Canadian Pugwash Group

Canadian Pugwash Group Submission to GAC Consultation on a Feminist Foreign Policy

November 26, 2020editor

Global Affairs Canada is conducting a consultation on what should be contained in the “Feminist Foreign Policy” that the Government has promised to produce. Here is the CPG submission to this consultation.

The Canadian Pugwash Group (CPG) is a civil society organization dedicated to responding to existential threats to humanity via harnessing science broadly understood. We welcome the opportunity to provide input into this consultation and our brief will address issues which we believe merit particular attention in formulating a Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP): i) conceptual understanding; ii) conflict prevention; iii) disarmament; and iv) peacekeeping.

Conceptual Understanding:

It is important that a FFP is situated in a broader context of an approach to peace and security defined by the concepts of sustainability and commonality. This in turn is rooted in active commitments to a rules-based international system, the peaceful settlement of disputes, global cooperation, respect for human rights and a security concept that places the security of humans at its core. A FFP should progress beyond the focus on increasing the participation of women in conflict resolution and peace operations, to devise policies that promote sustainable peace and common security. In this way the threats to women and girls as well as humans generally can be mitigated or eliminated.

Conflict Prevention:

The prevention of conflict should be prioritized in a FFP over the management of conflict. Government funding should prioritize support for diplomatic and civil society conflict prevention over military expenditure. Greater investment needs to be made in developing effective responses to indicators of imminent violence. Canada in concert with like-minded countries and partners in civil society should work on a variety of tools for early intervention into situations that threaten organized violence. Support for monitoring mechanisms that can warn of impeding crises could be one dimension of a conflict prevention strategy. A FFP should provide for robust mediation capacities which can be deployed to seek peaceful settlements of disputes before they boil over.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: NATO’s Non-Nuclear Weapon States, the NPT and the TPNW

November 26, 2020Paul Meyer

Toda Peace Institute | 26 Nov 2020

For many of the Alliance’s members, the last few years have been difficult ones with respect to nuclear policy. The source of the dilemma has been the advent of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which has presented NATO members with something of a Hobson’s choice. The treaty, which was adopted in July 2017, will enter into force on January 22, 2021 (after reaching its entry into force threshold of 50 ratifications on October 24th). For the first time in global nuclear governance, the TPNW outlaws the possession of nuclear weapons in addition to prohibiting their use or threat of use. It also specifically bans the hosting of any nuclear weapons or related infrastructure on the territory of a state party or the rendering of any “assistance” in contravention of the treaty.

These provisions of the new treaty go significantly beyond the primordial multilateral nuclear governance agreement of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which entered into force in 1970 and, with 190 states parties, is one of the most widely-supported international security agreements extant. The NPT enshrines a tripartite “grand bargain” whereby the five nuclear weapon states (NWS) of the US, Russia, UK, France and China commit to negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament; the non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) foreswear building or acquiring nuclear weapons; and all support peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The nuclear disarmament commitment set out in Article VI of the NPT is rendered in rather general terms (“pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures for the cessation of the arms race at an early date and for nuclear disarmament,…) which has enabled the NWS to claim that they are respecting this obligation; at the same time, many NNWS see scant evidence of serious progress on this front. In addition, the NPT allows for the possession of nuclear weapons (en route to their elimination although at times NWS suggest the treaty legitimises their possession of these weapons in perpetuity) and is silent on the use of nuclear weapons. It is these lacunae in the NPT that prompted supporters of the ban treaty to speak of filling the “legal gap” that distinguished the status of nuclear weapons under international law from that applied to the other weapons of mass destruction which were subject to comprehensive prohibition treaties (e.g. the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention).

Nuclear weapons are a disgrace to humanity. Banning them is the only way forward

November 24, 2020John Polanyi

Published in The Globe and Mail, Nov. 24, 2020

We know that the danger of nuclear war is real, and we should know that it is increasing. The increase stems from reciprocal threats which inch us closer to the brink. No nation wants war, but fearing that they may be disarmed by an opponent’s nuclear strike, they are under pressure to strike first.

The evidence is to be found in the fact that the U.S. and Russia, with 90 per cent of the existing 13,000 weapons, keep them always ready for firing. Their plans for nuclear “launch on warning” leave minutes for a leader to authorize attack. To ensure prompt action, each leader has the awesome power of decision. Once that action is initiated, it is irrevocable; missiles cannot be recalled. But the evidence of impending attack may turn out to be faulty, and the attack, therefore, a crime against humanity.

