Despite a month free of RCW E-News, we can assure you we
are still working hard for a world free of nuclear weapons.
Reaching Critical Will staff have been busy this summer. In
Geneva, the Conference
on Disarmament held the second part of its 2010 session
and has just begun its third part. While progress is still
nowhere to be found, RCW has continued pressing for work to
begin on nuclear disarmament negotiations. In New York, we
covered the fourth
Biennial Meeting on Small Arms and the first
Preparatory Committee for an Arms Trade Treaty. In late
July and early August, RCW also participated in the Mayors
for Peace conference, New Japan Women’s Foundation forum,
and commemoration ceremonies in Hiroshima, Japan.
The month of August provided many opportunities for citizens
around the world to raise their voices for the abolition of
nuclear weapons. NGOs and civil society organizations held
Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day events on 6 and 9 August; Mayors
for Peace held a conference in late July that resulted
in an appeal
to governments and civil society; the US national youth network
Think
Outside the Bomb held a disarmament summer camp in New
Mexico, birthplace of the US atomic bomb; the International
Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) launched its
new video petition Million
Pleas campaign; the Los
Alamos Study Group filed a complaint
in federal District Court to halt further investment in a
massive underground plutonium facility proposed at Los Alamos
National Laboratory; and much more.
And more is coming. The CD will hold a high-level meeting
in New York on 24 September. The UN General Assembly (UNGA)
will hold its annual general debate starting on 23 September.
The UNGA
First Committee on Disarmament and International Security
will begin on 4 October. Furthermore, RCW is cooking up projects
and materials to provide you with the latest information and
analysis, while at the same time learning from our colleagues
working for concrete nuclear disarmament around the world.
Stay tuned for more,
Ray Acheson, Project Director
1) Group
files suit to halt construction of a new nuclear weapon facility
On Monday, 16 August, the Los
Alamos Study Group filed for an injunction against the
construction of a $4 billion plutonium processing facility
at Los Alamos National Laboratory until its environmental
paperwork more clearly resembles its expanded dimensions.
The environmental impact statement for an earlier version
of the facility was written in 2003, according to the study
group. “At that time, the facility was to cost one-tenth
as much, use one-fiftieth as much concrete, take one-fourth
the time to build and entail far fewer environmental impacts,”
it announced as the lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court
in Albuquerque.
After two decades and four presidents since the idea was
first proposed, $289 million has already been invested in
building the Chemistry and Metallurgy Replacement Research-Nuclear
Facility, Los Alamos National Laboratory's biggest project
since World War II. The CMRR has been endorsed by the Obama
administration and key members of Congress. The CMRR also
was recommended under the Nuclear Posture Review, the nation's
central statement of its nuclear weapon policy.
Under the Nuclear Policy Review, 50-80 pits per year could
be made at Los Alamos, but another concern for the study
group is that the evolving design plans have embraced a
"hotel concept" which would enable plans to change
to encompass unknown future capabilities. "In a nutshell,
NNSA changed the project to which it had committed without
telling anyone, and without environmental analysis of alternatives,
either to the project, to its design, or to its construction
methods," said Greg Mello, executive director of the
study group. Meanwhile the record of LANL presentations
on the CMRR makes clear that firm costs have yet to be established,
but estimates have mushroomed from a few hundred million
to $4.2 billion.
2)
UN Secretary-General visits Japan for anniverary of US atomic
bombings
Calling for governments to work together to create a world
free of nuclear weapons, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
became the first UNSG to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki in commemoration
of the US atomic bombings that took place 65 years ago. In
Nagasaki, Ban said,
“My visit here has strengthened my conviction that these
weapons must be outlawed, either by a nuclear weapons convention
or by a framework of separate mutually reinforcing instruments.”
In Hiroshima, at the official Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony,
Ban argued
that a world free of weapons of mass destruction “is
the only sane path to a safer world.”
The UN’s High Representative for Disarmament Affairs,
Ambassador Sergio Duarte, also spoke at commemoration events
in Hiroshima. Delivering a presentation
to the 2010 World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs,
he declared:
We must recognize that any use of nuclear weapons would
violate international humanitarian law. We must admit that
if use is illegal, what can possibly justify the possession
and threat of use of such weapons? If it is legally and
morally acceptable for some states to have-and even to use
such weapons-on what grounds can such states deny the right
of others to acquire them? And if this happens, would the
world be safer as a result? Clearly, our goal must not be
fewer nuclear wars, or merely to reduce the risk that such
weapons will be used, or just to keep additional states
from acquiring them. No, we must instead eliminate double
standards and pursue a universal goal of elimination. This
is the only truly sustainable course to pursue, the only
one that stands genuine peace and security for all.
3)
Conference on Disarmament begins third part of its 2010 session
The third and final part of the Conference
on Disarmament (CD)’s 2010
session opened on Tuesday,
10 August. Ambassador Gancho Ganev of Bulgaria, current
president of the CD, explained that despite his consultations
with delegations during the intercessional period, consensus
has still not been reached on a programme of work.
Japan’s ambassador argued that the consensus rule
should be re-examined in order to find a way out of the CD’s
deadlock. On the other hand, Cuba
and Algeria’s ambassadors argued that consensus is not
the problem but rather the selective and discriminatory manner
in which items are determined to be “ripe” for
negotiation in the CD. Both delegations urged a more comprehensive
approach that moves forward simultaneously on disarmament
and non-proliferation.
Ambassador
Suda of Japan expressed regret over the continued stagnation
of the CD, noting that it is “betraying the great expectations
of the people of the world including those who gathered in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki” to mark the 65th anniversary
of the US atomic bombings. Civil society expectations are
high for disarmament. Elites from many key governments have
spoken of their interest in achieving a nuclear weapon free
world and civil society has called on them to follow through
on their rhetoric. The month of August provided many opportunities
for citizens around the world to demand concrete nuclear disarmament.
As one plaque in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park reads,
“The way is not to search but to find out!!”
CD members will continue searching for the way at a high-level
meeting to be convened by the UN Secretary-General in New
York on 24 September 2010. The Secretary-General was invited
to convene this meeting in the 2010
NPT Review Conference Final Document, “in support
of the work of the Conference on Disarmament.” Delegations
are expected to discuss matters related to the core issues
on the CD’s agenda and methods for breaking the continuing
deadlock. During the CD meeting on 10 August, the CD president
announced that he will hold an informal meeting for CD delegates
to make recommendations to the Secretary-General in advance
of the 24 September meeting. Reaching Critical Will will provide
more information about this meeting as it becomes available.
To follow the activities of the CD, please subscribe
to Reaching Critical Will’s CD
Report. All statements, papers, and other documents and
information are also available on RCW’s
website.
4)
Follow-up from the Arms Trade Treaty PrepCom
The first
Preparatory Committee for the UN Conference on an Arms Trade
Treaty (ATT) met at the United Nations Headquarters in
New York City from 12–23 July 2010. The purpose of the
PrepCom was to make recommendations on the elements that would
be needed to attain an effective and balanced legally-binding
instrument on the highest possible common international standards
for the transfer of conventional arms. The ATT is to be negotiated
in 2012.
In his final
post on the blog, Dr. Robert Zuber of Global Action to
Prevent War wrote:
While several statements were issued urging delegates not
to ‘pre-judge’ the elements that would eventually
be adopted in a final Treaty, there was nothing to indicate
that this PrepCom had in any way compromised longer terms
Treaty prospects. Some delegations, clearly, see this ATT
as primarily a means to regulate a business and are concerned
first and foremost with the preservation of territorial
integrity and the ability of states to conduct arms transfers
with other states without excessive international interference.
Other delegations (and many NGOs) see this ATT as a way
of making a strong, normative statement to the international
community about our human rights obligations as well as
creating the means for robust regulatory coherence in an
industry in which so many of its products have previously
found an illicit market—diverted to criminality, terrorism
and insurgency, and used to commit atrocity crimes.
Part of our task is to listen for the nuance embedded within
the definitive, the possible explored within the feasible.
While there is much to discuss in February, including items
of compelling interest to NGOs, we see delegation differences
at this point as more rhetorical than terminal. Nevertheless,
we recognize that consensus on elements will require delegations
to give up some of what they cherish for the sake of more
of what they can live with.
The following ideas were some of the many good proposals
put on the table by delegations and are among those of special
interest to much of civil society and many global constituents:
Treaty Coverage of Small Arms and Light Weapons: While
the threat that these would be left out of the final scope
of an ATT does not seem great, it would be a grave disappointment
to many delegations, NGOs and global constituents if this
somehow were to happen. Other efforts to broaden the scope
were intriguing, important and might well be feasible, but
this inclusion within the scope, for many, is simply essential.
Cooperation and Assistance: A robust ATT will create
heavy regulatory burdens on all states, but those burdens
are likely to be felt most acutely by smaller states. Sufficient
legal and technical capacity to support potential state
activities as diverse as national transfer control systems
and victim assistance is of great potential significance.
An ATT Secretariat: Many potential tasks for the international
community germane to Treaty objectives were shared by delegations—including
licensing, authorizations and denials, information sharing,
record-keeping, enforcement, and even determining the extent
to which Treaty violations constitute criminal acts. An
administrative structure that can both work closely with
ODA and provide oversight of these and other critical, Treaty-related
tasks seems indispensable.
End-use Certifications/Assurances: This priority can
practically reinforce what many delegations and NGOs affirm
as the Treaty's core human rights aspirations. It also addresses
other important issues of 'divergence' raised by many delegations.
The more assurances that can be provided by exporters and
importers of arms regarding their intended uses, the easier
the process of verification and the more trustworthy the
Treaty will likely be seen through the eyes of the global
public.
Marking and Tracing: As many delegations acknowledged,
standardization in this area would greatly assist overall
transparency as well as allow us to be able to follow weapons
throughout their full life cycle in addition to focusing
on their initial transfer.
In the end, an ATT will hardly solve all of our weapons-related
problems. It will do little or nothing to dry up stockpiles
of existing weapons that wreck havoc on our communities,
to trace weapons that have already been diverted to illicit
uses, or to convince states to act more convincingly on
the UN Charter principle of security at the least possible
levels of armament. Nevertheless, regulatory control of
this industry and the resulting transparency are seen by
many as an important step towards helping states end their
over-reliance on weapons as the means to guarantee national
security. This is an opportunity that states, NGOs and the
global public know we cannot waste.
5)
Million Pleas campaign
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
launched a new
campaign on 6 August 2010, attempting to make the world’s
longest video chain letter. It created a video
featuring schoolchildren from Hiroshima, Japan and is addressed
to the 9 countries still in possession of nuclear weapons.
This video is currently been screened on television networks.
ICAN is asking people from all over the globe to upload a
2 second video clip of themselves saying the word “please”.
The “pleases” will then be edited into a long
virtual chain letter, which will act as a petition to abolish
nuclear weapons, worldwide. Please add
your voice to the campaign, and help by spreading the
campaign within your networks.
6)
Biking Against Nukes (BAN) Tour
From 14–24 August 2010, 40 daring cyclists from all
over the world will bike up the Rhine River, passing through
Germany, France and Switzerland on their way to the 2010 IPPNW
World Congress in Basel. During the tour, they will make their
call for a Nuclear Weapons Free Europe heard, will meet with
politicians, hold public demonstrations and visit the last
remaining nuclear weapons base in Germany in order to add
their voices to the loud call for finally removing these remnants
of the Cold War from Europe. More than 20 years after the
fall of the Iron Curtain, young doctors and medical students
from East and West, from the wealthy industrialized countries
and from the Global South will join together once more for
a bike tour against nuclear weapons.
7)
International Day against Nuclear Tests
29 August 2010 will mark the first International Day against
Nuclear Tests, which “is meant to galvanize the efforts
of the United Nations, Member States, intergovernmental and
non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, youth
networks and the media in informing, educating and advocating
the necessity of banning nuclear tests as a valuable step
to achieving a safer world.” The Day was established
by the United Nations General Assembly through the unanimous
adoption of its resolution
64/35 on 2 December 2009. For more information, please
see the UN’s
new website.
Sign up to receive Disarmament Times electronically by sending
an email to: DTimes+subscribe@googlegroups.com.
This service is free. If you currently subscribe to the print
edition, subscribing to the email edition will not affect
your print subscription.
The summer issue of Disarmament Times features articles by
Sergio Duarte (UNODA), Ray Acheson (Reaching Critical Will),
John Burroughs (Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy),
Daryl Kimball (Arms Control Association), Dominic Moran (Greenpeace)
and Tim Wright (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear
Weapons).
9) UN
General Assembly and First Committee: coming soon
The sixty-fifth session of the UN General Assembly will open
on Tuesday, 14 September 2010. The General Debate, at which
high-level officials convene to discuss all matters related
to international peace and security, will run from 23–25
September and 27–30 September. As in previous years,
Reaching Critical Will will provide excerpts from the debate
of all comments related to disarmament, while its sister project
PeaceWomen
will provide excerpts of all discussion on gender-related
issues. More information will be provided in the next edition
of the E-News.
Hiroshima Conference for the Total Abolition of Nuclear
Weapons by 2010
From 25–27 July 2010, Mayors
for Peace hosted a conference
for the total elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020. The
conference adopted a far-reaching appeal
with the support of representatives from the UN and many Japanese
and international NGOs. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also
contributed a message
to the conference.
Modernizing US nuclear weapons and infrastructure
In July, the Senate Appropriations Committee proposed a billion-dollar
hike for the nuclear weapons program, with significant increases
for New Mexico’s nuclear weapons laboratories. The measure
recommended a 36 percent increase in stockpile stewardship
work, $225 million for pre-construction work on the Chemistry
and Metallurgy Research Replacement facility, $197 million
for environmental cleanup and $20 million for the Plutonium
Facility at Los Alamos. Source: Rogers Snodgrass,
“Senate
panel backs billion-dollar boost for nuclear weapons,”
The New Mexican, 25 July 2010.
The Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico appears likely
to receive a significant funding boost in fiscal year 2011
for modernizing US nuclear weapons. A sizable portion of fresh
expenditures at Sandia would fund updates for B-61 nuclear
gravity bombs, an effort Sandia head Paul Hommert called the
laboratory’s largest such undertaking since the 1970s.
The Obama administration requested $160 million to fund the
project in the budget year beginning Oct. 1. Sandia National
Laboratories is growing, with a net increase of 300 jobs this
year and a rising budget next year, said its new director
Paul Hommert. Sandia’s biggest hiring boom in a number
of years comes with the growth of nuclear weapons work as
well as energy and other projects, he explained. Sources:
“Sandia
Lab Could Get Funding Boost,” Global Security
Newswire, 11 August 2010; John Fleck, “Sandia
Feeling Growing Pains,” ABQ Journal, 11
August 2010.
UK modernization programme faces more difficulties
Reportedly, the UK Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Finance
have begun fighting over who should pay for the modernization
of the UK Trident nuclear weapon system. Chancellor of the
Exchequer George Osborne has insisted in public that the Ministry
of Defense should pay for it. Osborne said last month: “The
Trident costs, I have made it absolutely clear, are part of
the defense budget ... All budgets have pressure. I don't
think there's anything particularly unique about the Ministry
of Defense.” This put him in a public argument with
Defense Secretary Liam Fox, who opposed Osborne's statement.
Last Friday he continued his opposition, telling journalists:
“Ultimately, all our defense capabilities have to be
paid for.”
Four service chiefs, including an air chief marshal, two
admirals, and a former government minister, said in a letter
to The Sunday Telegraph that the Treasury should pay for the
Trident replacement. They complained that Britain’s
armed forces “are chronically overstretched and seriously
under-resourced,” and that “they cannot withstand
further reductions in their budget in order to fund the Trident
replacement.” Source: “Nuclear
weapons row rumbles on as former service chiefs attack British
Treasury,” Xinhua, 15 August 2010.
Furthermore, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg argued that
spending “huge, huge” sums to replace the Trident
nuclear weapon system will make it harder for ministers to
justify cuts in spending in areas like welfare. He suggested
that the money for the nuclear weapon would be better spent
elsewhere and said the final decisions on a replacement have
not yet been taken. Source: “Nick
Clegg: ‘Trident replacement makes welfare cuts harder
to justify’,” Telegraph.co.uk, 16
August 2010.
Countdown to Zero faces criticism from activists
The documentary Countdown to Zero, lauded by many
arms control advocates as being to nuclear weapons as An
Inconvenient Truth was to climate change, has faced serious
criticism from many nuclear disarmament advocates. Several
groups and individuals have described the film as being a
tool not so much to stimulate public opinion in favour of
nuclear disarmament as for war against Iran.
In other words, summer or winter, this is a busy time for
disarmament. It should also be a time for us to reflect on
how all of these disarmament and arms control initiatives
relate to the other challenges we face: the BP oil spill,
the future of energy, climate change, rising economic and
social inequalities, poverty, famine, and armed conflict.
It’s time to think about security—about what security
really is, how it might relate to not just human survival,
but also human empowerment and dignity, and how we can best
attain it. The Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom has released
a short
video asking people to reconsider what security means,
and to investigate the cost of so-called “national security”
through military means.
In peace,
Ray Acheson, Project Director
1) Getting
to an Arms Trade Treaty
The first
Preparatory Committee for the UN Conference on an Arms Trade
Treaty (ATT) will meet at the United Nations Headquarters
in New York City from 12–23 July 2010. The purpose of
the PrepCom is to make recommendations on the elements that
would be needed to attain an effective and balanced legally-binding
instrument on the highest possible common international standards
for the transfer of conventional arms. The ATT is to be negotiated
in 2012.
For an assessment of where things stand as of the last open-ended
working group meeting, held last summer, read Michael Spies,
“Towards
a negotiating mandate for an Arms Trade Treaty,”
Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue No. 91, Summer 2009.
A variety of civil society organizations will be advocating
for the negotiation of a strong Arms Trade Treaty that upholds
human rights and international humanitarian law and prevents
the undermining of sustainable development.
For example, to highlight how the guiding principles of an
ATT are directly connected with states’ obligations
to implement and strengthen the provisions of UN Security
Council resolutions on women, peace, and security, the IANSA
Women’s Network has developed a matrix called: “The
links between an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), and UN Security
Council Resolutions 1325, 1820, 1888 and 1889” for
use in advocacy at the PrepCom. It builds on the Network’s
2009 briefing paper “Women
peace and security: The role of an ATT,” which argues
that global standards for the international import, export,
and transfer of conventional arms and ammunition should prohibit
transfers where there is a significant risk that the transfer
will be in used to violate women’s human rights or perpetuate
a pattern of gender-based violence.
In his final
post, Dr. Robert Zuber of Global Action to Prevent War
explained:
Despite the long hours and efforts to build consensus (highlighted
by warm applause for the representative of Liberia for encouraging
others to support a consensus outcome), the final document
for the 4th BMS was notable for its numerous omissions and
sometimes narrow priorities. Not surprisingly, many NGOs
were more supportive of government positions that could
not reach the level of consensus—including illicit
manufacturing, civilian protection, gender concerns, victim
assistance, and security sector reform—than with many
of the consensus provisions. Many of us were also intrigued
by those government statements that endorsed ‘culture
of peace’ priorities and recognized the links between
illicit arms and social development. While we were realistic
about the limits of consensus at this BMS, we (and this
includes many diplomats) had hoped for a document that we
could more easily ‘shop’ to constituents eager
for policy movement on small arms as one tangible recognition
by the international community of the many human victims
and social disruptions that illicit arms has created and
continues to create.
