Category Archives: DISARMAMENT & SECURITY

UN: Conference Considers Revised Draft of Proposed Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons

.DISARMAMENT & SECURITY.

Meeting coverage from the United Nations

Queries Raised about Consensus, Clarity on State Responsibility, Victim Assistance

The Conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons considered a new version of the draft convention today [June 27], following the read-through of the earlier version last week, when delegations made proposals and suggestions.

Pushing ahead towards concluding with a final version by 7 July, Conference President Elayne Whyte Gómez (Costa Rica) presented a revised version of the draft instrument (document A/CONF.229/2017/CRP.1/REV.1), saying that in reviewing the draft “article by article”, her main focus had been on points of convergence..


Video from Press TV

Starting from the top, she said, the title had changed, referring to a “treaty”, the clear preference expressed by many delegations. However, the change in title would in no way affect the instrument’s legal status, she emphasized. Rather, it placed the draft convention on the same level as the many treaties negotiated over the decades with the aim of advancing progress towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

She went on to note that the draft preamble’s basic structure remained largely unchanged, although it did elaborate significantly on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and more accurately characterize the legal basis upon which the treaty would rest. New paragraphs had been added to recall essential principled efforts of the United Nations, reaffirm the inalienable right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and recognize the roles of women and men in the disarmament process. While the draft preamble was relatively long compared to other multilateral treaties in the nuclear field, she said, hopefully it provided a clear and precise narrative.

Concerning safeguards, she said consultations on the matter had revealed a number of complicated and technical issues, adding that she would continue to consult on the appropriate way to incorporate elements from the Annex into the first draft. The most significant innovation in the revised draft was in article 4, she added.

Following overwhelming interest from delegations, the draft now incorporated the so-called “join-then-destroy” pathway, she continued, underlining the contributions of South Africa, Austria, and Sweden. Article 4 now provided an option for States possessing nuclear weapons to join the treaty at an early date, subject to the obligation to eliminate its nuclear weapons arsenal. A considerable amount of flexibility had been built into that approach, because it must be fit to accommodate the widely varying nature of existing nuclear weapons programmes.

She said the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had been carefully limited to verification of nuclear material in peaceful activities, in accordance with its current safeguards system. The so-called South Africa-plus pathway had also been retained, having been brought into line with the current safeguards system. The option to pursue additional protocols, including through negotiations with non-signatory States, had been retained as well. “Many delegations considered that it would be appropriate, prudent and wise to retain this option,” she stressed.

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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Article 9, on meetings of States parties, now elaborated specific items that could be considered in light of various provisions of the draft, she continued, adding that there was also a new provision to allow the convening of extraordinary meetings. The main change in the article on amendments was that it now provided for the consideration of proposed amendments at a conference dedicated for that purpose, in accordance with the normal parameters set forth in many treaties. Articles 4, 14 and 15 had been modified to allow the treaty to remain open for signature indefinitely, she said. And finally, the text of Article 19 had been modelled on the Arms Trade Treaty’s corresponding provision on relations with other agreements.

With the floor open for general comments, several delegates said they were awaiting instructions from their capitals. Iran’s representative emphasized the need for consensus on what exactly the treaty aimed to do. Proposing the deletion of Articles 2-4, he said such provisions were highly technical and complex, and requiring additional attention and time. Noting that several of his delegation’s suggestions for the draft preamble had been left out, he declared: “The revised text is far from a consensus text.”

Austria’s representative said a number of issues remained outstanding, particularly concerning Article 2 on declarations and Article 3 on safeguards. Article 14 on signatures could benefit from including the time and place where the treaty would be opened for signature, he added.

Ecuador’s representative referred to Article 7 on victim assistance, saying it was important to look at things from the victims’ point of view. That article must be strengthened to help alleviate the plight of victims and also to address environmental challenges, he said, stressing also that it should not be possible to withdraw from the treaty.

The representative of the Netherlands expressed disappointment that the revised text did not eliminate his concerns about the draft treaty’s effectiveness and its relationship with existing instruments. Its goal was to strengthen the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons regime, rather than to undermine it, he emphasized.