It is this predicament that led U.S. President Barack Obama to declare, in the first foreign-policy speech of his presidency in April, 2009, that the United States – the only country to have ever actually employed nuclear weapons – accepted the responsibility of launching an era of nuclear disarmament. He assured the world of “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of the world without nuclear weapons.” He spoke hours after North Korea test-launched a long-range Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), which could reportedly reach across 8,000 kilometres to the U.S. mainland.

North Korea is only the most recent entry into the supposedly exclusive club of nine nuclear-armed nations. The membership of that club has steadily increased, despite the restraining hand of the 50-year-old UN Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This treaty nonetheless constitutes a vital bargain, committing the original five nuclear-weapons states “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures” for elimination of their nuclear arsenals.

The nuclear ban treaty is entering into force. What now for Canada?

November 23, 2020Paul Meyer

Canada needs to be bolder about joining the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and press NATO by disavowing support for nuclear deterrence.

Policy Options / Options politiques, 23 Nov 2020

On Oct. 24, UN Day, the Central American state Honduras made history. It did so by being the 50th state to ratify the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, thereby triggering the treaty’s formal entry into force, which will occur 90 days hence, on Jan. 22, 2021. On that date, the treaty (aka “the ban treaty”), which was adopted by 122 states when negotiated in 2017, will become a legally binding accord on all of its parties.

Set alongside the existing 1970 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which has been the key underpinning of the global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime, the ban treaty sets out a clear route to achieving the nuclear disarmament goal specified in the NPT’s Article VI.

The ban treaty complements the NPT by providing a comprehensive prohibition on nuclear weapons akin to that applied in the past to the other categories of weapons of mass destruction (namely chemical weapons and biological weapons). By so doing, proponents see the treaty as filling the legal gap that has allowed nuclear weapons to be treated differently than other weapons of mass destruction.

The ban treaty’s prohibitions extend to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, which would negate a policy of nuclear deterrence such as that maintained by NATO, which threatens the use of nuclear weapons under certain unspecified contingencies. And herein lies the rub. The nuclear-weapon-possessing states and their allies, including Canada, shelter under their “nuclear umbrella” (the extension of security commitments by nuclear weapon states). These states are committed to policies of nuclear deterrence, and as a result they have rejected the ban treaty from the beginning. They boycotted the negotiations that produced it and have sworn that they will never sign on to it.

Despite its self-identity as a good “multilateralist,” Canada did not participate in the UN General Assembly-mandated negotiation to produce a treaty. Once adopted, the Canadian government was quick to condemn it, stating that “the ban treaty has contributed to a further divide in the international community.” Fundamentally, the government has been unable to resolve the conflict between its support for nuclear disarmament (and the goal of a world without nuclear weapons, which by the way is also an explicit goal of NATO) and its reliance on an alliance that is still wedded to the policy of nuclear deterrence.

Global Markets, Inequality, and the Future of Democracy

October 25, 2020Peter Venton

Highlights of My Reflections on the G78 Policy Conference

This is the title of the Group of 78 Conference held at the University of Ottawa in September 2019. The conference engaged some 16 Canadian economists, political scientists, sociologists and other expert presenters who were joined by key-note speaker, American political economist, Robert Kuttner. The purpose of the conference was to explore the roots of hyper-inequality, economic insecurity, higher unemployment, and the erosion of democracy over the last four decades.

Permanence with Accountability: An Elusive Goal of the NPT

September 12, 2020Paul Meyer

“Permanence with Accountability” was the refrain for many states parties to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) when it was indefinitely extended in 1995.

Accountability however was premised on the availability from the NPT’s five Nuclear Weapon States of sufficiently detailed and comparable data as to permit objective judgments as to the progress they were making on fulfilling their nuclear disarmament obligations under Article VI of the treaty. Consistent efforts by the NPT’s non-nuclear weapon states over the last 25 years have failed to persuade the five nuclear weapon states to be more forthcoming in their reporting to the NPT membership. My article on this effort and its implications for the next NPT Review Conference has just been published by the Journal of Peace and Nuclear Disarmament: “Permanence with Accountability”: An Elusive Goal of the NPT.

