and missile defence systems
  • any research, development, testing, building and deployment of weapons for use in space should be prohibited

9. Depleted Uranium

  • NPT member states are urged to sponsor a General Assembly [resolution] condemning the use of DU weapons and uranium-tipped radiological weapons

References to Canada in NGO Statements

  • “Australia and Japan have already decided to join US missile defence. Canada and the UK are in appropriate negotiations”
  • We also applaud the latest Canadian efforts to develop a comprehensive approach seeking to integrate space security issues with the international community’s need for security and equitable access to space for peaceful purposes, which has recently been presented at a seminar in Geneva”
    *Let us also ban all uranium mining in the First Nations of Canada and the United states, Australia, India and elsewhere that supplies the continuing global nuclear industry”.
  • “inalienable right” under the NPT to nuclear materials for peaceful purposes is given to all NPT parties and implemented by other NNWS such as Japan, Canada, etc

The full NGO statements can be found at www.reachingcriticalwill.org.

NPT PrepCom Report #4 May 3-5 2004

On Tuesday afternoon after countries had an opportunity to finish the last of the “special time” sessions which was on “Safety and Security of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Programs” the chair announced the program for the remainder of the week. The product of the prepcom will be a Report of the meeting (on procedural issues, provisional agenda for the 2005 Review Conference, Draft Rules of Procedure etc) and an annex to it that contains the Chairman&Mac226;s Factual Summary. After discussing the procedural issues in plenary on Wed AM countries would have a chance on Wed afternoon to meet with the Chair and Vice-Chairs individually to “provide their views” on what should be in the Factual Summary. The draft Report with the procedural aspects would be available on Thurs AM and the draft of the Factual Summary on Friday AM. This was announced by the Chair with no written overview of this timetable provided and many countries remained confused about what the plan was. Even one of the Vice Chairs admitted after in a smaller meeting that she was not exactly sure what was in the Chair&Mac226;s mind.

On Wed AM discussion on the provisional agenda for the 2005 Review Conference (which is essentially the 2000 Review Conference’s agenda) hit a snag when Canada proposed that that the review should take into account not only the decision taken at the 1995 Review and Extension Conference but also „the Final Document of the 2000 Review Conference”. Sounds reasonable, the 13 Steps, a very important achievement, came out of the 2000 RevCon. Canada proposed it as simply a technical adjustment, an update, to the agenda not a substantive change. There followed a lengthy discussion in the plenary many countries supporting Canada but the US in particular unable to see any value in adding in 2000, another hour in a smaller group, a third session in the afternoon and still there is no agreement. Discussions on this “technical” and definitely “not political” point begin again today. These smaller group sessions are chaired by Canada&Mac226;s Ambassador Paul Meyer, doing an admirable job. Most of the countries support Canada&Mac226;s suggestion except the US and Russia and the UK. The UK suggested putting in the phrase “where appropriate”, until it was pointed out that this was “cherry picking”. Discsussion continue this morning.

The NGOs have daily briefings at 9AM by various delegations and delegates. Yesterday I meet with NGOs to talk about being “an NGO on the Canadian Delegation”. A number of NGOs are interested in knowing the background on the Canadian situation.

Below is the May 5,2004 editorial of the daily newspaper “News in Review”, put out by the financially struggling WILPF&Mac226;s Reaching Critical Will Project (NIR). It is ,handed out at the door of the conference room and read avidly by delegates. All the NIRs can be read at http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/nirindex.html

Playing Chess with Damocles

International relations have often been described as a complex game of chess, played on multiple boards simultaneously, wherein a decision on one board directly affects the strategies and opportunities on all the others.

Over the past week and a half that this PrepCom has been in session, the accuracy of this metaphor has been highlighted several times. First, the Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) were given fresh impetus in their quest to frame the discussion on non-proliferation, rather than disarmament, when Security Council Resolution 1540 was passed last week. The resolution, as the News in Review has commented several times, struck a blow to the delicate balance between disarmament and nonproliferation by failing to reaffirm the intrinsic link between the two indivisible goals.

The multidimensional chess game was in full action yesterday at the UN as well, as the PrepCom devoted special time to Regional Issues while the “Quartet” – the UN, U.S., E.U., and Russia- met in a separate part of the building to discuss the tattered Road Map to peace in the Middle East.

Nearly a dozen States took the floor to call for Israel&Mac226;s accession to the treaty- the main obstacle in the creation of a Middle East Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ)- and to reaffirm the urgency of universalization and the denuclearization of the volatile region. The United States, meanwhile, utilized the Special Time to once again accuse Iran of “serious violation of its NPTobligations.”

France, the only other Nuclear Weapon State to take the floor yesterday, heralded Security Council resolution 687 and the proposals from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and offered a “checklist” of conditions necessary to create a much needed “new regional security framework.” In order to achieve a NWFZ in the tumultuous region, France called for: an established dialogue amongst all parties; compliance with NPT commitments from the region&Mac226;s States Parties; cessation of arms and delivery systems proliferation; strict adherence to the NPT, CWC, BTWC, and the CTBT; adoption of Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and the placement of all facilities under IAEA monitors; the elimination of existing stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as well as their means of delivery; and more.