South Africa’s representative underlined the need to resume negotiations in “one common space” so as to develop the draft instrument. “It is not going to be the Secretariat that gives us a treaty,” she pointed out.

The observer for the State of Palestine said the revised version addressed a number of loopholes, despite worries relating to Article 2. There must be clarity on State responsibility, he stressed, insisting also that, given the nature of prohibition, there must not be any possibility of withdrawal.

Also speaking today were representatives of Malaysia, Argentina, Cuba, Ireland, Nigeria, Costa Rica, Mozambique, Liechtenstein, Antigua and Barbuda (on behalf of the Caribbean Community), Brazil, Switzerland, Thailand, Guatemala, Egypt, New Zealand, Sweden, Peru, Mexico, Chile and Algeria.

The Conference will reconvene in plenary session at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 29 June.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, United Nations,

Chief justices call on world leaders “to work for the establishment of a world parliament”

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly

Gathering in Lucknow in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, an international conference of around 300 chief justices, judges, legal experts and ambassadors from nearly 60 countries predominantly from the Global South closed [in November 2016] with the adoption of a declaration that called on heads of states and governments to convene a world summit “to consider the present grave global problems facing mankind” and “to work for establishment of a World Parliament to enact enforceable World Laws, a World Government, and a World Court of Justice.”


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The document stated that “more serious and concrete steps must be taken to reform the United Nations by review of the UN charter with a view to making the UN a fully democratic, representative and effective institution.”

During the four-day conference six sessions were held on topics such as creating a culture of unity & peace, establishing rule of law, protection of human rights, reforming the structure of global governance, or sustainable development.

Participants included, among others, Anerood Jugnauth, the prime minister of Mauritius, Moses Veerasammy Nagamootoo, the prime minister of Guyana, Kgalema Motlanthe, former president and vice-president of South Africa, former Croatian president Stjepan Mesić as well as chief justices and judges of the supreme courts of Afghanistan, Benin, Cameroon, Croatia, East Timor, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nauru, Paraguay, Peru, Slovenia, South Africa, Sudan, Suriname, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Ukraine, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The conference was organized for the 17th time by the “World Unity Education Department” of City Montessori School in Lucknow.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

Question for this article:
DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, South Asia

UN nuclear ban treaty negotiations: transit, threat and nuclear weapons financing

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Alyn Ware from Unfold Zero

United Nations negotiations for a legal agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons resumed in New York on June 15.

The negotiations look set to achieve the adoption of a historic nuclear ban treaty on July 7. However, States in the negotiations are struggling to find agreement on elements of the treaty that could impact most on the policies and practices of the nuclear-armed States.

Nuclear-armed States and those under extended nuclear deterrence relationships, with the exception of Netherlands, are absent from the negotiations. Netherlands is not expected to join the final treaty. This simplifies the negotiations, as they involve getting agreement from non-nuclear States to prohibit, in their territories, weapons which already they do not support, possess or host.

As such, it is expected that the treaty will be concluded and ready to adopt on July 7, the final day of the negotiations.

In general, the treaty will not affect the policies and practices of the nuclear armed States and their nuclear allies, as long as they remain out of the treaty. However, there are a number of proposed elements of the draft treaty which could impact directly on them. Agreement on these proposals is proving to be difficult to achieve. They include proposals to prohibit the transit of, threat to use, and financing of nuclear weapons.

Transit

Some States and NGOs have proposed that the treaty should prohibit the transit of nuclear weapons through their territorial waters and airspace. States supporting such a ban say that it would be contrary to the purposes of the treaty to ban nuclear weapons in general, but then allow nuclear armed ships and aircraft into one’s ports, territorial waters, airports and skies.

States opposing a ban on transit argue that it would be impossible to implement, verify or enforce such a prohibition. They argue that the nuclear armed States are not transparent about which vessels (ships, submarines, airplanes) are carrying nuclear weapons, and whether vessels carrying nuclear weapons are transiting the waters and airspace of other countries.