There will likely be much comment on the final outcome
document over these next weeks. For us, two things stand
out. First, despite the fine work of Federico Perazza, the
borders consensus produced overly technical and enforcement-driven
priorities with little commentary (and that merely a reference
to ‘social and economic integration’) to indicate
that delegates understand the urgent need to preserve the
many human interactions that require accessible borders
while governments and regional organizations also seek to
address border ‘porosity.’
In addition, and again in recognition of the fine work
of Sarah de Zoeten, the ‘cooperation’ consensus
was almost entirely driven by state priorities and state
actors. Not only was civil society nearly absent from the
final document (aside from some references to our capacity
to support governments and suggest good ‘matches’
for assistance), there was virtually no reference to the
specific skills of civil society in diverse global regions
that can serve as a supplement to state-sponsored initiatives.
This is not about ‘culture of peace’ activities
alone, nor is it solely about having NGOs present in the
negotiating rooms. Rather it is about mediators, conflict
resolution experts, victims’ services personnel, women’s
rights advocates and other civil society leaders who are
able to train and involve citizens to do more locally to
identify, highlight, remove and help repair the damage from
illicit weapons. The excellent language in the document
pertaining to cooperation and coordinated action with regional
and international bodies could well have been enhanced by
adding civil society to the core list of collaborators.
The process of strengthening follow-up mechanisms suggested
in large part by Ambassador Macedo will indeed be enhanced
by timely government reporting on their efforts to implement
the PoA, by a review of and commitment to the use of new
UN and other tools and mechanisms, and by preparations for
2011 and 2012 that highlight key issues and agenda items
in a timely manner and with sufficiently lengthy formal
meetings to allow discussions and negotiations on agreements
that are both more inclusive and more binding.
At the same time, as mandated by the GA, cooperation and
assistance will remain front and center for delegates responsible
for small arms negotiations. After we’ve all caught
our breath, we should strive together to create a more workable
relationship for civil society that puts new skills and
fresh perspectives into the policy and action mix.
3) Local
action against nuclear weapons production
In New Mexico, home of the US nuclear bomb, the government
is poised to spend about 4.2 billion USD to build a new
factory to construct plutonium cores of nuclear weapons.
Currently, the US has the capacity to build a few new pits
every year. This factory would enable it to construct at least
125 each year. This project is part of the many nuclear weapon
modernization or refurbishment programmes (to the tune of
80 billion USD) supported by the Obama administration. This
proposed facility is the largest nuclear infrastructure project
in President Obama’s proposed nuclear weapons spending
“surge” and if built would be by far the largest
public infrastructure project in the history of New Mexico
except for the interstate highway system.
The non-governmental organization the Los
Alamos Study Group is taking
action to prevent the construction of this new facility,
which it argues
is “an unnecessary $4.2 billion boon to Los Alamos National
Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico that will help keep LANL business
booming well into the future—not just business in general
but nuclear weapons production in particular.” The Study
Group says, “It is a real and symbolic provocation that
will undermine global efforts toward disarmament and non-proliferation.”
The Study Group has called on the National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA) to update its Environmental Impact Statement
for the planned Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear
Facility, and is threatening
to sue to make sure it happens. Citing the significant
increase in cost and scope of the multi-billion-dollar project,
the Los Alamos Study Group asked the NNSA and Department of
Energy in a letter last week to take a look at the impact
of the facility on the environment and consider new alternatives
before moving forward with what it contends is a vastly different
project from when the agency last performed an EIS in 2003.
“NNSA has to take a hard look at what has become a completely
different and much bigger project than it ever thought of
in 2003,” Los Alamos Study Group Director Greg Mello
said. “What we need now is a more conscious process
that can take the agency and Congress off autopilot. Clearly
in the last year the project has exploded in costs and ancillary
impacts. So the range of alternatives that ought to be on
the table is now rather large.”
An
article in the The New Mexican points out that
among “the most obvious changes, in addition to the
cost and the significant traffic disruptions announced by
the laboratory, were construction requirements, including
a concrete and soil grout specification that grew from 6,255
cubic yards to 347,000 cubic yards, or 55 times the original
amount for the CMRR project as a whole. The additional concrete
will require an estimated 24,000 dump truck trips to deliver
the sand and gravel, a task which is not analyzed in the original
statement.”
The Study Group has lots of resources on the new facility
and their actions to prevent it. Consider joining
in and standing up against the modernization, refurbishment,
and construction of new nuclear weapons and their components.
4) Update
on the Conference on Disarmament (CD)
After a month of consultations, current CD President Ambassador
Macedo Soares of Brazil presented a new
draft programme of work on 8 July 2010. He explained that
he had attempted to test formulas that could encompass the
concerns for the entire CD membership and presented the draft
as being developed on basis the comments of delegations received
during consultations on the previous draft submitted by Belarus
in March earlier this year.
The new draft, CD/1889, has some significant changes from
previous attempts. In the new text, paragraph 1 (b), which
establishes a working group that shall negotiate a treaty
banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons,
now also says “while taking into consideration all other
matters related to fissile material for nuclear weapons or
other nuclear explosive devices”. The draft also modifies
paragraph 1 (c). This paragraph, just like the previous drafts,
calls for a working group to discuss substantively and without
limitations issues related to the prevention of an arms race
in outer space. However, it now also adds “not excluding
the possibility of multilateral negotiations in the Conference
on Disarmament” to the mandate of this working group.
In paragraph 3 (d), the draft now adds that the Conference
recognizes the principle of “increased” and undiminished
security for all.
The proposal received support from the delegations of Canada,
Mexico, Germany, the Netherlands, Belarus, the United States,
the United Kingdom, Chile, and Australia. However, while no
delegation formally opposed the draft yet, some delegations
were not ready to accept it, including Pakistan, Algeria,
Indonesia, and Syria.
5) ICAN's
Report on the NPT Review Conference
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
has produced a report, NPT
Review Conference 2010: A Towards Nuclear Abolition,
which documents the growing support among governments for
a Nuclear Weapons Convention. It includes day-by-day commentary
of the Review Conference, a list of government references
to a convention, speeches and articles by ICAN supporters,
and photos from actions aimed at building political support
for a convention.
6) Featured
News
Russia announces 50 year nuclear weapon modernization
plan
On 9 June 2010, Russian Prime Minister Putin signed a document
reportedly containing “a set of measures that will upgrade
experimental and testing facilities of the nuclear weapons
labs. It appears to be a long-term program (up to 50 years)
that includes an increase in weapons labs budgets. No details
or budget estimates have been released, but the program appears
to be a Russian version of stockpile stewardship. Head of
Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, was quoted as saying that it would
allow the labs to maintain the nuclear arsenal at the time
when Russia follows its CTBT obligations.” Source:
Pavel Podvig, “Russian
stockpile stewardship program,” Russian strategic
nuclear forces, 9 June 2010.
The lackluster outcome document of the Review Conference
indicates now more than ever before the need for concrete
nuclear disarmament and a nuclear weapons convention. With
busy months ahead, RCW is looking for interns in our New York
City office. If you know of any engaged young people looking
for some practical work experience, please direct them to
our internship
page for details on how to apply.
With the Review Conference over, Reaching Critical Will will
return to its normal twice-monthly E-News mailings. Please
let us know
if you have events or information you would like highlighted
in our emails.
As always, Reaching Critical Will relies on your support
to continue providing its monitoring, reporting, and web archive
services that you rely on. Please consider making
a donation to RCW today to help us continue our work.
Onward to abolition,
Ray Acheson, Project Director
1) UNSG speaks
to Nuclear Abolition Day: 5 June 2010
On 5 June 2010, organizations across the world will hold local
events to mark . The purpose of the day is to
make global call for negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention
to get underway. Some groups are planning large demonstrations,
while others are planning smaller vigils, media stunts and
forums.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has provided a video
message to mark Nuclear Abolition Day! You can view this
video online at
and show it at your events.
If you would like to hold an event to mark Nuclear Abolition
Day, please contact Tim Wright from the International Campaign
to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (tim[at]icanw.org).
You can find events in your city or town by using the map
on the Nuclear Abolition Day website or by contacting Tim.
Details about the day are also in .
2) 2010 NPT
Review Conference adopts a final document
From 3–28 May, states party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) met in New York to review the operation of the
Treaty and adopt an action plan for its further implementation.
Reaching Critical Will monitored and reported on the proceedings
through its daily newsletter, the NPT
News in Review—every edition from the Review
Conference is available online in PDF; many articles are also
available in HTML. Reaching Critical Will also collected and
posted all government
statements, NGO
statements, working
papers, reports,
committee
documents, and more.
The final
document (pdf), as adopted on 28 May is also available
online. The Review Conference in 2005 failed to adopt a final
document. This year’s text includes action plans on
nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, and “peaceful
uses” of nuclear energy.
Interesting things to come out of the 2010 NPT Review Conference:
The inclusion of language in the final document on the
“catastrophic humanitarian consequences” of
the use of nuclear weapons and the application of international
humanitarian law;
Commitments by the nuclear weapon states to implement
their unequivocal undertaking to eliminate their nuclear
arsenals and a series of actions toward that end (albeit,
these actions were aggressively weakened throughout negotiations
by the United States, France, United Kingdom, and Russia);
Clear demonstration, by the above, that the P4, despite
their rhetoric of a vision of a nuclear weapon free world,
are not interested in accepting any concrete commitments
to nuclear disarmament at this time;
The outcome document including two references to the nuclear
weapons convention were included in the final document,
though no specific actions leading to its negotiations were
agreed upon;
The outcome document noting UN Secretary-General’s
five-point proposal for nuclear disarmament, despite objections
from some of the P4; and
The decision to hold a 2012 conference on establishing
a WMD free zone in the Middle East—though this conference
has already been rejected by Israel and undermined by the
United States, despite its agreement to the conference made
by adopting the outcome document by consensus.
There were many more interesting occurrences, arguments,
and commitments; please read Reachig Critical Will’s
NPT News in Review and the for details.
Below is the editorial from the Final
Edition of the NPT News in Review, which has more
details about the final document and the NPT review process
and looks ahead to where we go from here. For more information
about the NPT or the Review Conference, please see the RCW
website.
Thank you to all interns, volunteers, friends, and colleagues
who supported or helped the work of Reaching Critical Will
during the Review Conference. We had a great learning experience
and look forward to working with you all again soon!
On Friday afternoon, the 2010 NPT Review Conference adopted
its final
document. After a tense morning, during which the Iranian
delegation sought instructions from capital on whether or
not to accept the document, the text was adopted as-is with
no objections from the floor. The review portion of the text
includes a footnote specifying that it is the Chair’s
reflection of the Treaty review. The Conference did agree,
however, to a forward-looking action plan covering nuclear
disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation, and nuclear energy,
as well as the 1995 resolution on the Middle East.
While hailed by many governments and news media as a success,
the adoption of this document conceals resistance by the nuclear
weapon states to any meaningful commitments on nuclear disarmament
and reluctance by some non-nuclear weapon states to agree
on further substantial measures to deal with non-proliferation
challenges. The document itself was carefully crafted to stay
within the “red lines” of every delegation and
it was, as the Chair described it, the best that could be
offered at this point in time.
For the most part, the document preserved the status quo
in disarmament and non-proliferation, while promoting the
so-called “virtues” of nuclear energy. The most
progressive element of the text is the promise of a 2012 conference
on the establishment of a weapons of mass destruction free
zone in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the Israeli government
(which is not a party to the NPT) has already rejected the
Review Conference outcome, declaring that it will not attend
this conference,1 and the US government immediately stated
that their ability to organize such conference was seriously
jeopardized by the fact that the document singled out Israel.2
The disarmament action plan does include a yardstick with
which to measure implementation of article VI and the 13 practical
steps over the next five years. Action 5 calls upon the nuclear
weapon states to “engage with” related issues
and report back to the 2014 NPT PrepCom and the 2015 RevCon,
the latter of which will “take stock and consider the
next steps for the full implementation of Article VI”.
This implies that the next Review Conference could potentially
work on a roadmap for the complete elimination of nuclear
weapons, though the document rather vaguely leaves it up to
the nuclear weapon states to “engage with” and
“report on” these measures in the interim.
But a final document is just a document. The key indication
of the current state of play over these issues can be found
in the NPT review process, which led to the document; from
studying the process we can glean information not just about
government positions (which we largely knew going in), but
also about their tactics, pressure points, relationships to
other governments, perceptions of how “international
relations” should be “managed,” understandings
of equity and fairness, and interests in truly advancing peace
and security. The process also clearly indicates the weak
points of the NPT regime itself.
The lack of substantial forward progress reflected in the
final document has been caused by the failing commitment to
the core bargain of the Treaty. During this review process,
the nuclear weapon states—often supported by the states
that shelter under the US nuclear weapon umbrella or that
host US nuclear weapons on their soil—argued that they
have met their nuclear disarmament obligations. They also
expected to be praised for what they have said they intend
to do, while at the same time demanding “more than words”
from others. These states came to the Review Conference looking
for strengthened non-proliferation commitments by these “others,”
to make sure they will never acquire nuclear weapons.
On the other hand, the states that neither posses nuclear
weapons nor rely on them for security—the overwhelming
majority of countries in the world—believe that they
have adequately demonstrated their commitment to not acquire
nuclear weapons and expect the states that do possess these
weapons to fulfill their end of the bargain by eliminating
their arsenals. This Review Conference offered the chance
for all states to agree to a legally-binding framework for
this elimination process. Instead, the outcome pushed this
decision into the future and sent related complex issues to
be dealt with in other fora. The review process showed that
nuclear-armed and protected states are still addicted to their
weapons because they afford them a sense of power.
So what needs to change before the nuclear weapon states
can overcome their addiction? If the NPT process is failing
to achieve a world without nuclear weapons, is it time for
something new?
It is clear that nuclear weapons do not offer security from
military threats. They are unusable against other nuclear-armed
states; they are unusable against terrorists, climate change,
poverty, and famine. Focusing on the uselessness, as well
as the immorality and illegality of nuclear weapons, will
be key to undermining the nuclear weapon states’ continued
possession of and reliance on these weapons of terror.
The Swiss and Norwegian delegations brought the question
of international humanitarian law to the heart of the current
debate about nuclear weapons during this Review Conference.
The final document included language expressing “deep
concern at the catastrophic human consequences of any use
of nuclear weapons” and reaffirming “the need
for all States at all times to comply with applicable international
law, including international humanitarian law.” While
watered down from its original incarnation in an earlier draft,
this sentiment could be a valuable tool by which to further
delegitimize nuclear weapons, which could help facilitate
concrete nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.
The economic burden of nuclear weapons is also instrumental
in undermining the addiction to this particular instrument
of power and prestige. At the exact same time as it demanded
stricter commitments against proliferation at the Review Conference,
the Obama administration put forward to the US Senate a plan
to maintain nuclear weapon delivery systems; sustain a “safe,
secure, and reliable” US nuclear weapons stockpile;
and modernize the nuclear weapons complex—for the price
of $180 billion over the next decade. Is this sound fiscal
policy in the midst of a global economic crisis? Can such
a double standard be tolerated by an equitable and just process
of international relations?
The benefit of this particular NPT review process was not
necessarily the adoption of a final document. One real positive
outcome was the emergence of a new debate on the relevance
and legality of nuclear weapons and the overwhelming support
from the vast majority of countries for a legally-binding
agreement to achieve their abolition. Most states, not to
mention representatives of civil society, repeatedly expressed
their frustration with the slow, incremental pace of disarmament.
Their frustration was reflected in the process, and even,
to a weaker degree in the outcome document itself. While falling
short of a commitment to a specified framework for nuclear
disarmament, all states parties agreed that the 2015 Review
Conference will “consider the next steps for the full
implementation of article VI” (Action 5) and the nuclear
weapon states committed to implement the unequivocal undertaking
to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear weapons
(Action 3).
Of course, we do not need to wait until 2015 to “consider”
the full implementation of article VI or the unequivocal undertaking.
We do not need to rely on the NPT process alone to eliminate
nuclear weapons. The vast majority of states have called for
the negotiation of a nuclear weapons convention to outlaw
nuclear weapons. The NPT process has demonstrated a need for
this convention more than ever before. As Egyptian Ambassador
Abdelaziz said while delivering the Non-Aligned
Movement’s closing remarks, “The outcome document
we just approved represents in our view a basis for a deal
we intend to vigorously build on in the next years, in cooperation
with all States Parties to the Treaty, in particular with
Nuclear-Weapons States, aiming at the earliest realization
of a world free from nuclear weapons, where policies of deterrence
have no place, and where the horrible threat posed by nuclear
weapons to human lives on our planet no longer exists.”
Notes
1. “,”
BBC News, 29 May 2010.
2. Reuters, “,”
28 May 2010.
3) Conference
on Disarmament begins the second part of its 2010 session
On 3 June, the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva began
the second part of its 2010 session. Still struggling to reach
consensus on a programme of work, the CD President declared
the start of informal discussions on issues related to the
proposed treaty banning the production of fissile materials
for nuclear weapons to begin on Monday. However, several other
delegations, including the Group of 21 (the members of the
Non-Aligned Movement that are also CD member states), argued
that informal discussions should address all subjects on the
CD’s agenda, not just fissile materials. Agreement was
not reached by the end of Thursday’s meeting, but the
CD President decided to go ahead and begin the informal meetings
next Monday anyway. Read
Reaching Critical Will’s full report online.
You can subscribe
to receive the CD
Report in your inbox—it is produced after each plenary
meeting of the CD (usually once or twice a week). You can
also read all statements
and papers
online. Find out more about the Conference on Disarmament
with RCW’s Guide to the CD in PDF
and HTML.
4) Fourth
Biennial Meeting of States on Small Arms starts soon
Governments will meet at the United Nations in New York from
14–18 June 2010 to discuss progress on implementing
the . The
meeting will include a segment on the International Tracing
Instrument, a separate document agreed to by member states
in 2005 on the marking and tracing of small arms.
Reaching Critical Will will be monitoring the meeting and
posting reports online as we did at the 2008 BMS; we will
also collect and post statements on other relevant documentation
from the meeting. Stay tuned to the RCW
website for details! Also check out the resources from
the .
5) WILPF
Statement on the assault by the Israeli military on the Free
Gaza Flotilla
The International Secretariat of the Women’s International
League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has issued a
on the assault by the Israeli military on the Free Gaza Flotilla.
Among other things, the statement calls for international
scrutiny of the complicity of states selling arms to Israel
through a resolution by the Human Rights Council. WILPF has
also called for consideration of a trade and arms embargo
on Israel. The
and
Sections of WILPF have also issued statements on this subject.
WILPF International Statement
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
(WILPF) joins with civil society organisations and States
in condemning the unprovoked attack on the flotilla taking
aid to Gaza. This is a seminal moment in the history of the
United Nations. A failure by member States to respond using
all appropriate mechanisms to address violations of international
law by Israel will bring the organisation into disrepute and
cause greater instability and insecurity in an already insecure
region.
