Canada still has obligation to participate in good faith in negotiations on nuclear disarmament

Posted on January 25, 2021Erika Simpson

The Hill Times

If the NPT review conferences in 2021 and 2025 end in indecision, the nuclear disarmament movement, in Canada and abroad, will likely move its agenda outside of the UN’s formal NPT regime to draw public attention to the humanitarian impact of use of nuclear weapons.

In the face of nuclear threats and renewed spending on nuclear arms, 122 nations, from Austria to Brazil to Ireland—not including Canada—proposed a UN resolution calling for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) to establish a legally binding process to ban the manufacture, possession, stockpiling, and use of these weapons.

The UN treaty won an overwhelming majority of 122 votes in the 193-member General Assembly, paving the way for historic negotiations that began in 2017.

However, the nuclear-armed states exerted intense diplomatic pressure on their allies to vote against the treaty. The United States, and all its NATO allies, including Canada, ultimately voted “no” and refused to participate in negotiations. Among its NATO allies, the Netherlands was the only party to abstain. Among the eight other nuclear-armed states, North Korea voted in favor, while India and Pakistan abstained.

Although the United States has continued to pressure countries to vote against the treaty, many countries decided to sign and ratify it. “The world has been waiting for this legal norm for 70 years,” said Elayne G. Whyte Gómez, Costa Rica’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva and chairperson of the conference.

In a historic milestone on Oct. 24, 2020, the TPNW reached 50 ratifications needed for its entry into force, and 90 days later, on Jan. 22, to be precise, the new prohibition treaty has now entered into international law.

According to Canada’s former ambassador to the UN Paul Meyer, and Canada’s former ambassador for disarmament Douglas Roche, the fact that NATO member states oppose the TPNW does not excuse them from the obligation imposed on all NPT parties under Article VI to participate in good faith in the treaty proceedings and work towards nuclear disarmament.

Seven months from now, the NPT Review Conference will take place at the UN in New York in August, reviving hope the Biden administration will act responsibly on arms control. After the last 2015 review conference ended in debacle and deadlock, a growing accountability crisis regarding the lack of commitment of nuclear powers to disarm will likely be a core concern when the 189 states party to the NPT meet at the conference, delayed by 16 months due to the pandemic.

If the NPT review conferences in 2021 and 2025 end in indecision, the nuclear disarmament movement, in Canada and abroad, will likely move its agenda outside of the UN’s formal NPT regime to draw public attention to the humanitarian impact of use of nuclear weapons. Scientific predictions indicate that, even a limited nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, using about 100 Hiroshima-sized “tactical-sized” weapons, would set off enormous fires that would throw millions of tonnes of soot into the atmosphere, blocking the sun and causing a worldwide temperature drop of at least 1.25 Celsius degrees. An estimated 20 million people would die within a week from the direct effects, while an estimated two billion would be at risk of dying by famine over the next decade, due in part to a huge drop in the production of grain.

Increasing fears about “whose finger could be on the nuclear trigger” have prompted renewed calls around the globe for the nuclear-armed states to reconsider their offensive nuclear postures and to end their reliance on nuclear weapons. Under a new U.S. Democratic administration, there could be adoption of a “no-first use” (NFU) doctrine on nuclear weapons—rather than the retention of the preemptive “first-use” posture. Critics have long questioned U.S. policy that advocates first use of nuclear weapons against conventional, biological, or chemical threats.

It could be possible that a few of the NATO allies—such as Canada, Denmark, and the Netherlands— spearhead a “review” of NATO’s reliance on nuclear deterrence in preparation for the 2025 NPT review conference. For its part, NATO has long maintained that its nuclear weapons are essential to the alliance’s security, reiterating that “as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance.”

Against the backdrop of intensifying great power rivalry, the demolition of arms control frameworks, and unreliable leaders, there should be more intense dialogues at the UN and in national capitals, like Brussels, Ottawa, and Washington, about whether moving toward nuclear abolition and away from nuclear deterrence is safer or more dangerous. It is well past time to hold more discussions among the NATO allies at headquarters about whether brandishing strategic and tactical nuclear weapons (that proponents of deterrence believe will never likely be used) can guarantee that a nuclear war will never be fought.

