NPT News in Review, Vol. 19, No. 3

Editorial: Victory at Jabiluka Shows the Possibility of Abolition
28 July 2024

By Ray Acheson

In another historic victory for antinuclear organising in Australia, no uranium mining will take place at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory (NT). The fight to protect Jabiluka from uranium mining has been ongoing for decades, led by the Mirarr Traditional Owners with support from antinuclear, environmental, and Land Back organisations from across Australia. On Friday, 26 July 2024 the NT Mines Minister, acting on the advice of the federal government, decided not to extend the Jabiluka mining lease. This means that once the current lease expires on 11 August, Jabikula will be forever free from the threat of mining, and the government will work with the Mirarr to incorporate Jabiluka into Kakadu National Park.

This amazing news comes after decades of struggle to prevent mining at Jabiluka. The Jabiluka uranium deposit is surrounded by the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park, on the lands of the Mirarr people. In the 1990s, the Mirarr led a successful campaign to stop mining at Jabiluka, drawing in local and national environmental groups and international organisations like UNESCO. In 1998, over 5000 people took part in a non-violent direct action blockade at Jabiluka. The mining company back then agreed not to develop Jabiluka without the Mirarr’s specific consent, but the lease remained open. Now, the area will be forever protected.

“We have always said no to this mine, government and mining companies told us they would mine it but we stayed strong and said no. Today I feel very happy that Jabiluka will be safe forever. Protecting country is very important for my family and for me,” said Mirarr Senior Traditional Owner Yvonne Margarula in response to the decision.

Beyond sharing this incredible news, the reason to bring attention to the victory of the Mirarr people and the protection of Jabiluka from the threat of uranium mining is to expand NPT PrepCom participants’ thinking about nuclear risks and threats and about the humanitarian and environmental impacts of nuclear weapons. Many delegations raised these topics during Cluster One discussions on nuclear disarmament this past week, but whenever these issues are considered in multilateral forums, they rarely address the rest of the nuclear fuel chain, such as uranium mining, fuel reprocessing, manufacturing warheads and delivery systems, deployment, and radioactive waste. But each of these elements involves risks and harms to humans, animals, land, and water.

These elements must also be taken into account when assessing the risks of nuclear weapons—not just risks of their detonation, which would be catastrophic, but also of their development. There are gendered harms at uranium extraction sites, such as inequalities among workers, gender-based violence toward local communities, and discriminatory health impacts from toxic radioactive materials. There are racialised harms from the contamination caused by fuel reprocessing or bomb production, as has been seen at Hanford and Los Alamos, among others. There are also colonial harms from the imposition of radioactive waste storage primarily on Indigenous lands—which is also where uranium deposits are primarily mined. Each stage of the nuclear fuel cycle contains inherent risks of radioactive contamination, theft or loss of nuclear materials, accidents at facilities and labs, and more. These risks are primarily borne by poor communities of colour, by First Nations, and by other marginalised groups.

By not considering any of this in NPT discussions, we miss the full picture of what it would mean to reduce risk or to prevent humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons, and even the full picture of what disarmament looks like. Disarmament is not just drawing down the numbers of nuclear warheads or putting limits on deployment or use. Nuclear disarmament must involve the abolition of nuclear weapon programmes in all their aspects. Or as Nigeria put it, “the denuclearisation of the world.”

The unmanageability of nuclear risk

Many discussions about nuclear risk reduction imply that there is a way to safely possess and deploy nuclear weapons. Most proposed risk reduction measures are for technical tweaks to systems or encourage increased dialogue among the nuclear-armed states. Yet as most non-nuclear armed states said during Cluster One, nuclear weapons contain inherent risk. The New Agenda Coalition (NAC), a collective comprised of Aotearoa New Zealand, Brazil, Ireland, Egypt, Mexico, and South Africa, argued that the risks of nuclear weapon use “cannot simply be managed away,” and that any “claims to be able to manage nuclear risks permanently are illusory.”