Many States have already called for an investigation. WILPF
endorses that call, but would go further. A Human Rights Council
mandated inquiry under the leadership of Richard Goldstone
lead to a well researched and strong report on atrocities
committed during the invasion of 2009. Instead of implementing
its recommendations certain States chose instead to vilify
its authors and detract from its findings. The dilatory responses
have meant that thus far there has been no accountability.
This must not be repeated. The system cannot again be seen
to fail. WILPF believes that a broader investigation is needed
which incorporates, not just the killings on the 31st May
but looks at a system wide failure in the mechanisms for protection.
Israeli forces have prevented humanitarian aid from entering
Gaza before. The first ship organised by Free Gaza set sail
in December 2008. It was rammed at sea by the Israeli
navy, crippling the vessel and threatening lives. Israeli
forces were trained to stop the flotilla. Israel’s
foreign minister Avignor Liberman publicly stated: “We
really have all determination and political will to prevent
this provocation against us….. we’re ready at
any cost… to prevent this provocation”. A special
detention centre had been set up in Ashdod, south of Tel Aviv
where the flotilla passengers were going to be detained.
With this in the public domain, WILPF would ask; what did
the friends of Israel advise? Did they assert the absolute
necessity of compliance with international humanitarian law
and human rights? Or did they promise to veto any subsequent
Resolution condemning the action and, for example, referring
the matter to the ICC?
What of the States who arm and provide weapons systems for
Israel? Some of which may have actually been used in the assault
on the flotilla, killing and injuring people of various nationalities.
WILPF will argue that States are and have been on notice since
Goldstone reported, that it is reasonably foreseeable that
Israel will use these weapons in violation of international
humanitarian and human rights law. The complicity of States
selling arms to Israel must also come under scrutiny. Due
diligence is required of the selling States and they must
be also be held to account. WILPF calls on the members of
the Human Rights Council, to ensure that this is done by a
Resolution requiring an expansive investigation into the assault
on the flotilla, the role of other actors and the extent
of compliance with the standards that must be applied in such
circumstances. States must re examine their polices in light
of the Israeli conduct and WILPF calls for consideration of
a trade and arms embargo on that country.
A WILPF section member from Israel stated: “We, here
in Israel are running from one protest to the other,
we are so ashamed and upset that words cannot express....”
Her truth must be that of the international community. We
must stand ashamed at what has happened and we must hold Israel
to account.
6) Featured
News
SIPRI reveals that world military expenditure has increased
despite the financial crisis
According to the new , worldwide military expenditure
reached $1,531 billion in 2009, a 5.9% rise in real terms
from 2008 and an increase of 49% from 2000. The US remains
the biggest spender, accounting for 54% of the world increase
in military expenditure. The new Yearbook also estimates that
there were around 7500 operational nuclear warheads in the
arsenals of the eight nuclear-armed states (the USA, Russia,
China, the UK, France, India, Pakistan, and Israel) in 2009.
Of these, almost 2000 were kept on high alert and capable
of being launched in minutes.
New IAEA report on the implementation of safeguards in
Iran released
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General
Yukiya Amano circulated his latest report
on nuclear safeguards in Iran to the Agency’s Board
of Governors, a 35-member policymaking body. The report “continues
to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in
Iran,” though it asserts that Iran has not been sufficiently
cooperative with the IAEA for it to “confirm that all
nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”
Uranium enrichment. Outlining developments
since the Director General’s report of 18 February 2010,
the report explains that Iran has continued producing up to
20% enriched uranium for use in the Tehran Research Reactor,
though it has agreed to a new safeguards approach with the
IAEA regarding the surveillance, inspection, and verification
of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz. Iran has installed
a second centrifuge at this Plant but in accordance with the
request by the IAEA has not yet started running it. According
the report, Iran has not yet sufficiently explained the chronology
of the design and construction of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment
Plant near Qom. However, no centrifuges have been introduced
into the facility and there is no indication of the presence
of enriched uranium.
Reprocessing. The IAEA continued to verify
that there are no of ongoing reprocessing related activities
at the Tehran Research Reactor and the Molybdenum, Iodine,
and Xenon Radioisotope Production Facility.
Heavy water related activities. The report
says the construction of the heavy water reactor at Arak is
ongoing and that the Heavy Water Production Plant appears
to be in operation, though it needs access to the latter in
order to confirm the suspension of heavy water related activities
at the plant required by the UN Security Council. The report
notes that Iran has argued that the IAEA’s questions
related to these and other facilities go beyond its safeguard
agreement.
Turkey-Brazil-Iran nuclear fuel deal
On Sunday, 16 May, the governments of Brazil, Turkey, and
Iran brokered a deal in Tehran for the Iranian government
to send the bulk of its uranium to Turkey, under the supervision
of the IAEA, for enrichment for its medical reactor. The deal
accomplishes the same objective as a western-backed IAEA proposal
from last year, which called for the nuclear material to be
sent to Russia and then France for refinement and enrichment.
The idea is to keep Iran’s uranium enrichment levels
below that which is required for a nuclear bomb in order to
bolster the international community’s confidence in
Iran’s activities. Source: Borzou Daragahi, “,”
Los Angeles Times, 17 June 2010.
However, on Tuesday, 18 May, the United States announced
that it had reached agreement with the UN Security Council
on a new sanctions resolution against Iran. US Secretary of
State Clinton “shrugged off” the Tehran deal,
arguing that “questions” about the deal still
remain. Clinton described the new sanctions resolution to
be “as convincing an answer” to this deal “as
any we could provide”. Source: Glenn Kessler
and Colum Lynch, “,”
The Washington Post, 19 May 2010.
On 3 June, the US said it wants the UN Security Council to
vote on the new sanctions resolution against Iran by 20 June.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said that
the adoption of this resolution would be a “basis for
confrontation” and would “kill” the deal
it has signed with Turkey and Brazil. Source: “,”
Global Security Newswire, 3 June 2010.
US plans to increase its investment in nuclear weapons
programmes
On Friday, 14 May, the Obama administration submitted New
START for ratification to the Senate along with a “Section
1251” report providing a comprehensive plan to: (1)
maintain nuclear weapon delivery systems; (2) sustain a “safe,
secure, and reliable” US nuclear weapons stockpile;
and (3) modernize the nuclear weapons complex. The unclassified
fact sheet explains, “This report is based on the policies
and principles in the Nuclear Posture Review and describes
a comprehensive plan for sustaining a strong nuclear deterrent
for the duration of the New START Treaty and beyond. The plan
includes investments of $80 billion to sustain and modernize
the nuclear weapons complex over the next decade.” Source:
“,”
White House Fact Sheet, 14 May 2010.
7) Recommended
Reading
Ken Berry, Patricia Lewis, Benoît Pélopidas,
Nikolai Sokov and Ward Wilson, ,
Monterey Institute of International Studies, May 2010.
Ray McGovern, “,” AntiWar.com,
20 May 2010.
15 April 2010
Dear Reaching Critical Will friends and advisors:
This will be the last edition of the E-News until after the
NPT Review Conference, as Reaching Critical Will will be busy
preparing for and engaging in the Review Conference. Please
take note of all the NPT-related information provided in this
E-News, including very important information
on attending official meetings of the Review Conference
and registering for the Conference.
During the Review Conference, you can follow of the action
by subscribing to Reaching Critical Will’s daily newsletter,
the NPT
News in Review. Full of detailed information about
the official meetings, reports on side events, feature articles,
artwork, advertisements, puzzles, and a daily calendar of
events, the NPT News in Review is one-stop-shop for
NPT news and activities. Also remember to check out the Reaching
Critical Will website regularly, as our team will be posting
all statements, working papers, and other documents as soon
as we get them.
In peace,
Ray Acheson, Project Director
1) Important
information about attending the NPT Review Conference
Attending events. Due to major renovations
of the UN Headquarters, there are a very limited number of
seats in the conference rooms for delegates and NGO participants.
The first three days, the plenary meetings will take place
in the General Assembly Hall. There should be plenty of seating
in the galleries. However, the NGO Room (Conference Room A
in the North Lawn Building) has a maximum capacity of 75 people
and Conference Rooms 4 and 2 of the North Lawn Building, where
other official meetings will be held, have very limited seating
as well.
Due to these restrictions, please make sure that your
organization appoints one person to attend each meeting.
It does not have to be the same person at every meeting, but
please make sure that no more than one person is representing
your organization at each meeting. This way, everyone will
have a chance to monitor and participate in events at the
Review Conference.
In addition, please do not linger in the UN buildings
if you are not attending a specific event. UN security
will be very tight this year and will be asking people to
leave the buildings if they get crowded. There are nearby
coffeshops and parks to continue your discussions.
NGO Room. The NGO Room, Conference Room A of
the North Lawn Building, will open at 9:00 AM with RCW’s
government briefings each morning (there is no briefing the
first morning). The room will not be open before 9:00 AM.
The room will close at 6:00 PM. Please do not linger after
the last event—UN Security will be ushering people out
of the building after 6:00 PM. There will be a table for NGO
materials in the NGO Room. Please keep this table neat and
share with others. Do not put out all of your materials at
once—please put out a few at a time so that there is
space for others as well. Please do not put up posters in
the NGO Room. You may display visuals during your event but
please make sure you remove them as soon as your event is
over.
Equipment in the NGO Room. The UN Office for
Disarmament Affairs has very graciously lent NGOs a projector
for use in the NGO Room for the duration of the conference.
Please thank UNODA staff when you see them! And please be
very careful with this equipment. The cost of any damage will
be covered by the NGO(s) responsible. The RCW team will set
up and take down this projector each morning and evening.
Please do not remove the projector from the NGO Room or
tamper with it any way. If you are experiencing technical
difficulties, please alert someone from the RCW team. The
projector is a Proxima Ultralight DX2. A portable screen will
be available in the NGO Room at all times to be set up by
the NGOs wishing to use it.
There is also a photocopier in the NGO Room strictly for
the use of civil society. If the stock of paper runs out,
please ask someone from the RCW team to retrieve more paper.
Please use the photocopier sensibly—remember that there
are well over 100 NGOs accredited to this Conference and we
must share the equipment and paper. Please do not disturb
events by photocopying during films or while people are speaking
on panels. Use the time between events to use the photocopier.
Registration. All NGOs that have been provisionally
approved for accreditation to the Review Conference will have
received information on how to pre-register for the Conference.
Pre-registering online is mandatory. The head of each
organization will have been given a password and instructions—please
fill out each registration form COMPLETELY to save time during
actual registration. Information will be entered manually
if it is not filled out ahead of time, which will make really
long lines even longer. Please be courteous to everyone by
filling out your registration form in full online.
To register, please bring your registration confirmation
letter, your printed registration form, and government issued
photo ID to any of the following times and locations:
Sunday, 2 May 2010: 10:00 AM–2:00 PM, UN Pass and
Identification Office, corner of First Avenue and 45th Street
Monday, 3 May 2010: 8:00 AM–4:00 PM, lobby of the
General Assembly Hall
Tuesday, 4 May–Thursday, 6 May: 9:00 AM–4:00
PM, lobby of the General Assembly Hall
Friday, 7 May: 9:00 AM–12:00 PM, lobby of the General
Assembly Hall
If you arrive after 7 May, you must contact Ms. Soo-Hyun
Kim, E-mail: kim12[at]un.org,
Tel.+1 (917) 367-3596, or Ms. Junko Hirakawa, E-mail: hirakawa[at]un.org,
Tel: +1 (212) 963-3031 to arrange for issuance of a security
identification badge at the Pass and Identification Office.
2) Pre-NPT
activities: conference, rally, march, and festival
International Conference for a Nuclear Free, Peaceful,
Just, and Sustainable World
30 April–1 May 2010
Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10027
NGO’s from around the world are organizing a day and
a half long international conference on Nuclear Abolition,
Peace and Disarmament on May 1, 2010, the eve of the NPT Review
Conference at the United Nations. The conference will be held
in the Riverside Church in New York City and will include
between 800 and 1,000 participants.
The conference will provide a forum to share analyses, to
coordinate activities during the month-long Review Conference,
and to better integrate campaigns for nuclear weapons abolition,
peace, economic justice and human needs and environmental
sustainability.
The conference will consist of three plenaries and numerous
workshops. Plenary and workshop speakers will include leading
experts on the issues addressed by the conference. Workshops
are being organized internationally along four tracks: abolition,
peace, economic justice/human needs, and environmental sustainability.
– Directions & Parking information
- General registration is now open!
International Day of Action
Sunday, 2 May 2010
New York City
1:30 PM › Assembly (7th Ave, South of 41st St)
2:00–3:30 PM › Rally
3:30 PM › March across 42nd Street to the United Nations
4:00–6:00 PM › International Peace & Music
Festival in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza
– 47th St. between 1st and 2nd Aves.
– Coming Soon
– Rally assembly, buses,
directions, housing, contingents
The day will begin at 2:00 PM with a dynamic rally of speakers
and performers and greetings from the international delegations. At
3:30, we will have a spirited march across town to the United
Nations ending with the International Peace & Music Festival
where there will be music from around the world as well as
tents and tables that will provide information and organizing
resources so that we can continue our work for a safe, nuclear-free,
peaceful and just world for all!
What You Can Do:
Organizing a bus or peace train? .
3) Contribute
to the NPT News in Review
The NPT News in Review is a daily publication produced
during NPT Preparatory Committee and Review Conferences. It
features analysis of the day’s events, feature articles
from NGOs around the world, interviews with diplomats and
NGO representatives, nuclear facts, announcements, cartoons,
a calendar of events, and more. You can access archived
NIRs online and subscribe
to receive in your inbox.
We also encourage you to submit to the 2010 NPT News in
Review.
The guidelines are as follows:
Feature articles: In addition to the daily analysis
of the proceedings of the RevCon, the NPT News in Review
also contains feature articles that cover a range of nuclear
disarmament issues. We welcome submissions from NGO experts
around the world, regardless of whether or not you will be
in Geneva. Articles should be between 400-800 words. Please
submit in .doc format and the body of the email. Articles
will be attributed to the author and may be edited for length.
Advertising space: You can use the NPT News in
Review to publicize an important announcement, event,
or project hosted by your organization. NIRs are hand-distributed
to all of the delegates at the Review Conference, sent out
to our email subscription list, and are archived on our website.
1/4 page ad: $40
1/2 page ad: $60
full page ad: $130
back page ad: $185
(Run your ad twice and get $5 off. Run your add three times
and get $10 off. Run your ad four times and get $15 off.)
Cartoons, photos, artwork, poetry: The NPT News
in Review wouldn’t be complete without its fill
of poignant, satirical, and beautiful artwork. We are accepting
all forms of anti-nuclear artwork, to be sent in either a
.jpg, .gif, or .pdf file. Photos, paintings, doodles, cartoons,
collage, mixed media, and drawings are all welcome.
Submit your ad, article, or artwork by sending to ray[at]reachingcriticalwill.org:
your organization’s name;
contact person;
email address;
phone number;
type of submission (for ads, please specify the size of the
ad, dates for it to run, and payment method); and
the submission
Please send your articles, advertisements, or artwork
as soon as possible! Submissions will be accepted
until the end of the Review Conference, but the earlier you
get it to us the better, so that we can plan our editions
in advance as much as possible.
4) Thematic
debate on disarmament at the United Nations
The UN is holding a thematic debate on Disarmament and World
Security: Challenges for the International Community and the
Role of the United Nations on 19 April 2010, from 10:00–18:00.
You must have a UN grounds pass to attend.
l0h00 — Opening Session
• H.E. Ali Abdussalan Treki, President of the 64th session
of the General Assembly of the United Nations
• H.E. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United
Nations
10h15-13h00 — Session 1: Strengthening Multilateral
Commitments regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction: the challenges
and opportunities of disarmament, non-proliferation and peaceful
uses of nuclear energy
• Ambassador Rolf Ekéus, Chairman of the Governing
Board of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
• Ambassador Mohamed I Shaker, Chairman of the Egyptian
Council of Foreign Affairs
• Ms. Joan Rohlfing, President and Chief Operating Officer
of the Nuclear Threat Initiative
• Ambassador Abdul Samad Minty, Department of International
Relations and Cooperation of the Republic of South Africa
Moderator: Ambassador Mona Juul (Norway), Former Chair of
the First Committee Disarmament and International Security
Committee
15h00-17h45 — Session 2: Enhancing security through
the regulation of arms: security needs, military expenditures,
the arms trade and arms availability
• Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala, President of the Pugwash
Conferences on Science and World Affairs
and Former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament
Affairs
• Ambassador Camilo Reyes Rodrígues, Former Minister
of Foreign Affairs of Colombia and former
Chair of the 2001 United Nations Conference on the Illicit
Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in all its Aspects
• Dr. Keith Krause, Small Arms Survey Project and Professor
at the Graduate Institute of Development
and International Studies
• Dr. Christiane Agboton-Johnson, Deputy Director, United
Nations Institute for Disarmament Research
Moderator: Ambassador José Luis Cancela (Uruguay),
Chair of the First Committee Disarmament and International
Security Committee
17h45-18h00 — Closing remarks
5) Update
on the pursuit of a nuclear weapons convention
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has
put together a four-page Global Update document for April
showcasing worldwide efforts to strengthen political support
for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. The campaign is calling
on governments to agree at the NPT Review Conference next
month to begin negotiations or preparatory work on a convention,
backed by a strong system of verification. The Global Update
looks at public opinion, the UN Secretary-General’s
five-point plan on disarmament and lobbying efforts in 30
countries. It has been distributed to all government missions
in New York, and will be available to NGOs at the Review Conference.
You can download the document at
6) Nuclear
Abolition Day: 5 June 2010
On 5 June—the Saturday after the end of the NPT Review
Conference— organizations across the world will
hold local events to mark . The purpose of the day is to
make global call for negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention
to get underway, regardless of the outcome of the Review Conference.
Some groups are planning large demonstrations, while others
are planning smaller vigils, media stunts and forums.
If you would like to hold an event to mark Nuclear Abolition
Day, please contact Tim Wright from the International Campaign
to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (tim[at]icanw.org).
ICAN will be launching a website at the beginning of April
and would like to have as many events listed from the outset
as possible. If you don’t know the details yet, that’s
fine—simply a commitment to hold an event, along with
a contact email address, is all they need for now.
7) Featured
News
European Day of Action Against Nuclear Weapons
Saturday, April 3 was the European Day of Action Against Nuclear
Weapons. Protesters gathered at nuclear-military bases around
in Europe to call for nuclear abolition and to denounce their
governments’ policies. The support for this day was
wide spread. Demonstrations were held in Italy, Turkey, Holland,
France, Great Britain, Germany, and Belgium. In Belgium, about
1000 people participated in non-violent actions in Kleine
Brogel, where the US is believed to have nuclear weapons.
Musical performances took place, people read poems, and a
30 minutes silence was held for all the victims of nuclear
weapons throughout the past as well as future ones.
The political will to abolish nuclear weapons within NATO
is growing. Top politicians in Belgium are pleading for a
nuclear free Europe, but so far no action has been taken.