World leaders, like Trump, Putin, and Kim Jong-un should be harshly condemned for threatening to use nuclear weapons against each other. The Trump administration repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons against North Korea—and long before all options were put on the table. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin was also capricious and threatened Russia would aim hypersonic missiles at the U.S. if it were to move its intermediate-range missiles in Europe, at the same time as he spoke about how they are more dangerous now than during the Cuban missile crisis. Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un continued to threaten Japan and South Korea by firing rocketry and displaying several new missiles on parade, including some that could potentially hit the U.S. mainland.

If countries continue to allow the retention and expensive modernization of the nuclear arsenals of the “nuclear cartel”—namely China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S.—then states without nuclear weapons, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, could reconsider their nuclear choices, leading to rampant nuclear proliferation and the higher likelihood of accidental or calculated use.

Erika Simpson is the president of the Canadian Peace Research Association, author of NATO and the Bomb, and a past vice-chair of the Canadian Pugwash Group. She recently authored “Addressing Challenges Facing NATO Using Lessons Learned from Canada” in The Brown Journal of World Affairs, 27(1): Fall/Winter 2020, 1-29.

So many words, but so little action on nuclear disarmament.

Posted on January 20, 2021Earl Turcotte

How is it that one man, or his counterparts in nine nuclear-armed states, can be allowed to hold the fate of the world in their hands?

The Hill Times | 20 January 2021

Who in their wildest dreams would have thought that the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, would feel compelled earlier this month to plead with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to deny access by an increasingly unstable president to the nuclear launch codes, for fear that he might order a nuclear strike? As if this were even possible, since, under U.S. law, no one can counter such an order by the commander in chief.

And it was not only the Democrats who were worried. A number of Republicans openly expressed concern, given President Donald Trump’s increasingly unhinged behaviour in the dying days of his presidency.

Tell me this: how is it that one man, or his counterparts in nine nuclear-armed states, can be allowed to hold the fate of the world in their hands? It takes only one accident, miscalculation, or tragically misguided impulse for everything to spin out of control and bring an end to life on Earth as we know it.

But the status quo is about to change in a big way. In 2017, 124 countries came together at the United Nations to negotiate a legally binding instrument that would outlaw nuclear weapons for states that would become party to it. When the dust settled, 122 nations endorsed the text of the historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Already, 51 have ratified it and the Treaty will enter into force on Jan. 22.

Upon the announcement last October that the threshold of 50 ratifications to trigger the Treaty’s entry into force had been reached, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres observed that this Treaty is “the culmination of a worldwide movement to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons. It represents a meaningful commitment toward the total elimination of nuclear weapons, which remains the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations.”

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Maurer, said that, “For too long, we have looked to the past for guidance on what to do about nuclear weapons. We have witnessed how the dangerous logic of nuclear deterrence repeatedly has led the world to the brink of unimaginable destruction, threatening the very survival of humankind…. [This] is a victory for humanity.”

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is indeed a major milestone in the global campaign to prevent nuclear catastrophe.

How profoundly tragic that all nine nuclear-armed states and their enablers—including Canada—boycotted negotiation of this Treaty and that they continue to denounce it. All the while, professing their commitment to global nuclear disarmament. So many words, so little action.

In my more cynical moments, I think it may well take a madman deliberately or accidentally opening the gates of nuclear hell to shake nuclear powers’ naive belief that nuclear weapons help maintain peace—when just the opposite is so obvious to the other 80 per cent of the planet.

Earl Turcotte is chair of the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Canada, NATO, & the Nuclear Ban Treaty

Posted on January 19, 2021Paul Meyer

Interview | for the Canadian Defence Association Institute

Does the TPNW complement existing treaties? What are its aims and what gaps could it fill?

