Reaching Critical Will

Critical Issues in Disarmament and Non-Proliferation
Fact Sheets, Backgrounders, and Research Projects

Article 26 of the UN Charter
Article 26 gives the Security Council and the Military Staff Committee the responsibility for creating a plan for regulating armaments and reducing military expenditures. On 19 November 2008, Costa Rica called an open debate in the Security Council to revitalize this neglected instrument. Find out more with RCW's background information and information on the debate.

Biological Weapons
Biological warfare is the deliberate spreading of disease amongst humans, animals, and plants. When compared to the cost of a nuclear weapons program, biological weapons are extremely cheap, though sophisticated weapons are slightly more difficult to develop and produce.

Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
The Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons was established as an independent commission by the then Australian Government in November 1995 to propose practical steps towards a nuclear weapon free world including the related problem of maintaining stability and security during the transitional period and after this goal is achieved.

Chemical Weapons
About 70 different chemicals have been used or stockpiled as Chemical Weapons (CW) agents during the 20th century. These chemicals are in liquid, gas or solid form and blister, choke and affect the nerves or blood.

Corporate Connections: The Military-Industrial Complex
RCW's Dirty Dozen project exposes the corporate influence on the perpetuation of the nuclear and aerospace industries.

Cluster Munitions
Cluster bombs are weapons that consist of one carrier container filled with separate bomblets. A cluster bomb can contain anywhere from 9 to several hundred bomblets. When dropped, the bomb is designed to open mid-air and distribute the bomblets so that they, on impact, will explode and affect an area that can be as wide as several football fields. Cluster bombs are neither accurate nor reliable. Bomblets often malfunction, and fail to explode on impact. In stead, they lay in wait, like a landmine, until some unsuspecting person disturbs it. Unexploded cluster munitions continue to kill for decades after conflicts are over. 98 percent of their victims are civilians.

Depleted Uranium
Depleted Uranium (DU) is a byproduct of the enrichment of naturally occuring uranium for use in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Despite the name "depleted", DU retains 60% of the radioactivity of natural uranium. Reports indicated that DU has been used repeatedly recent wars including the Gulf War, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and in the most recent Iraq war, the latter in reportedly unprecedented quantities.

Disarmament and Development
Most states and international bodies have recognized the relationship between disarmament and development: decreasing alarmingly high worldwide military expenditures and reallocating the resources to development would help increase development and security.

Disarmament Education
Teaching people about disarmament and non-proliferation, and letting them know that there is a choice other than violence to resolve conflict, is one step along the path called Permanent Peace.

Environment and the Nuclear Age
The environmental damage resulting from nuclear technology is not limited to the two largest nuclear weapons states. All nuclear weapons and nuclear energy producing nations have caused some level of environmental contamination, both in their own countries and abroad - such as, nuclear testing in the South Pacific, Nevada, Kazakhstan, China, India and Pakistan; water and airborne discharges from reprocessing plants in the UK and France; and uranium mining in Namibia, Canada, former East Germany and Australia. Moreover, the ongoing production of both nuclear weapons and nuclear power continues to create nuclear waste. Any long-term approach to ‘clean-up’ must be tied to a halt in the production of nuclear weapons, weapons usable materials and nuclear power.

Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty (FMCT)
The continued production and existing stocks of fissile materials pose a major a threat to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. The creation of a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty could curb the development and spread of nuclear weapons.

Gender and Disarmament
Disarmament and gender equality "are global public goods whose benefits are shared by all and monopolized by no one. In the UN system, both are cross-cutting issues, for what office or department of the United Nations does not stand to gain by progress in gender equality or disarmament? When women move forward, and when disarmament moves forward, the world moves forward. Unfortunately, the same applies in reverse: setbacks in these areas impose costs for all." -Jayantha Dhanapala, Under Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, November 8, 2002.

Health Effects of the Nuclear Age
Populations and individuals around the world have been affected by the increase of radioactive materials in the global ecosystem. Cancers, birth defects, genetic damage, lowered immunity to diseases: these are only some of the potential effects of nuclear testing, uranium mining, radioactive waste burial, and all the phases of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy production.

Indigenous People and the Nuclear Age
Of the eight nations in the world that have detonated nuclear weapons during the last 55 years, five have used the sacred land of indigenous peoples. The United States, Russia, Britain, France and China have ‘tested’ their nuclear might on lands held sacred by the people of First Nations. The Western Shoshone nation of North America, the Marshall and other South Pacific Islanders, Australian Aboriginals, the Kazakhs, and Tibetans are but a few of those whose land has been consistently contaminated with nuclear poison.

International Court of Justice (ICJ)
The ICJ has a dual role: to settle in accordance with international law the legal disputes submitted to it by States, and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by duly authorized international organs and agencies. In its 1996 advisory opinion on nuclear weapons, the ICJ affirmed that under humanitarian law governing the conduct of
warfare, states "must never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets." The Court holds the threat or use of nuclear weapons to be generally illegal under humanitarian and other law. (Also see our fact sheet on International Law and the Nuclear Age, prepared by the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy.)