Nuclear weapons can not be used without breaking international
law. The protesters in Kleine Brogel demanded that the Belgium
government take responsibility and reject the NATO nuclear
strategy. Hundreds of protesters peacefully trespassed on
the military air base. About 400 were detained by the military
and the police. The Belgian minister of defence expressed
that he was tired of these actions. But the only way stop
these events is to change the illegal nuclear policy and eliminate
nuclear weapons. The campaign is a non-violent attempt to
make sure that the international law is applied. These action
were only the beginning of a series events that will take
place until the start of the NPT Review Conference in May.
Source:
US nuclear posture review released
On Tuesday, 6 April, US President Obama unveiled the government’s
new . The following is a very brief
overview of some of the key points of the posture.
Role of nuclear weapons. : “the longstanding
elements of US doctrine remain in place: the United States
may use nuclear weapons, preemptively or responsively, in
relation to both nuclear and non-nuclear (conventional, chemical,
biological) capabilities and attacks by other states possessing
nuclear weapons, or states deemed not to be in compliance
with the NPT. In this regard, the NPR is fundamentally deficient
in its treatment – or rather ignoring – of law.
It is inescapable that the use of nuclear weapons, with their
uncontrollable collateral effects, is incompatible with requirements
of necessity, proportionality, and discrimination. Yet despite
the fact that the US military accepts and applies these rules
in its conventional military operations, they receive no mention
in the NPR.”
Modernization of nuclear weapons. The new NPR
states the US “will not develop new nuclear warheads.
Life Extension Programs will use only nuclear components based
on previously tested designs, and will not support new military
missions or provide for new military capabilities.”
that warheads “will be maintained
by Life Extension Programs, with a strong preference for refurbishment
and some replacement but each warhead will be considered on
a case-by-case basis and some nuclear components could be
replaced with components from different warheads not
necessarily in the current stockpile. By my definition,
that would be a ‘new’ warhead but not by the NPR
definition. The only restriction is that nuclear components
would have to have to be based on tested components but that
would not, I believe, disqualify the recent Livermore Reliable
Replacement Warhead (RRW) design.”
Elimination of nuclear weapons. The new NPR:
states that the “long-term goal of U.S. policy is
the complete elimination of nuclear weapons”;
identifies this objective to be pursued after entry into
force of the New START agreement signed April 8, 2010 and
“substantial further nuclear force reductions with
Russia”: “engage other states possessing nuclear
weapons, over time, in a multilateral effort to limit, reduce,
and eventually eliminate all nuclear weapons worldwide”;
and
decides upon this step: “Initiate a comprehensive
national research and development program to support continued
progress toward a world free of nuclear weapons, including
expanded work on verification technologies.”
that while the NPR contends
that “reducing the role and number of nuclear weapons”
will demonstrate “that we are meeting our NPT Article
VI obligation to make progress toward nuclear disarmament,”
the United States is in fact “obligated to go beyond
the measures outlined in the NPR to support and actively work
toward the commencement and conclusion of negotiations on
a convention for the global elimination of nuclear weapons.”
He notes that the NPR actually conveys the opposite intention,
“projecting reliance on nuclear forces as central instruments
of national security strategy for decades to come.”
that
overall, “Viewed from a certain remove, this NPR broadly
hints at a geopolitical vision, a kind of ‘world management
strategy’ based on enhancing strategic nuclear stability
with respect to Russia and China as peer competitors and the
maintenance and enhancement of flexible regional nuclear “umbrellas”
to help manage U.S. alliances and keep down regional adversaries
and competitors. Nuclear proliferation is elevated as the
greatest threat to the U.S. and its critical interests in
this strategy. This NPR supports the notion that the possibility
of proliferation is the greatest justification we have for
strong military and economic intervention – the application
of ‘hard’ power – globally.”
You can read the new in full and read the , , and ’s complete analyses
on their websites.
US and Russia sign new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
On 8 April, Presidents Obama and Medvedev signed the new START.
that while the new treaty “reduces the legal limit for
deployed strategic warheads, it doesn’t actually reduce
the number of warheads. Indeed, the treaty does not require
destruction of a single nuclear warhead and actually permits
the United States and Russia to deploy almost the same number
of strategic warheads that were permitted by the 2002 Moscow
Treaty.” Specifically, Kristensen points out:
The White House fact sheet states that the new limit of
1,550 deployed strategic warheads is 74% lower than the
6,000 warhead limit of the 1991 START Treaty, and 30% lower
than the 2,200 deployed strategic warhead limit of the 2002
Moscow Treaty.
That is correct, but the limit allowed by the treaty is
not the actual number of warheads that can be deployed.
The reason for this paradox is a new counting rule that
attributes one weapon to each bomber rather than the actual
number of weapons assigned to them. This “fake”
counting rule frees up a large pool of warhead spaces under
the treaty limit that enable each country to deploy many
more warheads than would otherwise be the case. And because
there are no sub-limits for how warheads can be distributed
on each of the three legs in the Triad, the “saved
warheads” from the “fake” bomber count
can be used to deploy more warheads on fast ballistic missiles
than otherwise.
For more of Kristensen’s analysis on the new START,
see his .
Unfortunately, as , “The treaty
does not even approach territory that would call for a fundamental
rethinking of how we deploy our nuclear weapons. As
the military would say, the treaty protects the force structure
[emphasis added].”
Furthermore, ratification of the new START will only be obtained—if
at all—in exchange for massive investment in the US
nuclear weapon complex, “protecting the force structure”
well into the future. The price of ratification will
be the opposite of disarmament.
Plans for prompt global strike continue
While the government signed START and released the nuclear
posture review, the Pentagon continued with developments of
its prompt global strike system, which include intercontinental
ballistic missiles armed with conventional weapons. Deployment
of a conventional ballistic missile is not expected until
2015 at the earliest. But the program has received a recent
boost from the Obama administration, which sees the missiles
as one cog in an array of weapons that could ultimately replace
nuclear arms. The administration has asked Congress for $240
million for next year’s Prompt Global Strike development
programs, a 45 percent increase from the current budget. The
military forecasts a total of $2 billion in development costs
through 2015. The Air Force is scheduled to perform an initial
flight test of a prototype next month. Other countries are
not impressed. “World states will hardly accept a situation
in which nuclear weapons disappear, but weapons that are no
less destabilizing emerge in the hands of certain members
of the international community,” said Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov. Furthermore, there is a great risk
that a launch of a conventional-armed missile would be mistaken
for the launch of a nuclear-armed missile. Source:
Craig Whitlock, “,”
The Washington Post, 8 April 2010.
US nuclear security summit: flexing the nuclear muscles
In an interview ahead of the US nuclear security summit, US
Secretary of State Clinton gave an interview in which she
reminded the world, “We’ll be, you know, stronger
than anybody in the world, as we always have been, with more
nuclear weapons than are needed many times over.” She
and Defense Secretary Gates also emphasized that the US would
spend $5 billion this year modernizing its existing nuclear
weapons. Ironically, Secretary Gates, commenting on the Iranian
situation, said, “What has to happen is the Iranian
government has to decide that its own security is better served
by not having nuclear weapons than by having them.”
Source: Eli Saslow, “,”
The Washington Post, 12 April 2010.
Bangladeshi parliament supports a nuclear weapons convention
On Monday, 5 April, Bangladeshi parliament adopted a unanimous
resolution giving full support to the UN Secretary-General’s
five point proposal for nuclear disarmament and the nuclear
weapons convention. Monday’s resolution also called
on the UN Conference on Disarmament to immediately begin negotiations
on nuclear disarmament, and declared, “any use of nuclear
weapons would constitute international crimes, including crimes
against humanity, crimes against peace, war crimes and genocide,
with catastrophic global effects.” It also stressed
that the annual $100 billion spent on nuclear weapons should
be diverted to climate change adaptation programmes and millennium
development goals. Source: “,”
bdnews24.com, 5 April 2010.
8) Recommended
Reading
Avner Cohen, “,” Haaretz.com,
4 April 2010.
Dr. Edna Gorney and Hedva Eyal, ,
Isha L’Isha—Haifa Feminist Center, 2009
Hans Blix, “,” New York Times,
4 April 2010.
Tad Daley, “,” AntiWar.com,
9 April 2010.
Russ Wellen, “”
The Faster Times, 11 April 2010.
22 March 2010
Dear Reaching Critical Will friends and advisors:
As spring definitively arrives in New York City with warm
weather and lots of rain, those of us working for the abolition
of nuclear weapons are looking forward to the the 2010
Disarmament Commission and related side
events, the nuclear weapon free zone conference and civil
society forum, the , and of course the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. We are also
planning actions for Nuclear Abolition Day
on 5 June, when activists will promote the call for the
elimination of nuclear weapons around the world. We encourage
all of you to join us in these efforts—see below for
details!
In peace,
Ray Acheson, Project Director
1) Reminder:
NPT accreditation deadline is 26 March
Information for participation of NGOs in the 2010 NPT Review
Conference is available in an aide
memoire published by the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs.
All of this information and much more is available on the
Reaching
Critical Will 2010 NPT Review Conference website.
Accreditation process All NGO representatives with or without valid United Nations
ground passes are requested to submit a written application
for attendance that must include the following:
A letter written on organizational letterhead signed by
the head of the organization requesting attendance at the
Conference. This letter should include the composition of
the delegation and an overview of past interactions, if
any, between the organization and the United Nations, particularly
in relation to disarmament and non-proliferation. Such interaction
may also include affiliation with the Department of Public
Information (DPI), or consultative status with the Economic
and Social Council (ECOSOC). The letter should indicate
whether it is the first time that the NGO requests accreditation
to participate in a meeting at the United Nations.
A mission statement or summary of work that includes information
on the organization’s purpose, programmes, and activities
related to the scope of the Review Conference. This information
should not exceed two pages in length.
Send by mail, fax, or email to:
Secretariat of the Review Conference
Attn: Ms. Soo-Hyun Kim
Information and Outreach Branch, Office for Disarmament Affairs
405 East 42nd Street (DN-2511B)
United Nations, New York, NY 10017
USA
Fax: +1 917-367-4520
E-mail: UNODA.NPT.NGO[at]un.org
Email applications must include an attached PDF format file
containing all the relevant documentation, including the signed
letter by the head of the organization.
Please bear in mind that, due to enhanced security procedures,
the names submitted will not be eligible for later revision.
Therefore, it is desirable that organizations submit the composition
of their delegation only after careful review.
Please note: The United Nations Office for Disarmament
Affairs is not in a position to provide letters of invitation
or letters to consulates requesting that NGO representatives
be provided visas for travelling to the United States in order
to attend the meetings of the Review Conference. The procurement
of visas, travel arrangements, and related costs are strictly
the responsibility of the NGO representatives. It is important
that NGO representatives make their visa and travel arrangement
at the earliest possible time.
2) Disarmament
Commission begins its work on 29 March
The UN
Disarmament Commission begins its 2010
session on Monday, 29 March in New York. The UNDC’s
is a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, composed of
all member states of the United Nations. It is a deliberative
body, with the function of considering and making recommendations
on various problems in the field of disarmament and of following
up on the relevant decisions and recommendations of the special
session.
The UNDC meets in three year cycles. 2010 is the second year
of its current cycle. For information on the Commission’s
2009 session, please see the RCW
website and reports.
Reaching Critical Will will be monitoring and reporting on
the UNDC’s 2010 plenary meetings and will post all statements
and documents from the Commission online.
Please check back often for updates.
3) UNDC side
event with Barry Blechman
Reaching Critical Will, along with the International Campaign
to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the International Association
of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, is holding a side
event during the Disarmament Commission entitled, Unblocking
the road to zero nuclear weapons: a conversation with Dr.
Barry Blechman.
Dr. Blechman is the co-founder of the Stimson Center, a non-partison
think tank based in Washington, DC, which focuses on issues
national and international security. His latest book, The
Elements of a Nuclear Disarmament Treaty: Unblocking the Road
to Zero (2010), provides a comprehensive analysis of measures
required to achieve and sustain a world without nuclear weapons.
You can read the
to the book online in addition to a Dr. Blechman wrote for the New York Times.
Date: Tuesday, 30 March 2010 Time: 1:15–2:45 PM Location: UN Headquarters, Room D, North Lawn Building Contact: tim[at]icanw.org
or 212.682.1265 (phone) or 212.286.8211 (fax)
You must have a UN grounds pass to attend this event.
4) Nuclear
Abolition Day: 5 June 2010
On 5 June—the Saturday after the end of the NPT Review
Conference— organizations across the world will
hold local events to mark . The purpose of the day is to
make global call for negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention
to get underway, regardless of the outcome of the Review Conference.
Some groups are planning large demonstrations, while others
are planning smaller vigils, media stunts and forums.
If you would like to hold an event to mark Nuclear Abolition
Day, please contact Tim Wright from the International Campaign
to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (tim[at]icanw.org).
ICAN will be launching a website at the beginning of April
and would like to have as many events listed from the outset
as possible. If you don’t know the details yet, that’s
fine—simply a commitment to hold an event, along with
a contact email address, is all they need for now.
5) NPT presentations:
call for video submissions
The NGO peace and disarmament community will be showing a
five minute video at the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Review Conference at the United Nations this May, comprised
of video clips from people around the world speaking about
their desire to live in a world without nuclear weapons. We
want you to participate!
Video submissions should answer one of the following questions:
1. Why do you want a nuclear weapon-free world?
2. What worries you about continuing to live in a world that
is threatened by the use of nuclear weapons?
You can address your answers to the diplomats who will be
watching the video at the Conference, or to the world at large.
Select responses will be edited together for the video, which
will be shown during the NGO presentation to the Conference
on Friday, 7 May 2010. After the Conference, the video will
be posted on youtube.com to spread the message that citizens
of the world no longer want to live under the threat of nuclear
weapons.
To submit your video, please go to
Videos should be 2GB or less in size, 90 seconds or less
in length, and have no background music. Only MPEG-4, DV,
or .mov video files can be accepted, so please only submit
in these formats. If you do not speak English in your
video, please provide a written text in your own language
and in English as well in either a .doc (word) or .docx (text)
file.
Submissions must be received by 9:00 AM Eastern on Monday,
29 March 2010.
Disclaimer: The designated site administrator reserves the
non-exclusive right to publish or broadcast all or part of
all submissions to the project.
6) UN Secretary-General
sends a letter to parliamentarians on nuclear disarmament
On 24 February 2010, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent
a noting the importance of
the upcoming Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference,
highlighting his , commending the
Inter-Parliamentary Union and Parliamentarians for Nuclear
Non-proliferation and Disarmament for their efforts in support,
and reminding parliamentarians of their key role in helping
achieve the objective of nuclear disarmament. (Ban Ki-moon’s
letter is available in ,
,
,
,
,
,
,
and ).
7) So what’s
happening in the Conference on Disarmament?
Last year, the Conference
on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva adopted its first programme
of work in ten years. Unfortunately, the CD didn’t manage
to agree to logistical items related to the work programme’s
implementation before the end of its 2009 session, and had
to go back to square one in January. On Tuesday, 9 March,
the CD President introduced a draft
programme of work for consideration. Member states debated
the draft on Thursday, 11 March in an open plenary meeting.
This year, like last year, the delegation of Pakistan is
the most vocal opposition to moving forward in the CD on the
basis of these programmes of work. In a comprehensive statement
on 18 February 2010, the ambassador
of Pakistan laid out his delegation’s problems with
negotiating a fissile material cut-off treaty that does not
include the reduction of existing stocks. Pakistan, and many
other states and civil society groups, argue that a treaty
that only prohibits future production of fissile material
is not a disarmament treaty, because it does not affect the
vast amounts of fissile material that already exist in the
world today. However, Pakistan’s delegation to the CD
has rejected even beginning negotiations on this treaty, arguing
that if existing stocks are not listed specifically in the
negotiating mandate, there’s no chance a resulting treaty
will include them.
While Reaching Critical Will shares the view that a treaty
on fissile materials should be both a disarmament and non-proliferation
treaty and should include existing stocks, we also recognize
that continued stalemate in the CD will not lead to any improvement
in international security or progress for disarmament. The
CD has not negotiated anything in the last decade. Continued
blockage of the programme of work will not help move the world
any closer to nuclear disarmament.
The current draft programme is not a perfect document. RCW
would be delighted to see negotiations on a nuclear weapons
convention take place—the issues of fissile materials
in all their aspects would be better dealt with within the
framework of a nuclear weapons convention. However, we believe
that the creation of structured discussions on nuclear disarmament
in a formal working group as described in the current draft,
as well as discussions on negative security assurances, prevention
of an arms race in outer space, and negotiations on a fissile
material treaty, would be a significant improvement to the
current stalemate in the CD. Once negotiations have started,
there is no reason that delegations have to accept a treaty
that does not address existing stocks. The course of negotiations
will provide delegations with the opportunity to craft a strong
disarmament treaty and will also provide civil society with
much better opportunities to engage their governmental representatives
to push on specific elements, such as stocks and verification.
To follow what’s going on at the CD, please subscribe
to receive Reaching
Critical Will’s CD Reports—published after
each open plenary meeting of the Conference (about twice a
week).
Also, check out Reaching Critical Will’s Guide to
the CD 2010 for background information—it’s
available in both PDF
and HTML.
Consider contacting your government to let them know that
you’re watching the activity at the CD and that you
care about what’s (not) going on. During Thursday’s
meeting, the German
ambassador noted that the general public probably “assumes
that the sheer fact of sessions taking place year-in-year-out
at the Conference on Disarmament surely can only mean that
serious disarmament work is going on here” and that
“many would be flabbergasted to learn that since the
negotiation of the CTBT the CD has basically only been discussing
what it should do next and many would be surprised to really
understand what complex sets of blockages, linkages and policies
of pre-conditions and respective policies of denying requested
clarifications were at the heart of this unsatisfactory situation.”
Show your ambassador that you know what’s going on
and that you care! Use RCW’s
Government Contacts to find contact information about
your government’s UN missions in Geneva and in New York.
8) NGO accreditation
for the BMS on small arms now open
The UN has invited NGOs to apply for accreditation for the
Biennial Meeting of States on Small Arms (BMS), to be held
at UN Headquarters in New York, 14–18 June 2010.
The deadline for applications is 5 April 2010.
Applying for accreditation has two purposes:
1) to demonstrate the level of international concern
about the small arms problem
2) to request permission to attend the BMS in New York
You must send a letter to the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs
(UNODA) applying for accreditation. The International Action
Network on Small Arms (IANSA) has prepared a sample letter
to make it easy to apply for accreditation. You can adapt
this standard letter with details of your NGO:
1. The letter should:
Be on your organisation’s letterhead
Be 2 pages or less in length.
Be signed by your organisation’s director or legal
representative
Outline the purpose of your organisation
Outline your programs or activities related to small arms
Include your website address (if applicable)
List the names of the individuals from your organisation
seeking accreditation. You may list as many individuals
as you like. You will not be able to change the list later.
If your organisation has consultative status with ECOSOC
or association with the UN Department of Public Information
(DPI), include this information.
State whether your organisation has been accredited to
previous UN small arms meetings (the 2008 BMS, 2006 RevCon
or PrepCom, the 2005 or 2003 BMS or the 2001 UN Small Arms
Conference) OR State whether this is the first time your
NGO has applied for accreditation to a UN small arms meeting
Reach the UNODA before 5 April 2008.