Supporters of the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) characterized it as filling a “legal gap”. This refers to the fact that of the three categories of WMDs—chemical, biological, and nuclear, only the first two categories are subject to comprehensive prohibition treaties. Nuclear weapons are only constrained by the 1968 (Nuclear) Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT has a far lower standard of restriction on nuclear weapons. The treaty commits its state parties to work towards nuclear disarmament and oppose any proliferation, but the NPT is actually silent on the possession and use of nuclear weapons. Article VI of the NPT outlines an obligation to engage in good faith negotiations to bring the arms race to a cessation at an early date, and for nuclear disarmament. But the NPT lacks the comprehensive prohibition of the other treaties. What’s especially significant is that the TPNW also prohibits the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.

Why has Canada not signed on to the TPNW? Could Canada benefit strategically by joining?

Currently, NATO is supportive of a policy of nuclear deterrence. That, I would suggest, is probably the main stumbling block for Canada with respect to the TPNW. Canadian officials have also cited the “ineffectiveness” of the treaty, in that none of the nine nuclear weapons-possessing states are supportive of it. Some have cited a lack of verification provisions in the TPNW, or its supposed incompatibility with the NPT. These objections are rather weak. The purpose of the treaty over the longer term is to stigmatize nuclear weapons as immoral and illegal WMDs. It is intended to influence the attitudes of nuclear weapons-possessing states and their populations.

I think the negotiators of the TPNW took the most prudent route on verification, recognizing that attempting to elaborate verification provisions lacking input from nuclear weapons-possessing states would have yielded a product likely subject to ridicule by those states. Each situation with respect to a nuclear-armed state joining the TPNW is going to require tailored verification arrangements. Ultimately, it is not verification but the concept of deterrence that is the chief constraint for the adoption of the treaty by nuclear allied states like Canada. I think the Canadian government felt uncomfortable with its rejection of the TPNW, given its longstanding advocacy on disarmament matters.

A resolution supporting the treaty was apparently passed at the 2016 Liberal Party’s policy conference. The government rejected it, instead emphasizing the work that Canada has led with respect to the eventual negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT), long a priority for the NPT. While this treaty has been proposed for decades, there hasn’t been even an initial day of negotiation on it. Canada continues to subscribe to the position that this treaty would have to be negotiated in the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament (CD), which has frankly been in a state of paralysis for over 20 years.

To ensure compatibility with the TPNW, Canada could try to pursue reform of nuclear policy within NATO, something which we have done in the past. In 2018, the House Standing Committee on National Defence published a unanimous report on Canada and NATO, [it] contained a recommendation that explicitly called for Canada to initiate a discussion within NATO on creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons. NATO functions based on consensus decision making, which means that even if there was support among some members for changing Alliance nuclear policy, it might not be possible for it to gain universal acceptance. This would leave the option of taking national action as has been done in the past—by Canada, for example under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, when he terminated any nuclear weapon role for Canada. Other NATO non-nuclear weapon states have dissented on NATO nuclear policy statements in the past through national “footnotes”.

Does the re-emergence of great power competition put the world at risk for another nuclear arms race?

I would suggest we’re already in one, especially in light of the modernization programs that nuclear weapons-possessing states are currently engaged with. The U.S alone has embarked on a nuclear force modernization program estimated to cost over a trillion dollars. We are witnessing a significant acceleration of the development of nuclear forces by all nuclear-armed states. This trend as well as the bellicose rhetoric that’s occurring between Moscow, Beijing, and Washington are legitimate reasons for concern. The Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review from 2018 essentially expanded the rationale for nuclear weapons. Hypothetically, they could now be used to counter a significant cyber attack. Also of concern was the dismantlement of arms control by the Trump Administration including its repudiation of the CTBT, its termination of the INF Treaty, its withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty, and its prevarication about extending the New START treaty.

