Uppsala Declaration on Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones

A decade after the end of the Cold War, the world faces a stark choice: achieve the complete abolition of nuclear weapons, or face a second Nuclear Age with new generations of even more horrifying nuclear and other high-tech weapons.

We believe there is an urgent moral, political, legal, and security imperative to abolish these weapons, and build a strong momentum towards complete global nuclear disarmament. This is a precondition for human and environmental security.

Therefore, more than 50 scholars, peace activists, diplomats, and experts from six continents met on September 1-4, 2000, at Uppsala in Sweden. The conference, convened by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, the Transnational Institute, Peace Depot, Gensuikin (Japan Congress Against A- & H-Bombs), and INESAP (International Network of Engineers & Scientists Against Proliferation), discussed the feasibility of establishing Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZs) across the world.

The dramatic threat of a new Nuclear Age highlights the urgent need for comprehensive nuclear disarmament and rapid destruction of the arsenals of all nuclear weapon states. It also calls for incremental measures towards these goals. These include a nuclear test ban, a missile flight test ban, separation of warheads from missiles, a ban on the production of fissile materials used for making nuclear weapons and appropriate disposal or safeguarding of the accumulated stockpiles of such material.

Crucial among these transitional measures are Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones. These would ban the manufacture, deployment, and transit of nuclear weapons in specific regions, and demand of nuclear armed states that the zones not be threatened or attacked with nuclear weapons. This would help make it possible to permanently fold the nuclear umbrella, the so-called nuclear protection that nuclear weapon states offer non-nuclear allies.

Such zones already exist in Latin America, the South Pacific, Africa, and Southeast Asia. They have prevented nuclear proliferation in those areas. A new zone is currently being negotiated in Central Asia. Several regions continue to face severe nuclear dangers, a challenge exacerbated by menacing attempts to build both National and Theatre Missile Defence systems. These regions include Northeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Europe. The creation of NWFZs here would not only limit proliferation but support active nuclear disarmament with the dismantling of overt and clandestine nuclear weapons and fissile stocks and rolling back existing nuclear programmes. Such extension of NWFZs to the Northern hemisphere will enhance collective security and strengthen efforts to completely eliminate nuclear weapons.

An NWFZ treaty in Northeast Asia would effectively address security concerns in Japan and the Korean peninsula. A South Asian NWFZ would prevent India and Pakistan from making or deploying nuclear weapons in this volatile region, where the danger of a nuclear exchange is today the greatest anywhere in the world. In the Middle East, the establishment of a zone free of Israel’s nuclear weapons, and all other weapons of mass destruction in the region, represents a key component of regional security. In Central and Eastern Europe an NWFZ would defend the post-Cold War peace gains now threatened by NATO expansion as well as facilitate withdrawal of remaining tactical nuclear weapons.

There are no technological obstacles to effective verification of NWFZ agreements. Establishing such zones requires political will, organisation, and mobilisation. We hereby commit ourselves to:

• Creating a Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Network to coordinate efforts in support of new and existing zones, including actively advocating the creation of NWFZs in Central Asia, Northeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Europe.
• Public education on the horrors of nuclear weapons, the urgency of nuclear disarmament, and the value of NWFZs.
• Supporting the Latin American proposal to the United Nations General Assembly for an international conference of all parties to the Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones.
• Strengthening the existing zones and demanding strict adherence to the treaty provisions by the nuclear weapon states.
• Engaging policy-makers and parliamentarians worldwide in support of NWFZs.
• Supporting single-country nuclear-weapon-free zones.
• Supporting nuclear-free cities, provinces, and other areas governed by local authorities.
• Opposing Theatre and National Missile Defence systems as an integral part of our opposition to nuclear weapons.
• Working to defend nuclear whistle-blowers, such as Mordechai Vanunu, now entering his 15th year of imprisonment for having revealed Israel’s nuclear arsenal; we demand his immediate release.

Peoples and governments everywhere, as well as the United Nations, have a contribution to make to the creation and expansion of nuclear-weapon-free zones. We urge others to join us in mobilising energies and resources towards achieving the noble goal of global nuclear disarmament.

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