However, the experience of New Zealand, which prohibited nuclear weapons in 1987, indicates that it is possible to ensure compliance with a nuclear weapons prohibition on ships, submarines and airplanes making port visits or landings in one’s territory, and that a prohibition on transit through territorial waters and airspace could be adopted without requiring verification.

For a more in-depth discussion on this issue, see The ban treaty, transit and national implementation.

Nuclear deterrence and the threat to use nuclear weapons

The threat to use nuclear weapons is central to the policies and practices of the nuclear armed States and their allies.

Nuclear weapons have not been used in wartime since 1945. Indeed, nuclear armed States have affirmed that the core function of nuclear arsenals is not to use these weapons, but to prevent their use through nuclear deterrence, i.e. the threat of their use. A nuclear ban treaty which is silent on the legality of the threat to use nuclear weapons would therefore provide little challenge to nuclear deterrence policies of the nuclear armed States and their allies.

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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Despite (or perhaps because of) this, there is reluctance by a number of the negotiating States to include in the treaty a prohibition on the threat to use nuclear weapons. The initial draft of the treaty did not mention threat of use.

Advocacy by some governments and NGOs, including the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), has managed to get an affirmation of the illegality of the threat to use nuclear weapons into the preamble of the revised draft. (See IALANA: Ban treaty should affirm the current illegality of the threat and use of nuclear weapons).

However, it is uncertain whether a prohibition on threat to use nuclear weapons will make it into the principal obligations in the final treaty. On June 22, IALANA released a Lawyers’ Letter on the abolition of nuclear weapons, endorsed by over 400 members of the legal profession, highlighting the need to codify in the ban treaty the illegality of the threat and use of nuclear weapons.

Financing of nuclear weapons production – stopping the nuclear arms merchants

UNFOLD ZERO, PNND and the Basel Peace Office are campaigning to include in the ban treaty a prohibition on the financing of, and investments in, corporations manufacturing nuclear weapons and their dedicated delivery systems.

Nuclear-armed states currently spend US$100 billion collectively on nuclear weapons programs annually. The corporations manufacturing the weapons and their delivery systems are a major driver of the nuclear arms race. They actively lobby their parliaments and governments to continue allocating the funds to nuclear weapons. And they support think tanks and other public initiatives to promote the ‘need’ for nuclear weapons maintenance, modernization or expansion.

Many non-nuclear States support this through public funds which invest in nuclear weapons corporations, and by permitting banks and other financial institutions in their countries to also invest in these corporations.

If all of the Sates joining the nuclear ban treaty divested their public funds from these corporations, and disallowed banks from investing in them, it could radically change the economics of the nuclear arms industry. It would damage the credibility of and investor confidence in corporations manufacturing nuclear weapons. And it would give support to efforts of parliamentarians and civil society in the nuclear arms States to cut the exorbitant nuclear arms budgets and re-direct these funds to health, education, jobs, environment and sustainable development.

A number of States participating in the nuclear ban treaty negotiations have supported the proposal that the treaty prohibit financing of, and investments in, nuclear weapons. However, other States argue that this would be too difficult to implement, despite the fact that a number of countries (Lichtenstein, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland) have already implemented nuclear divestment policies.

UNFOLD ZERO, PNND and Basel Peace Office submitted a working paper to the UN negotiations on this issue. In addition, we held a press conference and addressed an informal session of negotiating States at the UN in Geneva on June 1-2, and gave an Intervention on financing of nuclear weapons to the UN negotiations in New York on June 19.

The final ban treaty, which we expect to be adopted on July 7, will provide support for nuclear divestment regardless of whether it includes a specific prohibition on financing of nuclear weapons production, or a more general prohibition on assisting nuclear weapons production. We therefore plan to launch a global nuclear weapons divestment campaign following the adoption of the treaty.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, United Nations,

USA: United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) conference

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Popular Resistance

We just returned from the weekend-long United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) conference in Richmond, VA. This is the fourth UNAC conference since its founding in 2010 to create a vibrant and active anti-war movement in the United States that opposes all wars. The theme this year was stopping the wars at home and abroad in recognition that we can’t end one without ending the others, that they have common roots and that it will take a large, broad-based and diverse movement of movements to succeed.