I think, the JCPOA (aka the Iran nuclear deal), which Trump rejected does represent a solid, diplomatic solution to a nuclear non-proliferation challenge. I think it was a very positive attempt at ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program remains civilian in nature, as it has always claimed. Biden has suggested he will try to re-enter it. He has also discussed adopting a policy stipulating that the sole purpose of the U.S nuclear arsenal should be to deter a nuclear attack against America.

Biden may be able to end the development and deployment of low yield nuclear warheads, which were authorized under the Trump administration. There is a basis for cautious optimism going forward. But I think there are a lot of very vested interests that lie behind the maintenance of overkill capacity in the U.S nuclear arsenal, as well as in other countries. The Military Industrial Complex has ensured a network of bases and facilities that are tied in with local economies and congressional interests and which has pushed military spending in the U.S to astronomical levels. That pattern will be harder to break with under any Administration, but there is hope for improvement regarding arms control policy though.

What new strategies can be taken to build broader support for the treaty from across the aisle? Especially considering that many signees of the TPNW are in nuclear weapons-free zones, are neutral or anti-nuclear states.

The articulation of risk reduction measures is a potential area of common ground between nuclear weapons-states and non-nuclear weapons-states. The postponed 2020 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is now scheduled for August of this year. There’s a lot that could be done to try to ensure a positive outcome, especially since the 2015 conference failed to adopt one. It would be a helpful gesture if nuclear weapons states embraced, even partially, the various proposals that non-nuclear weapon states have put forth at NPT meetings. As a member of the 12-member nuclear non-proliferation disarmament initiative (NPDI) group, Canada has advocated for greater transparency. The NPDI has espoused a common reporting format that would require nuclear weapons states to share details of [their] nuclear weapons-related policies and postures. The reported actions of NPT nuclear weapon states would provide the basis for judging their progress in fulfilling their Article VI nuclear disarmament obligations in a more empirical and objective fashion. Regrettably, to date the nuclear weapons states haven’t accepted the NPDI’s transparency initiative.

There’s also the concept of de-alerting measures—taking certain deployed strategic nuclear forces off high alert, where they have so-called “launch on warning” capabilities, which put any decision maker under extreme time pressure. With the quantity of secure-second strike forces that the US possesses, there is no reason for having any of its missiles on a “hair-trigger” alert. There is a long and alarming history of close calls involving nuclear weapons. Anything that provides time during a crisis to determine whether there was any kind of nuclear attack going on is extremely prudent.

The five nuclear weapons states (P-5) under the NPT have established a consultation process. Their activities to date have chiefly produced a glossary of nuclear weapon terms, which has been received with faint applause by the NPT membership. Consultation is fine, but I think there is an obligation under the NPT for those five states to, in effect, carry out negotiations to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. The European Leadership Network has recently posited the idea of a permanent forum for P5 states to discuss more ambitious goals that would be relevant to reducing nuclear risks.

I was disappointed when the Standing Committee on National Defense made a very explicit recommendation to the government to take a leadership role within NATO on the topic of nuclear disarmament. This recommendation received a disingenuous reply from the government, stating that it agreed with the committee’s recommendation, but there’s no sign whatsoever that the government actually took any action on it.

Civil society groups are currently calling for a hearing by a Parliamentary committee, such as the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs & International Development regarding the government’s stance on the TPNW. I think that is a near term step that really is incumbent on a democratic government to take in order to show that it is responsive to views from parliament and the broader public concerned with the risks posed by nuclear weapons in the current international context.

Paul Meyer is a former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament and an Adjunct Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University. He is the current Chair of the Canadian Pugwash Group.

Government clams up on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Treaty which comes into force on Jan. 22

Posted on January 18, 2021Douglas Roche

The ‘democratic deficit’ in Canada is shocking. The government is allowing NATO to bamboozle Canadians with its false nuclear deterrence doctrine. The Prohibition Treaty is an act of conscience by distressed governments and civil society leaders, and it deserves a hearing.