2. Once the letter is signed, send it to the UN, by one of
these methods:
Attach the signed letter to an email and send to salw-unoda[at]un.org,
with a copy to mark.marge[at]iansa.org.
You may have to use a scanner to make an electronic copy
of your letter which you can then attach to the email.
Fax your letter to +1 917 367 4520
If neither of these methods is possible:
Send the signed original of your letter through the post
to Ms. Soo-Hyun Kim, Information & Outreach Branch,
Office for Disarmament Affairs, United Nations – Office
DN-2511 B, New York, NY 10017, USA. Note: Because time is
short, we recommend sending your letter by email or fax
instead of by post.
3. If you have any questions, please email Mark Marge,
UN Liaison Officer for IANSA, mark.marge[at]iansa.org
Note: Your letter MUST contain all the information listed
above and must reach the UN by 5 April 2010. It is a good
idea to send it earlier, so that we can look at your letter
and notify you if any of the requirements have been missed.
4. Please note that receiving accreditation does
not mean you will be funded to attend the Biennial Meeting
of States. The UN cannot assist with funding or with visas.
IANSA will have some funds available, but they will be extremely
limited – so it is essential that you look for other
funding sources if you want to attend.
For more information on NGO participation at the BMS, please
see the UNODA’s Aide Memoire:
9) Featured News
Pentagon plans to build a new nuclear-armed cruise missile
The US Air Force plans to spend more than $800 million to
build a new nuclear-armed cruise missile for its bomber aircraft,
according to little-noticed details buried inside the Obama
administration’s fiscal 2011 budget request delivered
last month to Capitol Hill. A “Follow-on Long-Range
Stand-off Vehicle,” or LRSO for short, would replace
375 aging AGM-86B Air Launched Cruise Missiles, expected to
retire from the fleet by 2030. The Defense Department has
estimated the new effort could cost a total $1.3 billion.
“The current system is experiencing obsolescence of
parts [and] components,” the Air Force stated in one
budget document. “Missile components and support equipment
are becoming non-supportable.” The service is closely
monitoring “critical components”—such as
the missile’s fuse, guidance, and electrical power systems—for
age-related malfunctions, according to the text. It calls
a service life extension of the Air Launched Cruise Missile
“essential” to meeting war-plan requirements.
Source: Elaine M. Grossman, “,”
Global Security Newswire, 9 March 2010.
US-Russia nuclear reduction treaty talks stall over US
missile defence plans
Russian negotiators have reportedly demanded that the replacement
to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) include an
option for immediate withdrawal if Russia determines that
US missile defences would “threaten its intercontinental
nuclear missile force”. This demand is a result of Obama’s
decision to deploy US anti-missile interceptors in Romania
as part of a plan to ostensibly “defend Europe against
medium-range missile attacks from Iran.” Obama’s
decision replaced a Bush administration plan to place a tracking
radar in Poland and 20 interceptors in the Czech Republic
to shield the US from an Iranian intercontinental ballistic
missile strike—missiles that Iran does not possess.
The Russians welcomed Obama’s cancellation of the Bush
plan, but have raised the same objection to Obama’s
plan, contending that the medium-range interceptors that would
be deployed in Romania could threaten Russia's long-range
nuclear missile force. “Russia has serious questions
regarding the true purpose of the U.S. missile defense in
Romania,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei
Nesterenko said in a statement Friday. “That is why
we will consistently oppose any dubious unilateral actions
in the missile defense field.” Source: Jonathan
S. Landay, “,”
KansasCity.com, 1 March 2010.
Japan confirms secret nuclear pact with the United States
Japan’s Foreign Ministry released a report on a three-month
investigation into secret pacts on nuclear weapons between
Japan and the United States. The investigation concluded that
three secret pacts existed, including one that allowed US
warships carrying nuclear weapons to make port calls in Japan
or pass through Japanese territorial waters. Foreign Minister
Katsuya Okada said there was no possibility of the administration
led by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama reconsidering Japan’s
three non-nuclear principles of not possessing, manufacturing,
or allowing nuclear weapons to be brought into the country.
Source: “,” The
Asahi Shimbun, 11 March 2010.
European Parliament adopts strong resolution on the NPT Thanks to Laurens Hogebrink for this information
On 10 March, the European Parliament adopted a
that, among other things:
calls for “all parties concerned” to advance
the goal of nuclear disarmament at the 2010 NPT Review Conference
by pursuing “an international Treaty for the progressive
elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide;”
calls on all parties to “review their military doctrines
with a view to renouncing the first-strike option;”
calls for the European Council and its member states to
propose “an ambitious timetable for a nuclear-free
world and concrete initiatives for revitalising the UN Conference
on Disarmament and by promoting disarmament initiatives
based on the ‘Statement of Principles and Objectives’
agreed at the end of the 1995 NPT Review Conference and
on the ‘13 Practical Steps’ unanimously agreed
at the 2000 Review Conference;”
points out that the withdrawal of all tactical warheads
in Europe could set a precedent for further nuclear disarmament;
and
draws attention to the “strategic anachronism of
tactical nuclear weapons and the need for Europe to contribute
to their reduction and to eliminate them from European soil
in the context of a broader dialogue with Russia.”
The resolution notes the hypocrisy of nuclear weapons states
for endorsing nuclear disarmament verbally but not committing
to concrete actions, pointing as an example to when “in
2008 the French and British Governments announced reductions
in their operational warheads but decided at the same time
to modernise their nuclear arsenals.”
The European Parliament also adopted a
on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy and
the Common Security and Defence Policy. In the report, the
European Parliament:
52. Welcomes the declarations and stated objectives of
the new American administration and its commitment to take
nuclear disarmament forward and calls for close EU-US cooperation
in promoting nuclear non-proliferation; calls on the
two European nuclear powers to express their explicit support
for this commitment and to come forward with new measures
to achieve it; welcomes, at the same time, the commitment
of the Russian Federation and the United States to continue
negotiations to conclude a new comprehensive legally binding
agreement to replace the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation
of Strategic Offensive Arms (START I), which expired in
December 2009; looks forward to tangible results in this
regard, at the earliest possible date [emphasis added].
And
53. Takes note of the German coalition agreement of
24 October 2009 on the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons
from Germany in the context of its support for President
Obama’s policy for a world free of nuclear weapons,
the desirability of intermediate steps in reaching this
goal and the necessity of introducing new dynamics in arms
control and disarmament at the 2010 NPT Review Conference;
encourages other Member States with US nuclear weapons
on their soil to make a similar clear commitment;
welcomes, in this respect, the letter sent on 26 February
2010 by the Foreign Ministers of Germany, Netherlands, Belgium,
Luxembourg, and Norway to the Secretary General of NATO
calling for a comprehensive discussion in the Alliance on
how it can get closer to the overall political objective
of a world without nuclear weapons [emphasis added].
10) Recommended
Reading
Hans Kristensen, “,” FAS
Strategic Security Blog, 9 March 2010.
Alice Slater, “,”
Foreign Policy in Focus, 9 March 2009.
Pavel Podvig, “,”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 25 February 2010.
Michael Wallace and Steven Staples, ,
Ottawa: Canadian Pugwash Group and Rideau Institute, March
2010.
Russ Wellen, “,”
The Faster Times, 8 March 2010.
Steven Starr, “,”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 12 March 2010.
1 March 2010
Dear Reaching Critical Will friends and advisors:
As thousands of women gather in New York City for the Commission
on the Status of Women at the United Nations, it is a good
time to remember the connections between nuclear weapons and
women. Women’s organizations have protested nuclear
weapons since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and have
campaigned for cessation of nuclear testing. As Carol Cohn,
Felicity Hill, and Sara Ruddick point out in their on this subject:
When women activists collected baby teeth and had them
tested for levels of strontium 90, it had a strong impact
on public debate on nuclear issues in the United States.
Women anti-nuclear activists have successfully closed nuclear
weapons bases, such as the Greenham Common Women’s
Peace Camp in the United Kingdom, and engaged in concerted
efforts that forced governments to change policies or create
nuclear weapon free zones at the municipal level throughout
the world. They have also monitored and lobbied international
meetings on disarmament. The World Conferences on Women
in 1975, 1980, 1985, and 1995 all mentioned disarmament
and macro security issues because of strong advocacy on
the part of women’s organizations making linkages
between gender issues and weapons issues.
But the linkages between these nuclear weapons and women
go much deeper. Issues related to cultural associations of
what it is to be women and men—i.e., notions of gender—affect
efforts to abolish nuclear weapons and halt their proliferation.
As Cohn, Hill, and Ruddick have argued, “ideas and expectations
about gender are woven through the professional and political
discourses that shape all aspects of how weapons of mass destruction
are considered, desired, and addressed.”
For this reason, it is important that governments and NGOs
alike consider gender issues in their deliberations and use
the tools of gender analysis to reform traditional behaviours
and values expressed in negotiations and discussions on nuclear
weapons. The role of men and a certain kind of masculinity
in dominating the political structures that organize wars
and oversee security matters is beginning to be questioned.
The upcoming NPT Review Conference is an excellent time to
continue questioning and reforming the dominant discourse!
For some great reading on this subject, check out the of the . Also check
out WILPF’s updated You
Get What You Pay For brochure, which compares global military
spending with the money necessary for financing gender equality
and the Millennium Development Goals.
In peace,
Ray Acheson, Project Director
1) RCW publication:
coming soon!
Reaching Critical Will has coordinated and edited a collaborative
NGO book called Beyond arms control: challenges and choices
for nuclear disarmament. It features writing and analysis
from 25 non-governmental organization representatives who
are experts on a variety of topics related to nuclear weapons.
The book will be available soon—details will be sent
out in a special announcement. Here is a sneak peak at the
table of contents:
1. Rhetoric vs. reality: the political economy of nuclear
weapons and their elimination
by Darwin BondGraham, Jacqueline Cabasso, Nicholas Robinson,
Will Parrish, and Ray Acheson
2. NATO nuclear sharing: an anachronistic obstacle to
nuclear disarmament and regional security
by Martin Butcher and Nicola Butler
3. US-UK nuclear sharing: deterring disarmament
by John Ainslie
4. Nuclear energy and the fuel chain: shackling progress
toward a nuclear weapon free world
from Securing Our Survival
5. The US-India nuclear deal: violating norms, terminating
futures
by Andrew Lichterman and M.V. Ramana
6. Nuclear futures for the Middle East: impact on the
goal of a weapons of mass destruction-free zone
by Merav Datan
7. Iran’s challenge to the nuclear order
by Michael Veiluva
8. Missiles and other threats: the illogic of missile
“defence” and space weapons
by Jürgen Scheffran, Ray Acheson, and Andrew Lichterman
9. Dismantling discourses: nuclear weapons and human security
by Jacqueline Cabasso and Ray Acheson
10. The relevance of gender for eliminating weapons of
mass destruction
by Carol Cohn with Felicity Hill and Sara Ruddick
11. Reaching nuclear disarmament
by John Burroughs
12. A nuclear weapons convention: framework for a nuclear
weapon free world
by John Loretz, Jürgen Scheffran, Alyn Ware, and Tim
Wright
13. Towards a fissile material (cut-off) treaty
by Zia Mian
14. Learn, adapt, progress: lessons from Ottawa and Oslo
John Borrie, Maya Brehm, Silvia Cattaneo, and David Atwood
2) Event for
40th anniversary of NPT
Friday, 5 March 2010 marks the 40th anniversary of the entry
into force of the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Reaching Critical Will,
along with the , the ,
The Simons Foundation, and the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs,
are holding an event at the UN to mark the occasion. It will
be an opportunity for states and NGOs to come together before
the NPT
Review Conference and reflect on the current challenges
facing the Treaty and to explore the possibility of a nuclear
weapons convention as a way of fulfilling the obligation to
disarm under Article VI of the NPT.
Speakers include Randy Rydell, Senior Political Affairs Officer
with the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs; Ambassador Mona
Juul of the Norwegian Mission to the UN; John Burroughs of
the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and the International
Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms; and Tim Wright,
International Campaign to Ablish Nuclear Weapons.
Date: Friday, 5 March 2010 Time: 1:15–2:30 PM Location: UN Headquarters, Conference Room A (Temporary
North Lawn Building) RSVP: Tim Wright at tim[at]icanw.org
or 212.682.1265 by Thursday, 4 March
You must have a UN grounds pass to attend this event.
3) NGOs speak
to the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament
Matters
On Friday, 26 February, John
Burroughs of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and
Ray
Acheson of Reaching Critical Will (WILPF) delivered remarks
to the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament
Matters about the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and prospects
and challenges for nuclear disarmament. Please find their
remarks on the Reaching Critical Will website. For more information
on the .
4) Fissile
Materials Blog
The has launched
its new blog, “Fissile Material” ()
providing news and analysis of military and civilian stockpiles
of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, the key nuclear
weapon materials.
The reduction and elimination of fissile materials and control
of their production is critical to nuclear weapons disarmament,
to halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and to ensuring
that terrorists do not acquire nuclear weapons.
The blog tracks key developments in production and use of
plutonium and highly enriched uranium, industrial and political
decisions concerning these materials, as well as their impacts
on international security, safety, environment, and economy.
The blog is maintained by members of the International Panel
on Fissile Materials (IPFM), including Alexander Glaser, Yves
Marignac, Zia Mian, Pavel Podvig, M.V. Ramana and Mycle Schneider.
Opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors of
the posts and do not necessarily represent positions of the
IPFM.
The blog can be found at .
To follow the blog, use the RSS feed, Twitter, or Facebook
links at the site.
The International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), is an
independent group of arms-control and nonproliferation experts
from seventeen countries: Brazil, China, France, Germany,
India, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Mexico, Norway, Pakistan,
South Korea, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom,
and the United States. The Panel is co-chaired by Dr. R. Rajaraman,
Professor Emeritus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,
India and Professor Frank von Hippel of Princeton University.
5) Featured
News
Five countries in Europe seek riddance of US nuclear weapons
On 26 February 2010, Foreign Ministers from Belgium, Germany,
Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and Norway sent a
to NATO Secretary General, calling for the Alliance to discuss
“NATO’s nuclear policy in our evolving security
environment”. indicated that the five countries
are planning to call for the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons
from Europe. A Belgian official said they would make a joint
declaration in order to influence the debate within NATO over
the usefulness of nuclear weapons in NATO’s strategic
doctrine. NATO is set to meet in Tallin, Estonia before the
NPT Review Conference.
Leading Belgian politicians renounce nuclear weapons
In a issued on 19 February 2010, four leading
Belgian politicians (former NATO secretary-general Willy Claes;
former Prime Ministers and members of the EU-parliament Jean-Luc
Dehaene and Guy Verhofstadt; and former secretary of state
and EU-commissioner Louis Michel) renounced the presence of
nuclear arms in European military bases and made a call for
a world freed of nuclear weapons. The Belgian Prime Minister,
Yves Leterme, followed the op-ed with a , affirming that his government supports
the overall nuclear weapons-free vision. He also noted that
Belgium will work with a number of other NATO countries to
take the nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation agenda forward
during the review of the Alliance's Strategic Concept.
204 Japanese legislators sent a letter to US President
Obama calling on the Nuclear Posture Review to adopt a “sole
purpose” doctrine
The letter encourages the US and Russia to conclude negotiations
on stockpile reductions, and calls on the US to adopt as a
first step a “sole purpose” policy, i.e. that
U.S. nuclear weapons would only be for deterrence against
the threat or use of nuclear weapons from other nuclear-armed
states. This would include assurances that nuclear weapons
would not be threatened or used against non-nuclear states.
The letter also asserts that Japan will not seek the road
toward possession of nuclear weapons if the US adopts such
a policy.
Japan and Australia issue a joint statement on nuclear
weapons
In a on 21 February 2010, the Foreign Ministers
of Japan and Australia, Mr. Katsuya Okada and Mr. Stephen
Smith, “shared their intention to deepen cooperation
between the two countries in the field of nuclear disarmament
and non-proliferation in order to fundamentally strengthen
the current international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation
regime.” The statement notes in particular that, “The
Ministers found worthy of consideration such ideas as
enhancing the effectiveness of security assurances not to
use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon
states, or retaining nuclear weapons solely for the purpose
of deterring others from using such weapons, as a first step
toward a world without nuclear weapons, and decided to deepen
discussion on these issues.”
President Obama calls for re-write of the Nuclear Posture
Review
On 28 February, media
that President Obama ordered the re-write of the Nuclear Posture
Review because it did not “reflect his aspirations for
a nuclear-weapons-free world and an end to ‘cold war
thinking’.” According to The Guardian,
President Obama and his allies are understood to want a new
policy that is much closer to a declaration of no first use,
making clear that the United States would not use nuclear
weapons against non-nuclear states. The Guardian also
notes, “According to sources familiar with the process
of producing the review, Obama is meeting resistance from
the National Security Council—which does not share his
view that a nuclear-weapons-free world is an achievable objective—and
the Department of Defense.”
Biden gives speech signalling acquiescence to nuclear
weapon laboratories
In a
on 18 February 2010 to the National Defense University, US
Vice President Joe Biden made explicit the key lobbying role
of the nuclear laboratory contractors at the highest levels
of government. The speech was void of relevant policy
commitments.
Treaty banning cluster munitions is set to enter into
force
On 16 February 2010, Burkina Faso and Moldova ratified the
, bringing the total number
of ratifications to 30 and triggering entry into force on
1 August 2010, when the Convention will become binding international
law.
6) Recommended
Reading
Greg Mello, “,” Foreign Policy in Focus,
11 February 2010.
John Isaacs and Robert G. Gard, “,”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 24 February 2010,
with responses from Greg Mello, original author. [The conversation
sparked by the original article has been ongoing at .]
Scott Ritter, “,”
Truthdig, 16 February 2010.
Sergio Duarte, “,”
remarks to Building Up or Breaking Down: The Direction
of Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Albert Schweitzer Institute,
Quinnipiac University School of Law, Hamden, Connecticut,
19 February 2010.
16 February 2010
Dear Reaching Critical Will friends and advisors:
As its now mid-way through February, civil society preparations
for the NPT Review Conference are building up. Reaching Critical
Will is mere weeks away from the release of a new collaborative
publication, Beyond arms control: challenges and choices
for nuclear disarmament. Check with our next E-News edition
for details. In addition, Reaching Critical Will welcomes
Tim Wright to the Women’s International League for Peace
and Freedom UN office. Tim will be working on implementing
the strategy
for promoting the nuclear weapons convention in the lead up
to the Review Conference (details below).
In the meantime, information on how to apply for accreditation
to the Review Conference is now available. The information
was sent out last week and is available on the Reaching
Critical Will 2010 NPT Review Conference website. Highlights
are also included in this edition of the E-News, below.
Not everything is about the NPT. The Conference
on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, now in the fifth week of
its 2010 session, still has not yet adopted a programme of
work. As the Director-General of the UN Office at Geneva reported
last week, “Nothing
is happening.” In the interest of increasing the
pressure on delegates and reminding the Conference that the
world is watching, Reaching Critical Will is reaching out
to all interested members of civil society to chime into the
debate. A new segment of our CD Report will feature “Notes
from the world”—commentary and critique from NGOs
and others who want to see action in the CD. Please email
Beatrice
Fihn, RCW’s Project Associate in Geneva, if you
would like to contribute to future reports.
