Societal Verification

Societal verification refers to the idea that an agreement or treaty made by authorities in a given society is truthful when it comports with methods by which these people live and with observations they make in that society. A nuclear disarmament treaty can be verified when societal practice openly mirrors the present public desire and legal obligation for nuclear disarmament.

US society poses special opportunities and problems for nuclear disarmament. The vast majority of US citizens want nuclear disarmament and the economy is ripe for a systematic transition away from the nuclear system. But some individuals and corporations covet the vast and inertial power from Cold War institutions and the "might makes right" world view. These institutions also reflect how deeply all aspects of the nuclear cycle from uranium mining through nuclear weapons, power, and waste are embedded in US society. Further, more information about the health and environmental impacts and costs of this system remains largely inaccessible and inadequately documented, shielding those who profit in the short term from the real costs of harms.

First-hand accounts of these impacts are central to understanding how the nuclear system actually works and sustains itself. Testimony such as that collected in This is My Homeland: Stories of the effects of nuclear industries by people of Serpent River First Nation and the north shore of Lake Huron (Rekmans, Lewis, and Dwyer, eds, Serpent River First Nation, Cutler, Ontario 1999), unmasks the corporate and governmental decimation of health, environment and culture with radioactive and chemically toxic substances. There, as elsewhere, these ongoing wrongs and dangers have been inflicted on uranium miners, workers, residents, downwinders, future generations and members of the armed services, and on the societies in which they function.

The unmasking of these wrongs clears the way to redressing them. We can now identify certain corporations and governmental agencies that have acted in cahoots and in ways we can clearly define as noxious and unacceptable. These activities include: 1) wanton, intentional, or grossly negligent environmental destruction, including the production and distribution of radioactive and chemically toxic waste; 2) unjust, unsafe labor practices; 3) intentional or grossly negligent harm to health, including experimentation; 4) trading in, profiting from, or producing inherently ultrahazardous commodities, such as uranium, thorium, plutonium; and/or 5) purposeful destruction of cultures or ways of life.

Essential changes in US society will occur when we devise forums including suits, hearings, and actions that make corporate heads, bureaucrats, and their corporations and agencies accountable. The Model Nuclear Weapons Convention thus presents part of a larger picture in which nuclear weapons no longer exist. Nuclear disarmament will be verifiable in US society when we:

1. Declare (i.e., map and quantify) all nuclear sites from all aspects of the nuclear cycle and all corporations and agencies involved in particular activities which maintain and justify each particular part of the nuclear system.
2. Demand an end to public subsidies for and contributions from corporations doing business in weapons (including nuclear weapons), or nuclear power, with environmentally damaging activities, or with unfair, unjust unsafe labor practices. (In this vein we can enact local and state divestiture and selective purchasing acts from such corporations, end the Price-Anderson Act, which caps insurance liability for nuclear power accidents, and eliminate the Feres Doctrine and Warner amendments, which prevent radiation victims from claims under the federal Tort Claims Act.)
3. Redress and remediate harms and dangers inflicted by all aspects of the nuclear system including concerted actions against major international offenders.

These actions define the kinds of changes needed in US society to expedite the inevitable process of nuclear disarmament.

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