The Hill Times | 18 January 2021

EDMONTON—With NATO breathing down its neck, the Government of Canada has clammed up on what it will say about the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which enters into force Jan. 22. The treaty, signed by 122 nations in 2017, is a breakthrough because it bans the possession of nuclear weapons for those states adhering to it. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed the treaty as “historic,” adding that it will “form an important component of the nuclear disarmament and non- proliferation regime” and set a new global norm against nuclear weapons.

But NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the Prohibition Treaty “would undermine the security of our alliance,” and NATO has stiffened its opposition.

I asked Global Affairs Canada how the opposite positions of the UN and NATO heads could be reconciled. I thought it was a reasonable question to put, since, on Oct. 26, 2020, the government said: “We acknowledge the widespread frustration with the pace of global efforts toward nuclear disarmament, which clearly motivated the negotiation of the [Prohibition Treaty].”

The government went coy and, in its answer, referred me to the “pragmatic approach” of the Non-Proliferation Treaty “that takes into consideration the security considerations of all states.” In other words: silence on the Prohibition Treaty. The government doesn’t want to talk about it. Why?

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Trump’s incendiary rhetoric puts deterrence as credible strategy at risk

Posted on January 7, 2021Erika Simpson

This week’s looting of the bastion of American democracy during the sacred transfer of power from the Trump administration to the incoming administration of Joseph Biden did not spell the end of democracy in America. Millions of Americans watched slack-jawed as a few thousand armed and masked insurgents broke windows and invaded Congressional Trump’s incendiary rhetoric puts deterrence as credible strategy at risk – offices, including the office of the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which they vandalized and left threatening notes. The army deployed the Washington D.C. National Guard to the Capitol and the F.B.I. mobilized agents.

However, Congress resumed election certification after the pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol.

President-elect Joe Biden first appealed to Americans in a stirring an lengthy speech, that was followed later by outgoing President Trump’s unsubstantiated assertion that the election had been stolen due to voter fraud, and that he loved the protesters. Within a few hours, Twitter locked President Trump’s account, demanding that he delete tweets that appeared to incite violence, and threatened a permanent suspension. Facebook and YouTube took down the video of his message to supporters. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Trump would be banned from his social media platforms indefinitely.

Stunned Americans saw first-hand evidence that the president was unhinged, irresponsible, and should be impeached. With only 13 days to go before leaving office, even the Republican strategist Scott Jennings, hitherto supportive of Trump, asked on a cross-Canada radio show whether Trump could be trusted not to incite further insurrection during his remaining days in office. It was obvious that the president’s failure to condemn his supporters’ was a dereliction of his duty to protect the U.S. Constitution.

Still, Trump’s finger is on the nuclear trigger while thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles are pointed at hundreds of Russian cities. However, it is doubtful that the man at the apex of power will order a nuclear strike on Russia over the next two nerve-wracking weeks. We might expect nuclear threats from North Korea’s Kim Jong-un if he thought his power would be usurped—and we have heard his threats to Trump’s incendiary rhetoric puts deterrence as credible strategy at risk – demolish the U.S. with fire and fury before.

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How Russia worked to undermine UN bioweapons investigations

Posted on December 11, 2020Filippa Lentzos and Jez Littlewood

This past October, while much of the world’s focus was on the raging coronavirus pandemic and the US presidential election, Russian diplomats introduced a highly controversial resolution to the General Assembly of the United Nations, one that would have weakened the 40-year-old mandate of the UN secretary-general to investigate allegations of chemical or biological weapons use.

To anybody paying attention, the “why” behind the resolution was obvious. Independent technical investigations have been shown to work in practice, and Moscow wanted to wrest back control over future international investigations by putting the UN Security Council, where Russia has veto power, in charge.

The historic irony is that it was precisely because of the inability of the Security Council to reach agreement on how to respond to allegations of chemical weapons use in South East Asia and Afghanistan in the late 1970s that the General Assembly granted the secretary-general a mandate to investigate such allegations in the first place.

Despite Russia’s intense diplomacy, by the time of the Nov. 4 vote, Moscow faced an unprecedented defeat.

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