NGOs have been busy around the world raising attention to
hypocritical government policies on disarmament—such
as in the United Kingdom, where hundreds blocked the gates
to the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston to protest
the renewal of Trident (details below).
We hope you are inspired to demonstrate against nuclear weapons
in your country and to engage your government on this critical
issue.
In peace,
Ray Acheson, Project Director
1) NPT accreditation:
information available
The UN Office for Disarmament Affairs has published information
for participation of NGOs in the 2010 NPT Review Conference
in an aide
memoire. All of this information and much more is available
on the Reaching
Critical Will 2010 NPT Review Conference website. Here
are some of the highlights:
Accreditation
All NGO representatives with or without valid United Nations
ground passes are requested to submit a written application
for attendance that must include the following:
A letter written on organizational letterhead signed by
the head of the organization requesting attendance at the
Conference. This letter should include the composition of
the delegation and an overview of past interactions, if
any, between the organization and the United Nations, particularly
in relation to disarmament and non-proliferation. Such interaction
may also include affiliation with the Department of Public
Information (DPI), or consultative status with the Economic
and Social Council (ECOSOC). The letter should indicate
whether it is the first time that the NGO requests accreditation
to participate in a meeting at the United Nations.
A mission statement or summary of work that includes information
on the organization’s purpose, programmes and activities
related to the scope of the Review Conference. This information
should not exceed two pages in length.
Send by mail, fax, or email to:
Secretariat of the Review Conference
Attn: Ms. Soo-Hyun Kim
Information and Outreach Branch, Office for Disarmament Affairs
405 East 42nd Street (DN-2511B)
United Nations, New York, NY 10017
USA
Email applications must include an attached PDF format file
containing all the relevant documentation, including the signed
letter by the head of the organization.
Please bear in mind that, due to enhanced security procedures,
the names submitted will not be eligible for later revision.
Therefore, it is desirable that organizations submit the composition
of their delegation only after careful review.
Registration
All NGO representatives must be pre-registered (details on
how to pre-register online will be included in your notification
of accreditation) and should present themselves to the Registration
Desk (lobby entrance after security) in order to have their
registration form validated for issuance of a security identification
badge. A valid photo identification issued by the Government
(e.g. passport), together with the provisional accreditation
request that has been authorized by the Secretariat of the
NPT Review Conference, as well as a completed registration
form must be presented. Once a pass is issued, NGO representatives
will be granted access to UN premises. NGO representatives
accredited through this process may attend meetings of the
Review Conference, other than those designated as closed.
Please bear in mind that applicants for accreditation to the
United Nations conferences as well as individuals planning
to attend side events must be at least 18 years of age. For
matters related to registration and issuance of identification
badges kindly contact Ms. Soo-Hyun Kim, E-mail: kim12[at]un.org.
Registration hours:
@ UN Pass and ID Office, First Avenue and 45th Street
Sunday, 2 May, 10:00 AM–2:00 PM
@ the NPT NGO Registration Desk in the lobby of the UN
Monday, 3 May, 8:00 AM–4:00 PM
Tuesday, 4 May–Thursday 6 May, 9:00 AM–4:00 PM
Friday, 7 May, 9:00 AM–12:00 PM
Representatives arriving after 7 May must contact Ms. Soo-Hyun
Kim, E-mail: kim12[at]un.org,
Tel.+1 917 367 3596, or Ms. Jenny Fuchs, E-mail fuchs[at]un.org,
Tel. +1 212 963 2386 to arrange for issuance of a security
identification badge at the Pass and Identification Office.
Please note: The United Nations Office for Disarmament
Affairs is not in a position to provide letters of invitation
or letters to consulates requesting that NGO representatives
be provided visas for travelling to the United States in order
to attend the meetings of the Review Conference. The procurement
of visas, travel arrangements and related costs are strictly
the responsibility of the NGO representatives. It is important
that NGO representatives make their visa and travel arrangement
at the earliest possible time.
2) NPT presentations:
call for video submissions
The NGO peace and disarmament community will be showing a
five minute video at the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Review Conference at the United Nations this May, comprised
of video clips from people around the world speaking about
their desire to live in a world without nuclear weapons. We
want you to participate!
Video submissions should answer one of the following questions:
1. Why do you want a nuclear weapon-free world?
2. What worries you about continuing to live in a world
that is threatened by the use of nuclear weapons?
You can address your answers to the diplomats who will be
watching the video at the Conference, or to the world at large.
Select responses will be edited together for the video, which
will be shown during the NGO presentation to the Conference
on Friday, 7 May 2010. After the Conference, the video will
be posted on youtube.com to spread the message that citizens
of the world no longer want to live under the threat of nuclear
weapons.
To submit your video, please go to
Videos should be 2GB or less in size, 90 seconds or less
in length, and have no background music. Only MPEG-4, DV,
or .mov video files can be accepted, so please only submit
in these formats. If you do not speak English in your
video, please provide a written text in your own language
and in English as well in either a .doc (word) or .docx (text)
file.
Submissions must be received by 9:00 AM Eastern on Monday,
29 March 2010.
Disclaimer: The designated site administrator reserves the
non-exclusive right to publish or broadcast all or part of
all submissions to the project.
3) Think
Outside the Bomb Road Tour: call for submissions
, a US national anti-nuclear
youth network, is going on a three-month, 40-city tour of
the USA this summer. TOTB is seeking submissions for their
tour zine, travelling photo/art show, and film festival. See
below and
for details.
Zine
TOTB wants to hear from you and your community about the anti-oppression
struggles you are engaged in, whether they be against nuclearism,
militarism and war, patriarchy, racism, capitalism, etc. During
the tour, we will distribute a zine, which will feature submitted
poetry, essays, photos, action and campaign information, and
a tour CD containing spoken word, spoken essays, and music.
Please send submissions of essays, poems, short stories,
information on upcoming and ongoing campaigns and actions,
and other written work in digital format by the deadline to:
thinkoutsidethebombtour[at]gmail.com.
Songs, spoken pieces, photos, drawings and other digital media
can also be sent to the email address. Hard copies of art
works to be digitized can be sent to the mailing address listed
below.
Travelling Photo/Art Show
The TOTB tour is also putting together a traveling art exhibit
that will show two things: (1) the horrors of nuclear weapons
and energy systems, and (2) active resistance to nuclear weapons
and energy systems. Please email all digital media, including
photos, sketches, drawings, paintings, graphics, etc, to:
thinkoutsidethebombtour[at]gmail.com.
Hard copies of original artwork can be sent to the mailing
address listed below. Please send us an email if you wish
to submit large or three-dimensional artworks and we can discuss
shipping and display specifics.
Film Festival
The TOTB tour is also putting together a traveling Film Festival
that we will present in select cities in the USA. We are interested
in films that promote or show: Organizing Against Nuclearism,
The Affects of Nuclearism, Indigenous Causes, Womens Issues,
People of Color Organizing, Anti-Capitalism, Labor Struggles,
and Collective Liberation.
For all submissions:
Please submit no later than March 15, 2010
4) Grassroots
Journalism Project
The Ban All Nukes Generation Youth Network ()
wants youth and concerned citizens who are interested in creatively
spreading the world for nuclear weapons disarmament and social
justice. Over the next few months leading up to the NPT Review
Conference, the will closely follow the grassroots
disarmament movement and the people behind it. Local and international
organizations and groups that have a project, event, or campaign
to share are invited to submit 4 – 5 minute video clips
to be reviewed and posted on the
site and on .
For more information on how to include your voice in the
network or to post the videos on your website, please contact
Kim at kimthao.pna[at]gmail.com
or call 215.546.3030.
Sponsored by: , ,
,
5) New Cities
are Not Targets website
The Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign has launched a new
with very useful tools
to involve Mayoral Associations, Mayors, NGOs, and individuals
to recruit Mayors.
6) School
activity for NPT Review Conference: Time for abolition!
The is
calling on young people around the world to create banners
declaring to world leaders that it’s “Time to
Abolish Nuclear Weapons”. The letters for the banner
can be . Each student in the class is allocated
a letter to colour in and decorate with peace and anti-nuclear
images, and then their teacher will take a photo and send
it to info[at]icanw.org
by May 1 to be displayed at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review
Conference in New York. Full details are (in English as well as German). Over the
coming months, ICAN will be developing more activities aimed
at giving students the opportunity to influence the Review
Conference.
7) Promoting
the nuclear weapons convention
The has
contracted Tim Wright from its Australian committee of management
to work in New York from now until the middle of June. Over
the coming months, he will work with non-government organizations
around the world in generating support for a legally
binding and verifiable Nuclear Weapons Convention. This
will involve producing a range of materials about the NWC
for use by local NGOs wishing to lobby their governments.
This work will take place in the lead-up to the Non-Proliferation
Treaty Review Conference, which will be held from May 3 to
28.
His other role, and one which complements the first, will
be to help coordinate actions throughout the world on
June 5, Nuclear Abolition Day. This is the Saturday after
the NPT Review Conference. ICAN and its partners aim to mobilize
tens of thousands of people to take to the streets and demand
that their governments work for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
The actions will take place in cities and at nuclear facilities,
and no action is too small to make a difference!
You can download an prepared by a number
of NGOs which outlines the rationale for promoting the NWC
in the lead-up to the NPT Review Conference and holding a
global day of action after it. Many people have already expressed
their support for the recommendations contained in the document,
and we would welcome any further feedback. Over the next few
months, Tim intends to send out updates on ICAN’s work—please
let him know if you would like to receive them (email tim[at]icanw.org).
8) Featured
News
Successful blockade at Aldermaston
On Monday, 15 February, hundreds of activists demonstrated
outside a factory in southern England where warheads for Trident
nuclear submarines are made. The demonstrators blocked gates
outside the site in Aldermaston, about 50 miles (80 kilometers)
west of London. Forty women blockaded one of the main gates.
They came from all over the UK and from several NATO countries.
The message from the Women’s Gate blockade was simple
and clear. Renewal of Britain’s weapon of mass destruction
is illegal, immoral, pointless and profligate. It will be
at the cost of services such as housing, education, health
and welfare that are crucial to the quality of our everyday
lives. And this in a time of financial crisis when all political
parties are threatening ‘cuts’! Women need more,
not less, support from public funding for the care-work so
many of us habitually do, paid and unpaid. We need more, not
less, spending to protect the environment, the natural world
that sustains life. Secondly, women in every country, in times
of peace and war, are the objects of domestic and sexual violence.
Nuclear weapons are the extreme manifestation of the endemic
violence in our culture that is on a scale from the personal
to the international, that stretches from bedroom to battlefield,
that is inflicted by fists, boots, knives, guns, fighter aircraft
and warships. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate in this obscene
continuum of violence. Today at the Women’s Gate of
the Big Blockade of the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston,
we were united in saying: ‘No to male violence, no to
military violence, no to genocidal violence. No to all violence.’
Nagasaki Appeal 2010
The 4th Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination
of Nuclear Weapons met on 8 February 2010 to demonstrate its
determination that Nagasaki be the last place ever to suffer
a nuclear attack. The Assembly’s appeal includes: the
establishment of a process to eliminate nuclear weapons; the
cessation of research, development, testing, and component
production of nuclear weapons while reductions of arsenals
are in progress, not afterwards; the subjection of production
and research facilities to an intrusive verification regime
at the earliest possible time; the reduction of nuclear weapons
in a manner that supports general disarmament; the redirection
of the financial and human resources currently used to develop
and maintain nuclear weapons systems towards meeting social
and economic needs consistent with the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals; increased citizen involvement in nuclear
disarmament; and the creation of more nuclear weapons free
zones or zones free of weapons of mass destruction, or single
state nuclear weapons free zones.
9) Recommended
Reading
Greg Mello, “,” Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, 4 February 2010.
Darwin BondGraham, Will Parrish, Nicholas Ian Robinson, “,” Full-Court Press, 3 February
2010.
Ian Davis and Oliver Meier, “,” NATO Watch Comment, 12 February
2010.
Alice Slater, “,” YES!
Magazine, 21 January 2010.
1 February 2010
Dear Reaching Critical Will friends and advisors:
2010 is shaping up to be a busy year with many seminars,
conferences, and publications ahead of the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in May.
Reaching Critical Will is contributing to the wealth of information
and analysis by hosting an International Women’s Day
seminar in Geneva during the last week of February to focus
on challenges to and recommendations for the NPT. Email RCW
Project Associate Beatrice Fihn for details: beatrice[at]reachingcriticalwill.org.
We are also publishing a book on the same subject, which will
be launched at this seminar and circulated widely (details
to follow in the next edition of the E-News).
Of course, Reaching Critical Will is also facilitating and
supporting the activities of many other NGOs, and this E-News
is full of information about such initiatives and on how you
can get involved. Please note: information on the accreditation
process for the Review Conference will be available soon through
Reaching Critical Will—a special announcement will be
sent out through the E-News listserv and posted on the website
when it becomes available. In the meantime, you can find below
some important information about NGO access to official meetings
of the RevCon, side events, and presentations.
Unfortunately, 2010 has also seen its share of bad news already.
In a in the Wall Street Journal, the
“four horsemen”—Schultz, Perry, Kissinger,
and Nunn (SPKN)—advocated for increased spending on
nuclear weapons. In a , Reaching Critical Will points out that
the institutional loyalties of SPKN and their larger political
agendas reflect a political economy that is not only fundamentally
at odds with nuclear abolition, but is anathema to peace and
justice. Others have also responded to this op-ed (see “US
elite push for increased nuclear weapon funding” below).
In addition, in , US Vice President Joe Biden
called for a boost of $5 billion for nuclear weapons over
the next five years, arguing, “Even in a time of tough
budget decisions, these are investments we must make for our
security.”
Reaching Critical Will looks forward to working with its
colleagues to articulate a vision of security that does not
include increased investments in nuclear weapons and that
cuts through the lies of those who proclaim armament as disarmament.
We hope you find ways to get involved below; please contact
us to share your initiatives!
In peace,
Ray Acheson, Project Director
1) NPT logistics
Access to official meetings
NGOs will have access to many of the official Review Conference
meetings. However, do to very limited seating, NGOs will have
about 100–200 spots during the first four days of the
Conference, which will be held in the UN General Assembly.
For the rest of the Conference, held in the Temporary North
Lawn Building, we will have about 80 seats. For this reason,
all NGOs who wish to attend the official meetings must designate
ONE representative per organization to attend the meetings.
This designation can rotate to different people within the
organization throughout the Conference, but please make sure
that only one person from your group is at any given meeting.
Side events
NGOs will be granted the use of one room in the new UN facility,
the Temporary North Lawn Building, for the duration of the
Review Conference from 9:00 AM–6:00 PM each day. This
room, with a capacity of 75 people, is available for booking
through Reaching Critical Will. You can book the room from
10:00 AM–1:00PM, 1:15–2:45 PM, or 3:00–6:00PM.
Check the calendar
to see what slots are available and email ray[at]reachingcriticalwill.org
with your preference. The room is fully booked during the
first week and is almost fully booked for the second week.
If you require a greater capacity than 75 people, please contact
Ms. Soo-hyun Kim at the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs
by emailing kim12[at]un.org.
The deadline to book events through RCW or the UN is 28
March 2010. If you require any equipment, such as projector
or screen, please let me by then as well.
NGO presentations
There’s still time to get involved in preparing NGO
presentations to the Review Conference! If you’re interested
in participating, we invite you to join the NPT Presentations
listserv by sending an email to npt_presentations-subscribe[at]yahoogroups.com
or by visiting .
2) ICAN strategy
for a Nuclear Weapons Convention
Background
Since the NPT PrepCom this year, a number of people have been
discussing the potential great value of a clear, unified strategy
for next year’s NPT Review Conference which as many
civil society organizations as possible could coalesce around,
find useful for their work, and give strength and focus to
the voice of civil society. The proposed strategy is being
put forward by ICAN, Acronym Institute, IPPNW, and WILPF.
We believe that this can be taken up by many NGOs and would
amplify and complement the work and strategies that they are
already or individually pursuing.
Our objective is to build momentum for the abolition
of nuclear weapons. In practical terms, we aim for a Nuclear
Weapons Convention by 2020.
Rationale
The current focus for many governments and NGOs is the 2010
NPT Review Conference, scheduled for 3-28 May in New York
next year. So our strategy needs to recognise the importance
of the NPT RevCon politically, but go beyond it. In addition
to supporting NGO actions in New York we want to encourage
civil society groups all over the world to lobby and act locally,
with international coordination and impact both before and
after the Review Conference. This is especially important
to ensure that NGOs are strongly positioned to keep building
for nuclear abolition after the NPT, and that we avoid the
dangers of becoming hostage to the NPT’s outcome (whether
good or bad). And since government positions are largely set
before such Conferences, the major work of influencing government
policies and their marching orders to their diplomats needs
to be undertaken in the months ahead of the Conference.
Our proposed strategy comprises two phases focussing around
the 2010 NPT Review Conference. The first important task is
to get the goal of a nuclear weapon convention (NWC) into
the mainstream, ie. to gain recognition of an NWC as a realistic
and reasonable concept even among those who think they disagree
with it. We have largely won the moral and security arguments
for why nuclear weapons should be abolished. By putting the
NWC onto the negotiating agenda we will shift the debate to
when and how.
We want governments to move decisively away from dismissing
the NWC as impossible or premature. We want to engage them
in discussion of what the legal, technical, political and
verification framework for the prohibition and elimination
of nuclear weapons should entail.
This strategy engages with the NPT but seeks to avoid NGO
resources and energy becoming swamped by it. Many NGOs, including
Mayors for Peace and Abolition 2000, have plans to get people
to New York for the RevCon. We support these efforts and want
to do something that complements them, while recognising that
it is expensive and difficult for many to get to NY. Moreover,
access to diplomats is likely to be quite restricted due to
the negotiating nature of the Conference, and the extensive
renovations which will be underway at the UN. And government
polices will be determined before the diplomats get to New
York.
Strategy Phase 1: From now to the May 2010 NPT Review
Conference
The aim of the first phase is to get governments to identify
the need for some kind of nuclear weapons prohibition treaty
in their statements, whether or not they refer explicitly
to a NWC by name. As many non-aligned countries and also Australia
and Austria have done, we want consideration of a NWC to be
mentioned in government statements and working papers to the
NPT, with the aim of getting formal recognition into a final
NPT document.
To implement this strategy, supporters must first try to
get language into their own country’s statements and
working papers. In addition to direct governmental approaches,
we should work on elected representatives including parliamentarians
and mayors, to persuade them to advocate this position.
In addition, groups should link with advocates in other countries
to push for as many key governments to include NWC language,
prioritising where they have regional or political links.
It is especially important that we assist and work with small
as well as large states in our regions, especially the over-110
NPT parties in the Non-Aligned Movement who are likely to
support the NWC but may not have thought to include it in
their statements and position papers for the NPT. So we can
help them in capacity-building by providing them with positive
language on the need for a NWC by 2010. The aim is not to
promote the model NWC as such or get identical language into
all the statements, but to build up an accumulation of proposals
that mention a nuclear weapon treaty in some form.