Taking nuclear vulnerabilities seriously

August 6, 2020Benoît Pelopidas and M. V. Ramana

Published in The Hindu, 6 August 2020

Seventy-five years ago, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was destroyed by one single atomic bomb. Three days later, a second bomb destroyed Nagasaki. Those two bombs killed over 200,000 people, some of them instantaneously, and others within five months. Another 200,000 people or more who survived the bombings of these two cities, most of them injured, have been called the Hibakusha. Because of the long-lasting effects of radiation exposure as well as the mental trauma they underwent, the plight of these survivors has been difficult. As Akihiro Takahashi, Hibakusha, testified: “I’ve been living on dragging my body full of sickness and from time to time I question myself I wonder if it is worth living in such hardship and pain”. But Takahashi and other Hibakusha have lived on and talked about their experiences in the hope that their plight would never befall anyone else.

While Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been the last two cities to be destroyed by nuclear weapons, we cannot be sure that they will be the last. Since 1945, the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have armed themselves with nuclear weapons that have much more destructive power in comparison to those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Let reason guide our actions in the Atomic Age

August 5, 2020John Polanyi

Published in the Toronto Star

Normally, Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto is full on graduation day, but for its first virtual ceremony, it was empty. Our community was recognizing a looming danger.

The Enlightenment insisted on reason as the guide to action. That is what all scholars believe. This summer we rejoiced in 15,000 new graduates of this university, each a rational being.

Yesterday you were students; today you are also teachers. Among the least welcome of teachers is COVID-19. Its first lesson is passing: keep away from others. Its second lesson is lasting: steer clear of precipices.

We know just enough about COVID to avoid an uncontrolled pandemic. When we succeed, we should celebrate a triumph of reason. We need such triumphs.

For beyond this precipice lie others — climate change and nuclear war. All the precipices are adjacent, since ours is a small planet.

Fortunately, threats create opportunities. COVID is obliging us to think about a fairer world. We cannot care only for the rich.

75 years after Hiroshima, I wonder if the goal of abolishing nuclear weapons is just a dream

August 1, 2020Douglas Roche

The Globe and Mail, 1 August 2020

At 8:15 on the fateful morning of Aug. 6, 1945, as the Second World War was drawing to a close in the Pacific, an American atomic bomb exploded 580 metres above the heart of Hiroshima, Japan. Thermal rays emanating from a gigantic fireball charred every human being in a two-kilometre circle. Old and young, male and female, soldier and civilian – the killing was utterly indiscriminate and, in the end, 140,000 people were dead. Three days later, similar atomic carnage obliterated Nagasaki.

That was the beginning of the nuclear age, 75 years ago.

I was 16 at the time and I remember sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the radio news about “a new kind of bomb.” The destruction was so massive that government officials were predicting the war in the Pacific would be over in a matter of days. My parents sighed with relief: I would be spared having to go to war.

There’s a dwindling number now of hibakusha – the name for Japanese people who survived the attacks – which means there are few left with direct memory of the horror of mass destruction. Soon Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be but history.

But they are not history for me. With 13,400 nuclear weapons possessed today by nine countries, they are a living reality. The United Nations’ top official on disarmament affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, visited Ottawa recently and said that the risk of use of nuclear weapons deliberately, by accident or through miscalculation, “is higher than it has been in decades.”

Canada must acknowledge our key role in developing the deadly atomic bomb

August 1, 2020Setsuko Thurlow

The Globe and Mail, 1 August 2020. Setsuko Thurlow is a member of the Canadian Pugwash Group.

On Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, the largest bell in the Peace Tower at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa will ring 75 times to mark the dropping of the two atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The arrangement was made by the Green Party’s Elizabeth May and Canada’s Speaker of the House, Liberal MP Anthony Rota. The bell ringing by the Dominion carillonneur Andrea McCrady will be livestreamed by the Peace Tower Carillon website so that it may be heard across Canada and around the world.

As someone who witnessed and experienced the consequences of nuclear war, I very often have brutal images in my mind of the atomic bombing.

As a 13-year-old schoolgirl, I witnessed my city of Hiroshima blinded by the flash, flattened by the hurricane-like blast, incinerated in the heat of 4,000 degrees and contaminated by the radiation of one atomic bomb. A bright summer morning turned to dark twilight with smoke and dust rising in the mushroom cloud, dead and injured covering the ground, begging desperately for water and receiving no medical care. The spreading firestorm and the foul stench of burnt flesh filled the air.

Canadian Pugwash Group