Furthermore, nuclear weapons are not riskier or less risky depending on who wields them. What causes nuclear risk? Mining uranium, processing fissile materials, building bombs, moving them around, storing radioactive waste. Refusing to comply with legal obligations to eliminate nuclear weapons. Leaving arms control agreements. Sharing nuclear weapons with other countries. Maintaining or increasing the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines. Threatening to use nuclear weapons, implicitly or explicitly. Conflicts with others, directly or through proxies. Nuclear weapon modernisation programmes. Basically, all the things that all the nuclear-armed states have done, are doing now, or are considering doing.

But nuclear-armed states and their nuclear-supportive allies always posit risk as being driven by “the other side”. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members accuse Russia of violating the NPT for engaging in the same behaviour of nuclear sharing with Belarus in which its members have engaged for years, which NATO insists is compatible with the NPT. (It’s not. And it was also disputed from the very origins of the NPT and in subsequent review cycles, despite the recent claims by NATO members.) Similarly, Russia complains the United States won’t engage with it in new arms control discussions, but the US says it will but only without Russia’s preconditions for the talks.

There is no real dichotomy between the nuclear-armed states, as much as they claim there is. They are all capable of and prepared to commit massive nuclear violence. If they were not, they would eliminate their nuclear weapons regardless of what others are doing. But as Austria said, it is hard to discern any intention of the nuclear-armed states to disarm. Their investments and modernisation programmes indicate “long-term reliance on nuclear weapons and of extending nuclear arsenals into the distant future.”

“A fragile and precarious psychological construct”

At this point, the nuclear-armed states are being explicit about their intention NOT to disarm, and instead to engage in arms racing. The US delegation, for example, said that the refusal of Russia and China to discuss arms control at this time “obliges the United States and our close allies and partners to prepare for a world of nuclear competition without numerical constraints. In such a world, the United States might have to reconsider its capabilities and posture to account for the threats posed by Russia and the PRC.”

This admission came late in an eight-page statement, the majority of which is devoted to portraying the United States as a leader in nuclear disarmament, compliant with its international obligations and commitments. Honestly, it seems that wrapping up your statement by acknowledging you’re breaking the law and planning to break it further undermines the credibility of all the claims you’ve made before.

All the nuclear-armed states do this, of course. France publishes glossy brochures about closing its fissile material production facility while spending billions on modernising its nuclear weapon system; China celebrates its no first use and “minimal deterrent” policies while expanding the size of its arsenal. They all cling to their nuclear deterrence policies, but argue they are responsible with their nuclear weapons while the others are reckless.

The justification for nuclear deterrence from each is the same: they assert that nuclear weapons are the only things keep their states safe from each other. Nevermind that each element of the nuclear fuel chain, described above, harm people and the planet every day. Nevermind also that the rest of the world does not insist upon having the capacity to destroy cities, countries, or the planet to feel “safe”. As Austria said, nuclear deterrence is “a fragile and precarious psychological construct.” Indeed, deterrence demands adherence to an exhausting notion of gendered power in which violence and domination are believed to be essential for “safety”. But such an approach to security only puts everyone in grave peril.

Deterrence is incompatible with disarmament

Austria argued, “Nuclear deterrence is a high-risk approach to international security.” In essence, nuclear deterrence “creates acute threats and risks for the entire international community, including for those 150 plus states that have foresworn nuclear weapons. This raises profound questions about international legitimacy and international and inter-generational justice.”

Yet some states continue to claim this right to jeopardise the security of everyone else in the world. At the same time, they insist that their nuclear deterrence policies are consistent with their “dedication” to disarmament. Canada, for example, argued, “Our NATO commitment to deterrence for our collective security neither prevents us, nor discourages us, from simultaneously pursuing reciprocal, verifiable, step-by-step disarmament.”