For those governments that don’t feel comfortable with
explicit reference to a nuclear weapon convention, the NGOs
could suggest the government endorse the UN Secretary General’s
five-point disarmament plan (put forward 24 October 2008),
the first point of which referred to consideration of a nuclear
weapons convention or other legal framework. Failing that,
they could consider phrasing along
the lines of the 2009 Chair’s (first) draft recommendations
eg. to consider “ways and means to commence negotiations
in accordance with article VI, on a convention or framework
of agreements to achieve global nuclear disarmament, and to
engage non-parties to the NPT”. The point is to get
the concept of a comprehensive abolition treaty into the mainstream,
not to advocate for a specific version.
However, when governments agree to include reference to the
need for a nuclear weapon convention, NGOs should then lobby
to take them two further steps forward:
1) to advocate that negotiations on an NWC (or similar)
should commence before the next NPT RevCon in 2015; and
2) that an NWC should be concluded by 2020 (recognizing
that its full implementation may well take longer).
Strategy Phase 2: From the end of the May 2010 NPT Conference
to the end of 2010 and beyond
The second phase starts with a day of internationally coordinated,
locally implemented actions after the
end of the RevCon, to inspire and keep up the momentum for
a NWC, with messages tailored to build on (or parachute over)
the NPT outcome, whether it is deemed a success or a failure.
The aim of the second phase is to build civil-society + government
partnerships to get the conditions and steps for a NWC on
track. This part of our action plan begins with internationally
coordinated actions all over the world some time over Saturday
5 June 2010, the weekend after the RevCon ends (scheduled
for 28 May). Each national or local group or network will
organise a demonstration or other action or event; for example
either at a key governmental location or, if in a nuclear
weapon state, a nuclear weapon-related facility. NGOs are
locally responsible for choosing the locations, timing and
type of actions or demonstrations they want to undertake.
For example, UK NGOs are discussing holding events at Faslane,
Aldermaston and maybe in London as well.
Though we are calling 5 June 2010 “Global Nuclear Abolition
Action Day”, the date 5 June has for some time been
established World Environment Day, so groups may want to network
with local environmental groups to link and amplify both messages
on this day.
Though events are local, a consistent message will be worked
out at the end of the Review Conference, regardless of whether
it ends as a ‘success’ or ‘failure’.
Working with partners, ICAN will be responsible for hosting
the action website, reviewing the outcome of the RevCon and
developing a strong and inspiring message that as many civil
society organizations as possible can agree on.
We plan to set up a website linked with ICAN which will provide
information and show what is happening with the NPT and also
(with clickable maps) where the various actions are going
to happen, with information, photos and messages. We hope
that it will be possible for groups to be autonomously
responsible for the content of their own action pages before,
during and after the Review Conference
and June 5 demonstrations (we will need to work out the ground-rules
and practical implementation of
this).
The inspiring, unified messages about the need for a Nuclear
Weapon Convention will play an important role in how the movement
is able to move forward after the 2010 Review Conference.
Whether the NPT RevCon is viewed as a success (able to adopt
important decisions) or a failure (deadlock, or no or inadequate
agreements), we need to be ready with a strong and positive
message that inspires and encourages: that now is the time
to push for a nuclear weapon treaty. If politics and diplomatic
tactics cause the RevCon to fail, it could leave current disarmament
objectives and
aspirations in tatters even if the reasons for failure were
structural and political. In that case we will need to energise
ourselves and our movements with really good positive actions
calling for nuclear abolition.
Even if the RevCon is regarded as a success, the disarmament
agreements are likely to be incremental steps that at best
may not go much beyond the 2000 agreements (and may possibly
roll them backwards). Depending on the outcome, there is a
risk that the disarmament movement becomes deflated, demoralised
or marginalised (or else people think the job’s done).
A positive action can use the NPT outcome as a springboard
to inspire people and invigorate mobilising for a NWC.
We would appreciate hearing thoughts and suggestions on smart
slogans for use through the day. For example, one we have
played with is “NWC – Now We Can!” Ideas
and suggestions welcome. We would also welcome comments on
this strategy – please forward comments to Dimity Hawkins,
ICAN Australia Campaign Director on dimity[at]icanw.org
and she will share this with the others. If you like it, please
run with it!
3) Nuclear
Weapons Convention simulation
The Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Centre for Science
and Peace Research (University of Hamburg) and IANUS (TU Darmstadt)
would like to invite you to a simulation conference that is
going to negotiate the Nuclear Weapons Convention. The event
will take place alongside the 2010 NPT Review Conference in
New York so you will get both the possibility to act in the
simulated conference as well as in the real NPT RevCon. You
will get accredited through the NGO “International Network
of Engineers and Scientists against Proliferation (INESAP)”
and will be able to observe the RevCon negotiations as well
as meet diplomats.The simulation conference will take place
on May 11/12. A preparation phase will take place in Princeton
during May 8/9. Most students will arrive on May 1, but this
is no obligation. Beforehand, there will be a seminar at the
University of Hamburg during April 16/17. Participants will
be able to participate interactively via internet tools.
Requirements for participants:
· Between 20 and 30 years old
· Student or completed degree
· Ability to obtain visa for US
Financial support can unfortunately not be granted.
Please write to Malte Göttsche at malte.goettsche[at]physik.uni-hamburg.de
if you are interested in participating. Briefly state your
motivation for participation and your background/experience.
4) New website
for abolishing nuclear weapons
is a website dedicated to rebuilding the grassroots movement
for nuclear disarmament and abolition! We need a nuclear disarmament
movement to build momentum to cut the military budget for
war to fund peace, jobs and justice in our communities. Hundreds
of
from the US and around the globe are taking new steps, together,
to renew the commitment to a nuclear free world. For Peace
and Human Needs: Nuclear Disarmament Now! is a source for
the most to take the grassroots
movement for peace onto the new terrain of getting rid of
all weapons of mass destruction.
Go to For Peace and Human Needs: Nuclear Disarmament Now!
to get involved in a massive . Let President Obama know that
we want the administration to initiate good faith multilateral
negotiations on an international agreement to abolish nuclear
weapons, within our lifetimes! Yes, we can!
5) Aldermaston
Women’s Gate
Mark your calendar for 15 February 2010! The plan
is to impede work on the UK’s planned new warhead for
the Trident nuclear missile system by closing down all seven
gates of the Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston simultaneously.
This is an invitation to come to Aldermaston, in rural Berkshire,
to share in a women’s action as part of the Big Blockade.
Who’s organizing? The Big Blockade is being organized
by Trident Ploughshares and supported by CND, Aldermaston
Women’s Peace Camp and other groups. The women’s
gate blockade is being organised by Women from AWPC, Women
in Black against War, the Women’s International League
for Peace and Freedom, Women against NATO and the London Feminist
Network. We, among other groups, are already mobilizing members.
We hope that over the next few weeks many more groups and
individual women will commit themselves to join the blockade.
What’s the aim? As women, our plan is to close,
for as long as we can, one of the gates of AWE. Known as the
‘Home Office Gate’, it is one of two entrances
used by 50% of Aldermaston’s workers. Other gates will
be blockaded by groups of men and women from Scotland, Wales,
England and other countries; by students, cyclists and ‘faith’
groups.
Why Aldermaston? Aldermaston houses the facilities that
produce Britain’s nuclear warhead. The UK government
plan to spend a billion pounds each year for the next three
years on modernizing its dangerous, illegal weapon of mass
destruction. Greenpeace have estimated a £97-billion
pound price tag for the renewal plan for the Trident submarine-borne
nuclear weapons system to the year 2050. But although massive
building work on facilities to test, design and build new
warheads is already well under way at Aldermaston, the final
decision about whether to go ahead with the new warheads has
not yet been taken by Parliament. Trident renewal is current
policy, but it is not irreversible.
Why now? The blockade is timed to take place three months
before the international Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference.
The new US administration is a touch more committed to international
cooperation to reduce nuclear arsenals than the one it replaced.
Here in Britain, with the present financial crisis dictating
cuts in public expenditure, and a general election coming
up, this is a critical moment when we have just a chance of
persuading politicians to think again. We aim to help convince
the parties that spending scarce resources on Trident while
cutting needed services won’t win votes.
What do I have to do? That’s entirely up to you. There
is a role for everyone to play. The blockade will start at
7 am promptly on the morning of Monday 15 February. We want
to start the blockade with as many women as possible sitting
in front of the gate, to clearly show women’s opposition
to Britian’s plans to build new nuclear weapons. You
can sit for a long or a short time as you want. We also need
women to stand around the blockade holding banners and placards
to get our message across. You do not have to risk arrest:
the police will typically give warning before they arrest
anyone, which will give women who do not wish to be arrested
ample time to join supporters at the side of the blockade.
Planning. Thirteen women from the groups mentioned above came
together in London this week to plan for the Women’s
Gate on February 15. We discussed ways of blockading effectively,
nonviolently and safely. We shared out roles: legal support,
transport, police liaison, coordination, care, first aid,
media work etc.
Thinking through the message. We decided that Women’s
Gate messages will express our feminist critique of nuclear
weapons and the militaries that deploy them, of the UK government’s
irrational notion of ‘security’, and of NATO with
its ever-growing, nuclear-tipped ambitions. We want to contrast
this with the lack of government support for women suffering
violence whether it’s cuts in funding for rape
crisis centres, or the lack of funds for women’s refuges,
or the ever declining conviction rate for rape. We want to
let the government know what we mean by security. As women
we’ll refuse violence in every aspect of our lives,
from home to street, from nation to the international arena.
Let’s say no to violence - whether from fists, boots
and knives, or from guns and fighter jets and a resounding
NO to nuclear weapons.
Bringing our message to Aldermaston. We hope all of you will
bring your own placards and fence decorations with powerful
messages, make colourful banners, bring musical instruments
and songs (and any other magic to close down 'our' gate).
HOW TO JOIN IN… If you’d like to join the
Women’s Gate blockade, it would be helpful (though not
essential) if you could to let us know in advance, by contacting
Andrée at andreeduguy[at]yahoo.com
or Tel. 020 8248 0763.We shall hold a planning meeting for
our women’s action at a nearby location from 5 pm on
the evening of Sunday 14 Febrary. You will also be able
to stay the night (floorpsace only - bring a bed-roll and
sleeping bag). There will be a hot meal available, bring food
to share. Please contact Andrée (as above) to
book a space, and for access and other details.
Otherwise, just turn up a little before 7 am on Monday morning
at the gate, dressed in warm and waterproof clothes, prepared
for darkness, and for bitter or rainy weather.
Getting information. You will find maps, routes and addresses,
where to leave cars, advice concerning safety and risk, legal
considerations and a mass of other useful information on the
. For information about
AWE Aldermaston and resources for action visit the website
of the .
So come along and bring your friends. There is a role for
everyone in this diverse, creative, and important protest.
Numbers matter. Every woman counts.
6) Toolkit
for local US resolutions on nuclear disarmament
, in partnership with the and the ,
is working for the passage of local resolutions in support
of a nuclear weapons free world. People around the United
States are urging city councils and boards of aldermen to
pass the resolutions and need your help to make this happen
in your community!
Use the links below to download resources for this campaign:
>> for a letter to you explaining the steps
you can take to participate in this initiative.
>> for a sample letter to adapt and send to
your municipal officials.
>> to learn why now is the time to work for
a nuclear weapons free world.
>> to read the resolution.
>> Download and of the educational brochure (pdf).
For more information, see .
7) Report
on Vandenberg missile “defence” launch and protest by Jim Haber, Coordinator, Nevada Desert Experience and
Member of the War Resisters League National Committee
A small group of demonstrators were not allowed to stand
outside of Vanbenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in Lompoc, California
around 1 pm on Sunday, January 31. They came to voice opposition
to a U.S. test of part of an anti-ballistic missile system.
In the first test of its kind involving Vandenberg, an ICBM
launched from the Marshall Islands was aimed at southern California.
The Ground-Based Interceptor launched from VAFB, about 60
miles northwest of Santa Barbara, lifted off at around 3:45
pm, but it did not succeed in shooting down the target which
was launched six minutes earlier from the other end of the
Ronald Reagan Test Range. One of the “anti-testers”
required ambulance transport before processing after being
injured by the military police. No one crossed the line outside
of the main gate, and people were not allowed to stay, even
in the designated protest area.
8 of ll participants were arrested. First to be cited were
two people with existing “ban-and-bar” notices
from previous arrests and detainments. MacGregor Eddy of Salinas
and Dennis Apel of Santa Maria, were cited immediately, even
though they didn't cross onto base property, were in the designated
protest area and identified themselves as instructed.
The eight were cited for a “Violation of Security Regulation.”
Apel and Eddy were additionally cited for trespassing even
though they didn't cross the base's painted line. When asked
why she was given two tickets, Ms. Eddy was told by one of
the the arresting officers, “One is for showing up and
one is for being here.”
A woman in her 80s, Jude Evered of Goleta, CA was held on
the ground by two security guards with one soldier's knee
in her back. Her booking was interrupted because she had to
be taken to the hospital in an ambulance for a shoulder injury
she sustained after she was already in custody. Evered, is
with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
and is a frequent participant in weekly vigils there. She
was later released, unprocessed by authorities, nor had she
been escorted by police or Mps to the hospital. Dennis Apel
commented, “What they did to Bud (Boothe, another octogenarian
and longtime Vandenberg Action Coalition member from Los Olivos)
in November was also harsh.” At the time MPs spun Bud
around by his handcuffed arms, cutting him in three places.
Jorge Manly-Gil of Guadalupe, CA refused to give any information.
He was last known to be held at the Lompoc City Police holding
cell.
“They completely dismantled the demonstration,”
said long-time organizer MacGregor Eddy. She went onto reiterate
that the base was told well in advance of the demonstration
which was initially scheduled for January 21, as was the interceptor
test, both of which were grounded due to large southern California
storms at the time.
Anyone not arrested were given their own ban-and-bar letters
even though they were in compliance with base policy. The
question that no court has been able to hear, much less decide
is whether or not such notices can legally be applied outside
of the fenced area of the base. The reason is that the prosecutor
has never prosecuted any such cases for a court to decide.
For many years, the southern California ACLU has refused to
assist long-standing peace vigilers in the past. A lawyer
and legal observer was on site on Sunday, and there is renewed
determination for base protest policies and questions of jurisdiction
to be resolved in court, even if private attorneys need to
be retained and the southern California ACLU remains seemingly
indifferent to a clear violation of the First Ammendment rights
to speak and gather.
Since November, the new base commander has decided to require
I.D.s from demonstrators. No one else on the public side of
the “green line” is required to show anything.
Showing I.D.s on Sunday did not grant the ability to demonstrate,
but rather resulted in the issuance of ban-and-bar notices.
International opposition to U.S. missile tests is building,
whether they're testing ICBMs or interceptors. Demonstrators
were carrying letters of opposition to this test from six
different international organizations.
The following letter from the Director Jacqueline
Cabasso provides a concise summation of the issues being raised
by the demonstrators:
Western States Legal Foundation calls for cancellation
of the planned January 31 test launch of an interceptor
missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base at a simulated incoming
Iranian missile launched from the Marshall Islands.
The premise of this test is preposterous propaganda.
Iran does not have nuclear weapons, nor is there any convincing
evidence that it has an active nuclear weapons program.
The test will only serve to exacerbate tensions between
the U.S. and Iran.
Further, U.S. development of missile defenses endangers
prospects for deeper U.S. and Russian nuclear arms reductions
and threatens to scuttle agreement on a follow-on to the
START treaty. To add insult to injury, every U.S. test launch
from the Marshall Islands causes tremendous environmental
damage to surrounding land and water areas and compounds
the historical injustice to the indigenous Marshallese people.
This is not a launch by Iran aimed at California, but
rather a launch by the U.S. military- industrial complex
aimed at Congress and the February 2010 Defense budget rollout.
The U.S. should pursue diplomatic efforts to normalize
relations with Iran. This test should be cancelled and it’s
estimated $150 million price tag redirected to humanitarian
aid for Haiti.
8) US elite
push for increased nuclear weapon funding
In a in the Wall Street Journal, the
“four horsemen”—Schultz, Perry, Kissinger,
and Nunn (SPKN)—advocated for increased spending on
nuclear weapons. In addition, in , US Vice President Joe Biden
called for a boost of $5 billion for nuclear weapons over
the next five years, arguing, “Even in a time of tough
budget decisions, these are investments we must make for our
security.” And then on 1 February, the Obama administration
released its for FY2011. In it, the administration
requests $7.01 billion, a $626 million increase over FY2010.
In a , Reaching Critical Will pointed out that
the arguments made by the four horsemen, Biden, and the administration
at large are misleading. They ignore the fact that while the
US nuclear weapons budget has been reduced by about $1 billion
over the past five years, this over a decade (1995–2005)
of about $3 billion. They also assume that the United States
relies on, and will indefinitely continue to rely on, nuclear
weapons for its security. They does not explain whose security
nuclear weapons protect in the United States. Its citizens?
Or its technocratic elite—the same people who work at
the labs that SPKN and others who are part of that elite structure
so vigorously defend? “National security,” as
it is typically invoked in this sense, does not refer to the
well-being of the general population but of those managing
the military-industrial-academic complex.
Greg Mello of the argues that, if funded, the
Obama administration’s budget request “would have
dramatically negative effects on our national security. We
are entering a period where mistakes as this will have profound
consequences—as quickly as in the elections later this
year, which will not go well for the party in power without
far different funding priorities.” He further notes,
“This budget request is a complete surrender to Senate
Republicans. President George W. Bush never requested
such huge nuclear weapons spending. These huge spending
numbers are not motivated by national security. They
are motivated by an attempt to get a rather humdrum treaty—the
START follow-on, not yet completed—through the Senate. Whether
this political tribute will be sufficient remains to be seen.”
Darwin BondGraham, Will Parrish, and Nicholas Ian Robinson,
the authors of a on SPKN, have written
a new piece to be published in a forthcoming edition of Z.
They note:
The Hoover quartet’s very public, and very pro-nuclear
about-face has been strategically timed, just as their earlier
feel-good words in praise of disarmament were calculated
to elicit a specific political response from the military
establishment, Obama administration, and pesky anti-nuclear
and arms control organizations. For the latter their earlier
essays were mostly designed to outflank and neutralize groups
working to reduce spending on nuclear weapons.
The White House’s Nuclear Posture Review -the nation's
guiding framework on the role of nuclear weapons in its
overall military strategy- is now in the midst of being
drafted. Due for release in March, the document will affirm
the nuclear weapons complex's activities for the remainder
of Obama's term in office. Additionally there are three
major treaties concerning nuclear weapons currently being
negotiated, considered for ratification, or reviewed for
further implementation. Many disarmament-inclined government
officials and activists who are trying to shape a less militarized
and costly US nuclear weapons policy have mistakenly assumed
that the NPR document and arms control treaties will create
a policy trajectory to guide spending and infrastructure
costs in the nuclear weapons complex. Disarmament and demilitarization,
in other words, are thought of as occurring at the level
of presidential declaration and international diplomacy.