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Speakers at the conference ranged from people who are fighting for domestic issues – such as a $15/hour minimum wage and an end to racist police brutality and ICE raids – to people who traveled from or represented countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Korea, the Philippines, the Congo, Iran, Syria, Colombia and Venezuela, which are some of the many countries under attack by US imperialism. At the end of the conference, participants marched to an area of Richmond called Shockoe Bottom, which is an African cemetery close to a site that was a central hub for the slave trade, to rally with activists with the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality who are fighting to protect the land from gentrification and preserve it as a park.

The War at Home

The “US Way of War” – a brutal form of war that requires the total destruction of populations, targets the most vulnerable and wipes out their access to basic necessities such as food and water – has raged since settlers first stepped foot on the land that is now the United States and brutalized the Indigenous Peoples in order to take their lands and resources to build wealth for the colonizers and their home countries using the slave labor of Africans and indentured servants. The US Way of War continues in the same form today on both domestic and foreign land.

There are daily reminders of the war at home, which overwhelmingly targets people of color, immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people, the poor and workers. Over 1,000 civilians are killed by police, security personnel or vigilantes every year in the US. Black young men are nine times more likely to be victims than any other group, but, as in the case of Philando Castile, few of the killers are held accountable. Despite clear evidence that Castile was murdered by Officer Jeromino Yanez in front of his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter during a traffic stop, Yanez was acquitted this week. Within hours of the verdict, thousands of local residents marched against the injustice and some shut down a major highway.

Black Lives Matter Chicago and other community groups filed a lawsuit this week asking for federal oversight of their police. They accuse the mayor of trying to cut a backroom deal with the Department of Justice to water down oversight of the police after a DoJ investigation “found widespread constitutional violations by the Chicago Police Department.” And recently, though Take Em Down NoLa was successful, after years of efforts, at removing several confederate statues in New Orleans, structural racism is still rampant in the school and law enforcement systems. Ashana Bigard explains, a DoJ investigation found “98.6 percent of all children arrested by the New Orleans Police Department for ‘serious offenses’ were black.”

Ralph Poynter, the widower of the great attorney-activist Lynne Stewart, spoke at the UNAC conference about the many political prisoners who have been jailed in the US for decades. He described the organizing efforts to release Stewart and the public sympathy that she was given, in part, for being a white woman. There are many people who deserve equal organizing efforts, such as Major Tillery who, after 33 years, is appealing his murder conviction. Indeed, many from the black freedom struggle of decades past remain imprisoned. Let us not forget them.

And the Trump administration is ramping up deportations. This week, ICE Director Thomas Homan asked Congress “for more than a billion dollars to expand ICE’s capacity to detain and deport undocumented immigrants.” Homan also indicated that he would increase deportations, saying “‘no population of persons’ in the country illegally is safe from deportation.” In this interview, Ingrid Latorre describes how the Sanctuary Movement is working to protect immigrants.

Juneteenth is a Time to End the War at Home

Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when black slaves in Texas learned they were freed – two and one-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, is a little known holiday that is being celebrated this year through efforts to end racial disparities on many fronts of struggle. A coalition of organizations is working to raise awareness of the injustice of cash bail in the US. They raised over a million dollars and are using that to bail out black fathers and “black LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming people, who are overrepresented in jails and prisons and are likely to experience abuse while incarcerated.”

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Question related to this article:

The peace movement in the United States, What are its strengths and weaknesses?

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Other groups are organizing in cities across the country to “Take Back the Land” and call for reparations after centuries of oppression. They write:

“We are a people who have been enslaved and dispossessed as a result of the oppressive, exploitative, extractive system of colonialism and white supremacy. In this system, our labor and its products have been forcefully taken from us for generations, for the accumulation of wealth by others. This extraction of wealth – from our labor, and from the land – formed the financial basis of the modern globalized world economy and has led to compounded exploitation and social alienation of Black people to this day.”