But deterrence is not compatible with disarmament. To have a credible deterrence policy, the theory goes, one must maintain nuclear forces equal to or greater than one’s adversary. This means building up, not drawing down, one’s nuclear forces. It means never being able to eliminate them, due to the fear that someone, someday, somewhere might acquire them. Back when arms control and arsenal reductions were happening, this was the excuse the nuclear-armed states used to justify their continued possession of “some” nuclear weapons. (Some meaning over 11,000 at the lowest point.) Now, they are building warheads, plutonium cores, bombers, submarines, missiles, and related facilities anew. They are talking about resuming nuclear testing. They are making new nuclear alliances and sharing their weapons with more states.

Brazil pointed out that over the past 30 years, nuclear-armed states have not fulfilled their disarmament commitments “either in the best of times or in the worst of times.” Instead, these states and their allies have entrenched the narrative of nuclear deterrence. “Much to our bewilderment,” said Brazil, “some even claim that nuclear disarmament might be detrimental to international peace and security. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the international community rejects that logic, and unambiguously endorsed the notion that nuclear weapons are destined to share the fate of its chemical and biological siblings—prohibition and elimination. Such is the message conveyed by the adoption of the TPNW [Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons] in 2017.”

This is part of the reason nuclear-armed and allied states resent the TPNW so much. Poland, for example, complained that the TPNW “seeks to undermine deterrence as a legitimate means to guarantee security.” States that include nuclear weapons in their security doctrines do not support the prohibition of these weapons, which also means they do not, in reality, support disarmament. Türkiye’s slip at the end of its cluster one intervention—in which the speaker first said the delegation would work to “achieve” a nuclear weapon free world, then changed it to “advance” —shows this clearly. Language slips like this indicate that nuclear-armed and allied states are not working to achieve disarmament. They are just interested in making it look like they are working on it, by proposing the same measures for decades while blocking progress on their implementation.

The theory of nuclear deterrence, and the material profits to be made from it by the weapon industry and think tanks alike, has precluded disarmament. Thus the claim that deterrence is compatible with disarmament is not just fanciful, it is dangerous.

Nuclear deterrence is also not compatible with security or safety; it is the opposite. As the NAC explained, “Nuclear deterrence is posited on the very existence of nuclear risk. It assumes that possession and preparation for use of nuclear weapons will both signal resolve and instil fear in adversaries that induces a desired level of caution on their part.” Paradoxically, the coalition noted, “nuclear deterrence both seeks to underline the horrific consequences of nuclear weapon use, while also downplaying these.” It is the devastating cruelty of nuclear weapons that makes certain governments believe The Bomb grants them power, but that also puts these states at odds with international law—as Chile noted, there is a “radical incompatibility between the mere existence of nuclear weapons and unrestricted adherence to International Humanitarian Law and the International Human Rights System.”

Paradigm shift to abolition

To address all of these concerns at once, the NAC took a more holistic view in its working paper on nuclear risk. While it missed the broader elements of the nuclear fuel chain, it did approach the issue of risk reduction from the understanding that risk is inherent in nuclear weapons and in the behaviour of the governments wielding them. Its recommendations then focused not on managing the possession of nuclear weapons, but on eliminating them.

This refusal to accept reforms for the illusion of progress is imperative to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons. So is a broader discussion about security perceptions and nuclear deterrence, for which Austria called. “We strongly believe that we need to have an honest and inclusive conversation about this at the international level and especially within the NPT,” urged the Austrian delegation. “This is urgent and necessary since a security approach that is based on nuclear deterrence by definition concerns the entire international community, given that the risks and consequences of failure would be borne by all humanity.”

While the possibility of nuclear abolition might seem impossible to many—especially after sitting through a week of the NPT PrepCom—it’s important to see it as inevitable. It is not something that will just happen, it needs to be made to happen—but this is not an impossible task. What is impossible is that the risks, dangers, and harms from nuclear weapons can continue to be borne by future generations, into the indefinite future. What is impossible is that nuclear weapons can continue to exist without being detonated. Nuclear abolition is both imperative and possible. And in the moments when that is hard to remember, those who fought for the protection of Jabiluka can remind us. As Mirarr Traditional Owner Corben Mudjandi said, the decision against the mining lease “proves that people standing strong for Country can win.”

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