It could be argued that had the 1995 Review and Extension Conference not adopted the resolution on the Middle East as part of the “Package of Decisions” States Parties might not have been able to ascertain the indefinite extension that prolonged the treaty&Mac226;s lifespan. Although the resolution has yet to be implemented, it remains, as Kuwait remarked yesterday, “an integral part” of the international disarmament and nonproliferation regime.

The absence of further decisions on the Middle East at the 2000 Review Conference was entirely due to the possibility of the 13 Practical Steps. In 2000, Non Nuclear Weapon States (NNWS) in the Middle East were temporarily content to relegate the region to the back burner in exchange for the “unequivocal undertaking” by the NWS to disarm. Now that the NWS have clearly reneged on that diplomatic achievement, the NNWS are duly determined to reprioritize the Middle East as a front issue for the NPT at the next Review.

While the Quartet deliberates how to reconcile Israel&Mac226;s proposed withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, States Parties trek back to their Missions to consider how the NPT can best address the crisis.

Neither framework is likely to discover a silver bullet in the next few days. But, as pawns and bishops scuttle across their separate boards, the nuclear sword of Damocles continues to loom over the Middle East and the entire world.

— Rhianna Tyson, Reaching Critical Will

For my Report #5 I am attaching below the report of veteran NPT watcher Rebecca Johnson. As she outlines, the whole process bizarrely and despairingly fizzled out at the end, at 8pm Friday May 7 – 2 hours past the scheduled closing. There no agreement on any substantive urgent issue. Any agreement that there was was on purely procedural items and even many of those items saw no agreement at all and so cannot go forward as official documentation from this prepcom to next year’s Review Conference.

Overall the experience was a good learning opportunity in many aspects, but it reinforced indelibly for me that any progress on nuclear disarmament will come as a result of civil society pressing for it.

Lots to be discussed at the Board meeting. See many of you then.

Debbie

Date: Sat, 08 May 2004 15:00:43 +0100
From: Rebecca Johnson <rej@acronym.org.uk
Subject: NPT PrepCom crashes in disarray

Confusion and Anger as NPT Meeting Closes in New York

The Third Session of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the 2005 Review Conference of the NPT closed in disarray around 8 pm Friday May 7, 2004, with adoption of only parts of its final report containing the most minimal agreements to enable the 2005 Review Conference to take place. States Parties were unable to take decisions on important issues such as the agenda and background documents, in large part because the US delegation was determined to oppose and minimise references to the consensus final document from the 2000 Review Conference, which had resulted in the ground-breaking 13-step plan of action on nuclear disarmament. The United States, actively abetted by France and Britain, with the other nuclear weapon states happy to go along, wanted to rewrite the NPT’s history by sidelining the 2000 Conference commitments, at which they had made an “unequivocal undertaking& to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals”. A majority of other states, by contrast, wanted the 2005 Review Conference to build on both the groundbreaking agreements from 2000 and the decisions and resolutions from the 1995 Review and Extension Conference.

The meeting, chaired by Ambassador Sudjadnan Parnohadinigrat of Indonesia, was expected to be difficult, but was made more so by the ideological US obstruction to anything that mentioned the CTBT or the 2000 agreements. The nonaligned states, frequently spearheaded by South Africa, a key player in both 1995 and 2000, refused to capitulate, though far too many of the western non nuclear weapon states appeared ready to roll belly up and settle for a lowest common denominator trade-off. Most notably, as the meeting went through its motions, a significant number of parties showed preference for ‘waiting out’ the problem, in the hope that time, further consultations and, most importantly, more constructive political circumstances (which many associated with possible regime change in the United States in November), might make consensus more reachable before the 2005 Conference opens.

Throughout the meeting, there was much stating of positions, but little stomach for confrontation or compromise. After two weeks of lacklustre debates, with much repetition and very few new ideas, the last day of the meeting turned into a bad-tempered shambles that ended in near farce, with a series of confused decisions taken without interpretation, with the majority speaking English but two delegations insisting on French. The PrepCom even failed to abide by its own rules whereby, if discussions have been held in closed session, the meeting is opened to the public for formal decisions to be properly taken.

Along with the rest of civil society, the Acronym Institute was outside the room throughout the long day, gleaning information from a series of frustrated delegates as they wandered back and forth for cigarettes or coffee. As debates went round and round in circles, messing up earlier agreements on access for nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), adding and subtracting words to slide just one outstanding – but importantly context-establishing – paragraph on the agenda past the US blockage, it was clear that many delegates, including, some complained, the Chair, had lost the plot. Their confusion about what they were doing even extended to the final decisions, as illustrated by contradictory reports of what occurred at the end.