Iran's nuclear programme
The United States has accused Iran of developing a nuclear weapons programme under the guise of a peaceful nuclear energy programme, and the Security Council has repeatedly sanctioned the Iranian government in response, despite the International Atomic Energy Agency's findings of the contrary.

Landmines
These weapons are indiscriminate, inhumane, and prolific - they have killed hundreds of thousands of people over the past decades. They are a disaster for development, as they deprive people of access to land and infrastructure in many of the poorest nations of the world. (Also see the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and the AP Mine Ban Convention Implementation Support Unit.)

Missiles
These unmanned delivery systems are capable of carrying hefty payloads vast distances, and of delivering weapons of mass destruction - yet are virtually ignored by most disarmament activists and diplomats. With the US pushing for ballistic missile defense, missiles are a very important subject to the international disarmament community.

Military Spending
In 2007, global military expenditures reached over 1.3 trillion US dollars. Learn more about military spending through resources that explore various aspects of development, economic justice, and the military-industrial complex produced by Reaching Critical Will, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, or other non-government organizations.

Military-Industrial Complex
Exposing the corporate influence on the perpetuation of the nuclear and aerospace industries.

Negative Security Assurances (NSAs) - New!
NSAs are important to non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) as guarantees from nuclear weapon states (NWS) that they will not be attacked with nuclear weapons.

Non-Strategic (Tactical) Nuclear Weapons (NSNW)
While lower-yield and shorter-range, NSNWs are more portable and diverse than Strategic Nuclear Weapons. The main problem: they are not currently covered by any arms control treaty.

North Korea's nuclear programme
Since 1994, the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) has vacillated between agreeing to halt all nuclear weapons development in exchange for energy assistance and development aid, and continuing to move forward with its nuclear weapons programme. Six-party talks including Japan, China, the United States, Russia, and the two Koreas have resulted in numerous agreements without much tangible progress, though a deal reached in February 2007 has resulted in recent progress in dismantling North Korea's main nuclear reactor.

Nuclear Energy
While providing a somewhat environmentally-friendlier alternative to oil and coal as a source of energy, nuclear energy produces a lot of waste that can be damaging to the environment and human beings and can be used in warfare (see depleted uranium), is extremly dangerous (ie. Chernobyl), and the technology needed to produce nuclear energy can be used, with technical expertise, to produce nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Fuel Cycle
An overview of how fissile material is produced, and links to analysis of some of the pressing issues facing the nuclear industry - and disarmament advocates - today.

Nuclear Weapon Free Zones (NWFZ) - New!
NWFZs establish militarily denuclearized zones in an effort to maintain peace and security in the respective region as an "international precursory seed of the process of wiping out nuclear weapons from the earth."

Nuclear Weapons Convention
This model convention demonstrates the feasibility of the elimination of nuclear weapons, and encourages governments to engage in nuclear disarmament negotiations. It also serves to educate the public about progress towards nuclear disarmament, and makes tangible the dream of many activists, scientists, academics, and governments.

Nuclear Terrorism
As long as nuclear materials exist, the possibility of terrorist acquiring those materials and using them will exist. This page outlines the background, international conventions and collaborations, key issues, challenges, opportunities - and likelihood - of nuclear terrorism.

Outer Space: Militarization, weaponization, and prevention of an arms race
The potential weaponization of space threatens to result in a multi-billion dollar race for destruction. A war in space would affect the entire planet's ability to function. While most of the world is working to prevent an arms race in outer space, the US pushes further toward the weaponization of space every day, threatening the well-being of the international community and its own citizens.

Security Council Resolution 1540
This resolution, adopted 28 April 2004, is the strongest condemnation of and action on the proliferation of WMD by non-state actors to date.

Secrecy in the Nuclear Age
he nuclear age began in a shroud of secrecy that was the Manhattan Project. It comprised three facilities in three different states. The primary site, Los Alamos in New Mexico, was established in 1942 with no reference on a map, no post office, no publicity. Although its physical presence was unknown, it was here that a team of international scientists, supervised by General Leslie Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers, worked to develop the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change
In his assessment of threats to international peace and security, Kofi Annan recognized "the biggest security threats we face now extend to the spread and possible use of nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological weapons."

Space Weapons Technology
An index of space weapons technology in various stages of development around the world.

Spiritual Perspectives and the Nuclear Age
There are many spiritual perspectives that challenge or help people to cope with living in a world where nuclear weapons threaten all life on the planet. The following draws on Christian and Buddhist attempts to grapple with the 21st century conundrum of how to remain engaged against the impossible odds of the nuclear age. As General Omar Bradley stated, "We live in an age of nuclear giants and ethical infants, in a world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. We have solved the mystery of the atom and forgotten the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about dying than we know about living".

US-India Deal
On 18 July 2005, US President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reached agreement on a plan for civilian nuclear energy and outer space cooperation that represents a step backwards for non-proliferation and disarmament by allowing undermining the NPT, violating the spirit and letter of international law and multilateral agreements and organizations, and increasing international mistrust and geopolitical tensions.