The reality of nuclear weapons policy formation is much
more complex and political, however. Rather than allowing
a neat policy process carried out at the executive level
to determine the future of the nuclear weapons complex,
forces with financial and political stakes in nuclear weaponry,
working through think tanks like Hoover, or corporate entities
like Bechtel and the University of California, are actively
attempting to lock in a de-facto set of policies by building
a new research, design, and production infrastructure that
will ensure nuclear weapons are a centerpiece of the US
military empire far into the future. Their ability to accomplish
this is dependent on the anti-nuclear nuclearist strategy
concocted by Shultz, Perry, Kissinger and Nunn. In turn,
this strategy is being ably served by naïve embraces
of disarmament rhetoric, as well as the illusion, strongly
held among arms controllers, disarmament activists, and
allies in foreign governments, that the future will ultimately
be shaped by what the Nuclear Posture Review says, and whether
negotiation of arms control and nonproliferation treaties
result in reducing arsenal counts.
Stay tuned to for the article.
9) Featured
News
American historian, playwright and social activist Howard
Zinn died 27 January 2010, aged 87.
In his most recent book, , Zinn
writes, “I am totally confident not that the world will
get better, but that we should not give up the game before
all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate;
life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of
winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility
of changing the world.” Providing inspiration for those
who might feel burnt out, resigned, cynical, or socially disengaged,
he goes on to explain:
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will
determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys
our capacity to do something. If we remember those times
and places—and there are so many—where people
have behaved magnificently, it energizes us to act, and
raises at least the possibility of sending this spinning
top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act,
in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand
utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of
presents, and to live now as we think human beings should
live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself
a marvelous victory.
Pax Christi Britain and France speak out against nukes
In a joint statement issued 22 January 2010, Pax Christi in
Britain and France affirmed that the nuclear weapons held
by both countries ought to be abolished as soon as possible.
A readiness by Britain and France to renounce their own weapons
would constitute a major boost to the success of the Review
Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. For more
information, see .
Japanese foreign minister called for stronger negative
security assurances
On 29 January 2010, Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada
made his Foreign Policy Speech to the Diet session. In the
part of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, he focused
on stronger negative security assurance and “sole purpose”:
I find worthy of attention such ideas as prohibiting the
use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states,
or making deterring others from using such weapons as a
sole purpose of retaining nuclear weapons, as the concrete
means to take a first step toward the “world without
nuclear weapons.” This government will deepen discussions
with countries such as Australia and the United States on
these and other issues.
10) Recommended
Reading
Howard Zinn, “,” excerpt from A
Power Governments Cannot Suppress.
Zia Mian, “,” Huffington
Post, 7 January 2010.
Alexander Glaser, Zia Mian, and Frank N. von Hippel, “,”
Scientific American, 13 January 2010.
15 January 2010
Dear Reaching Critical Will friends and advisors:
Happy new year! 2010 is anticipated to be an important year
for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. With the NPT
Review Conference, the US Nuclear Posture Review, and possible
arsenal reductions from the US and Russia, it does seem like
there are plenty of opportunities for progress. But we need
to turn up the pressure to make sure these openings are fully
utilized—because right now, concrete disarmament is
not truly on the agenda of any of these upcoming events.
To do its part, Reaching Critical Will continues to function
as NGO liaison with the United Nations in preparation for
the NPT
Review Conference in May. We will be providing information
as soon as it is available on how you can get accredited to
the Conference. We already have lots of information on how
you can get involved; please make sure to check out our online
Calendar
of Side Events and reserve space now if you want to hold
an event.
There are many other ways to get involved with the NPT; see
below for details about different walks, rallies, and conferences
that will meet in the lead-up to the Review Conference.
Reaching Critical Will will also very soon be releasing a
publication focusing on the challenges of disarmament and
non-proliferation in the context of the NPT Review Conference
and beyond. Please check in with the next E-News for details!
We hope this publication will help provide a critical guide
to some of the most important issues that governments and
civil society need to confront in order to move beyond the
current state of play to a more just and equitable international
framework for disarmament.
In addition, RCW would like to welcome back Beatrice Finh,
who will be working in the WILPF Geneva office to ensure that
RCW is able to cover the Conference
on Disarmament and other relevant meetings in the lead-up
to the Review Conference. Beatrice was the WILPF International
disarmament intern in 2006 and now rejoins us as RCW Project
Associate. You can contact her at beatrice[at]reachingcriticalwill.org.
Welcome to a new year; may be it full of peace, justice,
and disarmament.
In peace,
Ray Acheson, Project Director
1) Conference
on Disarmament 2010
As in previous years, Reaching Critical Will will be monitoring,
reporting on, and providing materials from this year’s
Conference
on Disarmament (CD) session in Geneva. The CD will meet
in three parts: 18 January–26 March; 31 May–16
July; and 9 August–24 September. During 2010, the rotating
presidency of the Conference will be held by Bangladesh, Belarus,
Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, and Cameroon.
You can subscribe
to receive the CD Reports electronically, which provide timely
and analytical reporting on every plenary meeting of the Conference.
They will also be archived
regularly on the RCW site. The first plenary meeting will
be held on Tuesday, 19 January 2010.
Check out the newest edition of RCW’s Guide to the
CD in PDF
and HTML,
an advocacy and learning tool for everyone. In it, you can
find a history of the CD, learn about the items on its agenda,
a summary of the major issues, an overview of the current
political context, and much more.
2) Walk for
nuclear abolition
Activists are organising several marches and walks in the
lead-up to and the aftermath of the 2010 NPT Review Conference—in
Australia, Scotland, and in the United States, from Tennessee
to New York City, and from Washington, DC to New York City.
See below for details on all of these walks.
Tennessee to NYC
From 11 February–1 May 2010, FootPrints for Peace is
leading a walk from the Y12 Nuclear Research Facility in Oakridge,
Tennessee to the UN building in New York City in time for
the NPT Review Conference. Their is
aimed to raise awareness about alternative energy and sustainable
lifestyles while exposing the deadly effects of the nuclear
industry. This will be an open walk accessible to all and
focused on creating a family friendly atmosphere. Participants
will walk for about 15 miles per day and are encouraged to
bring music, banners, and good humour. For more information,
please contact Marcus Atkinson at marcus[at]footprintsforpeace.net
or nptwalk[at]footprintsforpeace.net.
DC to NYC
From 8–29 April 2010, activists from around the world
will walk from Washington DC to New York City to support the
United Nations and the great majority of global citizens who
want Earth to know “the peace of a world without nuclear
weapons,” by working towards a solution at the 2010
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference at
the UN in May 2010. The walk will depart Washington, DC on
8 April 2010 and will proceed for about 15 miles each day
(some days more, some less). Participants will meet, eat,
and stay with supportive groups and individuals in cities
and towns along the way, covering about 250 miles in 21 days.
The organisers, Jay Marx and Ethan Genauer of the , write:
We want to include many groups in this issue-based coalition.
Students and youth, Seniors, Artists and Entertainers, Academics,
Caregivers, Lovers of Peace and Justice, the Environment,
Wisdom and Sanity—nuclear weapons are bad for ALL
of us, and we hope you all will support or even walk with
us, whether for a mile, a hundred yards, even a few steps.
For more information, please contact the organisers by phone
at +1.202.682.4282, or by email at marxjay[at]gmail.com.
Also see their
for details, including an .
Brisbane to Canberra, Australia
FootPrints for Peace is also organising a solidarity from February to
May 2010. The organiser, June Norman, is seeking assistance
in setting up logistics for the walk; please contact her at
footprintsforpeace[at]yahoo.com.au
for details.
Gretna to Edinburgh, Scotland
From 31 July–29 August 2010, FootPrints for Peace is
organising .
Route information is already available; for more information
please contact scotlandspeacewalk@yahoo.co.uk.
3) Voices
of Hibakusha
Akihiko Ito, a Hibakusha from Nagasaki, recorded the accounts
of 1350 Hibakusha before his death in March 2009. Of the 17
English accounts left by Ito, nine have been edited and uploaded
on a website called ,
as well as on YouTube. By opening the discs on this website,
you will be able to listen to Hibakusha testifying their experience
in Japanese at the same time as reading an English
translation. The Japanese script is also shown.
According to an , Ito started using
a digital camera to record Hibakusha accounts when he was
70. By the time he died, he had collected digital interviews
from 349 people. But none of these accounts had been released
to the public. After Ito’s death, Yoshihisa Furukawa,
a 55-year-old copywriter who is a son of a Hibakusha, and
Toshinori Namba, 43, who heads a video production company,
worked to finish what Ito had started. Furukawa and Namba
say the enormous number of tapes and videos Ito left behind
are a great legacy for human beings. They said they want to
continue Ito’s work to make them all public.
4) Petition
against naval base on Jeju Island, South Korea
The South Korean government plans to build a Navy base in
the Gangjeong village on Jeju Island, where pristine coral
reefs, fishing, and tangerine groves are now integral to the
people’s way of life. Bruce Gagnon of the in
Space reports:
The base construction is soon set to begin in Gangjeong.
The villagers are currently setting up a tent camp along
the rocky shore line where the Navy intends to pour concrete
to cover the rocks and tiny marine life to make their wharfs
where the Aegis destroyers will be homeported. The ships,
from the South Korean and US fleets, are outfitted with
“missile defense” systems and will surely be
used to continue surrounding China’s coastal region.
Jeju Island, now called the peace island, will thus become
a prime military target.
For more details about the local resistance to the naval
base, see Bruce’s reports from and .
The Global Network is compiling a list of organisations and
concerned individuals from around the world who wish to voice
their protest with the US and South Korean governments about
the naval base. If you would like to be listed on this letter,
please send your name, group name, and city/state or country
to globalnet[at]mindspring.com.
5) ARMS DOWN!
Campaign for Shared Security
Religions for Peace, the world’s largest and most representative
global coalition, is pleased to announce that its Global Youth
Network is advancing disarmament in the year-long ARMS DOWN!
Campaign for Shared Security.
Religions for Peace youth call on the world’s religious
believers and all people of goodwill to:
1. Abolish nuclear weapons.
2. Stop the proliferation and misuse of conventional weapons.
3. Redirect 10 percent of military expenditure to achieve
the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.
You can learn more about the ARMS DOWN! campaign and its
recent launch in a global youth summit in Costa Rica on their
.
You can also sign the
asking governments to make an official pledge to cut their
military budgets by 10 percent and to re-allocate those funds
toward development. In Phase I of the petition initiative,
youth want to gather 100,000 signatures.
6) New film
about space weaponization
In autumn 2009, a new film called Pax Americana and the Weaponization
of Space opened at film festivals in Montreal and Amsterdam.
You can view the
online. The film, created by French-Canadian Denis Delestrac,
is a two-hour documentary that includes interviews with many
space warfare advocates as well as many in the keep space
for peace movement.
7) Upcoming
Events
NYC organizing meeting for the International Day of Action
28 January 2010
New York City, USA
On January 28 at 7 PM, Jonathan Schell of The Nation will
discuss how the grassroots peace movement can halt the drift
towards nuclear anarchy and threat of nuclear terrorism. He
will help kick off NYC organizing for the International
Day of Action on May 2, 2010 for “Peace and Human Needs:
Nuclear Disarmament Now!”
As the United Nations Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference
begins on May 2, people from all over the world are coming
to march in Midtown to call for Peace and Human Needs: Nuclear
Disarmament Now!
Come to the NYC planning meeting:
January 28, Thursday 7:00–8:30 PM
All Souls Church - Reidy Friendship Hall
1157 Lexington Ave (between East 79 & 80 Streets) Manhattan
International Conference on Achieving a Nuclear Weapons
and Missile Defence Free Asia
9–12 October 2010
Nagpur, India
Programme:
October 9, 2010
11.00-12.00 Registration
12.00-13 00 Lunch
13.00-14.00 Welcome and Introduction
14.00-17.00 Plenary Session I: Can Humanity
Survive?
- Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Climate Change and the role of Space Technologies
- Outcome of Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Committee
- StratCom, Space Domination and Global Control
- Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS)
- Climate Change,Violence and Political Control
17.00-18.00 Cultural Programme
18.00-20.00 Plenary Session II: Problems and Prospects
of Nuclear Disarmament in Asia
- India, Pakistan and the NPT
- India Conflict with Pakistan (including Kashmir)
- India Conflict with China
- India-US Nuclear Deal
- South Korean and Japanese perspectives
October 10, 2010
09.00-11.00 Plenary Session III: The Danger of
Missile Defence and Weaponisation of Space in Asia
- Indian Space Programme
- India and Missile Defence
- Drones in Pakistan
11.00-13.00 Plenary Session IV: Asia and Terrorism -
The War In Afghanistan and the role of NATO
13.00 Lunch
15.00-17.00 Plenary Session V: Prospects of Asian Union
- Perspectives from around Asia
16.00-18.00 Adoption of Nagpur Declaration
20.00 Dinner
October 11, 2010
09.00-11.00 Global Network Annual Meeting and Strategy Discussion
11.00-12.00 Interaction with Youth Groups
12.00-14.00 Visits and presentations at Educational Institutions
14.00 Lunch
16.00-18.00 Sight seeing
October 12, 2010
Visit to Sewagram Ashram where Mahatma Gandhi spent time
during the freedom struggle of India. The ashram served
as the headquarters of Mahatma Gandhi for six years, from
1934 to 1940. Gandhi built the Sewagram Ashram himself, with
the material that was available locally. He lived at the ashram,
amidst lush green surroundings, without any facilities of
electricity and telephone.
If you have interest in attending this international space
organizing conference please let us know as soon as possible
so we can pre-arrange for housing, Visa's, transportation and
other important tasks. This will be an exceptional life
changing experience for all of us.
Contact:
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502 globalnet[at]mindspring.com
Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP)
Tenth Anniversary Event
9–12 December 2010
Delhi, India
Tentative Programme:
09 12 10: Mass Action / March (International Human Rights
day Eve)
10 12 10: International Conference
Morning Plenary: Global and
Regional Nuclear Disarmament
Afternoon Plenary: Against
War and Militarisation in West/Central/South Asia
Evening: Cultural Fest.
11 -12 12 10: National Conference / Plenaries and Parallel
Workshops
Films / Cultural Programmes
on 11th Evening
Nuclear Posture Review delayed until March
The Obama administration will not unveil the results of its
major review of nuclear weapon forces, strategy, and readiness
until 1 March, according to a senior Defense Department official.
Initially anticipated for release in December 2009, the Pentagon
indicated that it is delaying the release of the report “because
of the complexity of the issues being discussed.” A
former Pentagon policy official from George W. Bush’s
administration argued that this nuclear posture review “is
more acute this time because previous NPRs did not start from
the premise that the very weapons on which nuclear deterrence
has relied should be eliminated.” (Elaine M. Grossman,
“,”
Global Security Newswire, 6 January 2010.)
The LA Times reported that the delay has primarily been caused
by “President Obama’s ambitious plan to begin
phasing out nuclear weapons,” which has “run up
against powerful resistance from officials in the Pentagon
and other U.S. Agencies.” The article explains:
Officials in the Pentagon and elsewhere have pushed back
against Obama administration proposals to cut the number
of weapons and narrow their mission, according to U.S. officials
and outsiders who have been briefed on the process. In turn,
White House officials, unhappy with early Pentagon-led drafts
of the blueprint known as the Nuclear Posture Review, have
stepped up their involvement in the deliberations and ordered
that the document reflect Obama's preference for sweeping
change, according to the U.S. officials and others. ...
The Pentagon has stressed the importance of continued U.S.
deterrence, an objective Obama has said he agrees with.
But a senior Defense official acknowledged in an interview
that some officials are concerned that the administration
may be going too far. He described the debate as “spirited.
... I think we have every possible point of view in the
world represented.” (Paul Richter, “,”
LA Times, 4 January 2010.)
US budget will include funding for “refurbishing”
nuclear weapons
As noted by DefenseNews, “A reliable replacement for
the now-dead Reliable Replacement Warhead program will be
funded in U.S. President Barack Obama’s proposed 2011
budget.” Ellen Tauscher, undersecretary of state for
arms control and international security, said the budget Obama
plans to send to Congress on 2 February includes “very
crucial investment” in the Stockpile Management program,
which she explained will do what RRW was supposed to do. According
to Tauscher, the Stockpile Management program will permit
the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to “refurbish”
aging nuclear warheads to ensure that they “still work
and are safe,”during which features could be added to
the warheads to make them theft-proof and more environmentally
friendly. She argued that the warheads cannot be “improved”
as envisioned by RRW, which she believes will be acceptable
to the international community. It is the administration’s
plan to indefinitely maintain the nuclear stockpile, investing
heavily in relevant components, infrastructure, and personnel,
apparently “without causing people to be concerned about
what we are doing.” (William Matthews, “,”
DefenseNews, 13 January 2010.)
Survivor of two atomic bombs dies at 93
Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only official survivor of both atomic
bombs dropped on Japan by the United States, died 4 January
2010 of stomach cancer. Mr. Yamaguchi was on a business trip
in Hiroshima when the United States dropped the first atomic
bomb on the morning of 6 August 1945. He was getting off a
streetcar when the “Little Boy” device detonated
above Hiroshima. Mr. Yamaguchi said he was less than 2 miles
away from ground zero. His eardrums were ruptured and his
upper torso was burned by the blast. Mr. Yamaguchi spent the
night in a Hiroshima bomb shelter and returned to his hometown
of Nagasaki the following day, according to interviews he
gave over the years. The second bomb, known as “Fat
Man,” was dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August. Mr. Yamaguchi
was in his Nagasaki office, telling his boss about the Hiroshima
blast, when “suddenly the same white light filled the
room,” he said in an interview last March with The Independent
newspaper. “I thought the mushroom cloud had followed
me from Hiroshima,” he said. In his later years, Mr.
Yamaguchi began to speak out about the scourge of atomic weapons.
He rarely gave interviews, but he wrote a memoir and was part
of a 2006 documentary film about the double-bombing victims.
He called for the abolition of nuclear weapons at a showing
of the film at the United Nations that year. (Mark McDonald,
“,”
New York Times, 6 January 2010.)
Missile “defence” blocking nuclear disarmament
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in December 2009
that US plans for a missile “defence” system were
the main obstacle to reaching a new deal to replace the 1991
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Asked by a reporter
what the biggest problem was in the talks, Putin said, “What
is the problem? The problem is that our American partners
are building an anti-missile shield and we are not building
one.” Putin said the US plans would fundamentally disrupt
the Cold War balance of power and Russia would thus be forced
to develop new offensive weapons. (Gleb Bryanski, “,”
Reuters, 29 December 2009.)
Russia planning nuclear weapon modernisation
President Dmitry Medvedev has stated on Russian national television
that the country will continue to develop its own strategic
offensive nuclear weapons even after signing an arms reduction
agreement with the United States. “Even after we prepare
and sign this treaty, we will still continue to develop our
strategic offensive forces because without them we cannot
defend our country,” Medvedev said. “We will continue
developing new systems, including delivery vehicles. That
is normal. The rest of the world is doing it,” the president
continued. (“,”
novinite.com, 24 December 2009.)
9) Recommended
Reading
Dr. John Burroughs, (pdf), briefing Paper for the Atlanta
Consultation III: Fulfilling the NPT, 21–22 January
2010.