President-Elect Ambassador Sergio Duarte of Brazil may have to wait some time before there is full clarity about what was decided and what he will have to do over the next year to create the conditions for the Review Conference to get to work in May 2005. Certainly, the PrepCom failed to agree any substantive recommendations and refused to annex the Chair’s summary of the meeting, which will be issued merely as a chair’s working paper, with no authority. The Chair’s summary, issued late on Thursday evening, was – as with its predecessors – challenged by several states, including the United States and Iran. Canada was angry that the summary had failed to mention initiatives on strengthening the Treaty’s enforcement mechanisms; there were complaints that text on nuclear energy and safeguards provided by the Vice Chairs had been ignored. Illustrating the difficulties of walking this Chair’s tightrope, the summary provoked grumbles from some states that it too closely resembled the chair’s summary issued by Ambassador Laszlo Molnar of Hungary the previous year, while others complained that it read like a NAM (non-aligned states) document, of which Indonesia is a prominent member.

As it turned out, however, the chair’s summary was little more than a sideshow, paling into insignificance as states parties realised they were in danger of not being able to take the necessary decisions to enable the 2005 Conference to be held. After much to-ing and fro-ing it appears that the disputed parts of the report dealing with the more fundamental issues of agenda, background documents and subsidiary bodies will now be turned into a chair’s working paper that will be forwarded together with the bare bones of a report that were agreed.

In view of the confusion and the lack of reliable documentation on the decisions, a more substantive analysis will be published by the Acronym Institute once the decisions have been clarified and the statements and documents have been further analysed.

Background:

The NPT PrepCom opened at the United Nations in New York on April 26, 2004, and ran for two weeks. The meeting was required to come up with recommendations for the 2005 Review Conference, but seemed just to go through the motions, managing only to adopt a timetable of work at the end of the first week. On Friday, April 30, the decision was taken to enable NGO representatives to attend and receive statements and documents from the so-called ‘cluster debates’, on the non-tranfer and acquisition of nuclear technologies and nuclear disarmament, safeguards, and nuclear energy for non-military purposes. The objections to the timetable centred on whether there should be ‘special time’ allocated to the issues of security assurances (in accordance with which the nuclear weapon states commit not to use nuclear weapons to attack states without nuclear weapons) and the Middle East.

It was finally decided to fold the security assurances discussion into a session devoted to consideration of the practical pursuit of nuclear disarmament measures, and to include the Middle East question in a session on regional issues. For ‘equity’ among the three ‘pillars’ of the NPT, it was also decided to devote a session to ‘the safety and security of peaceful nuclear programmes’. Symptomatic of the lack of real progress at this PrepCom, it turned out that many statements to these special sessions merely repeated, with slightly more detail or argument, on points already given in general debates.

As anticipated (see my Disarmament Diplomacy 76 article on “The NPT in 2004: Testing the Limits”), the main focus of interventions from the United States has been noncompliance by North Korea and Iran and the need for stricter measures to deal with NPT parties who use the Article IV provision on nuclear energy to fulfil nuclear weapon ambitions. At the same time a large number of states, including many US allies, highlighted the importance of fulfilment of disarmament obligations – with emphasis on core agreements such as the CTBT – while also raising concerns about new developments in nuclear weapons or doctrines. States lined up to support Additional Protocol, and suggestions were put forward for how to manage nuclear fuel cycle supply, restruct exports in sensitive technologies and materials and provide better institutional tools for states parties to strengthen the treaty’s implementation.

The General debate heard interventions from: Mexico on behalf of the New Agenda Coalition; New Zealand; Ireland on behalf of the European Union; China; Britain; Algeria; Mexico; Malaysia on behalf of the Group of Non-Aligned States Parties; Australia; Peru; Indonesia; South Africa; Egypt; Bangladesh; Republic of (South) Korea; Switzerland; Japan; Syria; Venezuela; Canada; Belarus; Kazakhstan; Bahamas and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The General Debate continued on Tuesday and Wednesday with statements from France; Brazil; the Holy See; the United States (John Bolton); Norway; Iran; Russia; Viet Nam; Burma/Myanmar; Cuba; Ukraine; Morocco; Egypt on behalf of the Arab Group; Nepal; Chile; Argentina; Serbia and Montenegro; Mongolia; Saudi Arabia; Kyrgyzstan; Cuba; Nigeria and Ecuador. As a result of the decision to open the cluster debates to NGOs, these statements are also obtainable from the website of reachingcriticalwill.org.

In one three hour session, the PrepCom was addressed by thirteen civil society representatives, including the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Senator Patrik Vankrunkelsven from Belgium, the Mayor of Kiev, Olexandr Omelchenko, the Hon Bill Perkins, the Deputy Majority Leader on New York City Council and attended by a host of others. The full texts of the NGO statements, as well as a daily news review with summaries of the many civil society panels held during the first week, are also available from reachingcriticalwill.org.

The 2005 Review Conference will be held from May 2 to 28. A fuller analysis of the third PrepCom will be published in Disarmament Diplomacy 77, due out in June.

==========================================
Senior Advisor, Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction
www.wmdcommission.org <http://www.wmdcommission.org/
johnson@wmdcommission.org

Executive Director
The Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy
24 Colvestone Crescent,
London E8 2LH,
England UK
website: <http://www.acronym.org.uk
tel: +44 (0) 20 7503 8857
mobile +44 (0) 77 333 60955 ron

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