Jessicah Pierre explains that despite more than 150 years of ‘freedom’, black people still have a long way to go. A report called “The Ever Growing Gap” found that if we continue on the current path, “black families would have to work another 228 years to amass the amount of wealth white families already hold today.”

Wealth inequality is growing globally. Paul Bucheit explains that the five richest men in the world have almost the same wealth as the bottom 50% of the world’s population, which means each one of them has the wealth of 750 million people. Bucheit also explains that they didn’t earn it, they effectively stole it. More and more, we view the US as a kleptocracy. One idea to recapture that lost wealth and share it more equally is a Citizen’s Wealth Fund . Stewart Lansley writes that they “operate like a giant community-owned unit trust, giving all citizens an equal stake in a part of the economy.”

Ending the Wars Abroad

It would be impossible to discuss all of the wars abroad in this one newsletter (our Memorial Day newsletter discusses war further), but it is important that people in the US understand how the US Way of War is being waged around the world and its domestic impacts. Much of that was discussed at the UNAC conference, which you can watch here. Here are a few items that we suggest checking out.

This week on Clearing the FOG, we spoke with FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley and journalist Max Blumenthal about “Russiagate” and the way it is being used to trick progressives into supporting conflict with Russia. We also recommend watching Oliver Stone’s series of interviews with Vladimir Putin, even though the government and even Rolling Stone urge you not to watch these excellent interviews. Abby Martin of The Empire Files traveled to Venezuela to witness the protests firsthand and the violence being perpetrated by the right wing opposition that is funded by the US. And as President Trump sheds more of his responsibilities as Commander in Chief and hands them to generals such as Masterson and Mattis, who wants to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan, it is important to read this excellent analysis, “Afghanistan: From Soviet Occupation to American ‘Liberation“, by Nauman Sadiq.

At present, more than 130 countries are negotiating a treaty at the United Nations that would prohibit all nuclear weapons. The US, which holds the largest nuclear arsenal, is not participating but North Korea is. Diana Johnstone writes that the dangerous belief at the Pentagon is that in a nuclear war, the US “would prevail.”Will the rest of the world be able to prevent a nuclear war? A positive sign was the “Woman Ban the Bomb” marches that took place in more than 170 cities worldwide.

It’s up to us as people to organize a peace movement in our communities. People’s Organization for Progress in Newark, New Jersey and their allies are one example of what we can be doing. They are proposing monthly actions that educate the public about the connection between the wars at home and abroad.

Kevin Zeese spoke at the opening plenary of the UNAC conference about Moral Injury that is done to an individual and to a people who engage in war. He closes with this thought:

“If we do not awaken the US government and change course from a destructive military power to an exceptional humanitarian culture aiding billions who suffer – a heavy price will be paid. We should expect it.

Our job is to turn moral injury into moral outrage and transform the United States into an exceptional humanitarian nation that is a member of the community of nations that lifts people up, rather than creates chaos and insecurity around the world.”

There are opportunities right now to organize for peace in your community no matter what issue you work on. Let’s understand that the wars at home cannot end if we do not also end the wars abroad. As we build this movement of movements, let’s remember this fact and include the abolition of war and the creation of a peace economy in our list of demands.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, North America

UN Conference Concludes First Reading of Draft Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from the United Nations

President Presents Revised Preamble, Noting Proposed Addition of New Paragraphs

Delegations considering an instrument that would prohibit nuclear weapons concluded their first-read through of the entire draft this morning [June 21], before proceeding to informal discussions in the afternoon.

prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination, resumed its consideration of Articles 11 to 21 (document A/CONF.229/2017/CRP.1).

 Having begun the discussion yesterday afternoon, delegates continued to present their positions, making amendments and suggesting revisions to language in the draft.

Ecuador’s representative, noting the “legal confusion” contained in the draft instrument under consideration, emphasized that the negotiations currently under way and the outcome instrument were not intended merely to complement prior agreements.  “We came here to negotiate a separate instrument, even though it is still related to the wider architecture of disarmament.”

Indonesia’s representative reiterated a sentiment expressed yesterday about Article 11, concerning “amendments”, underlining the need to clarify who exactly could make changes to the final instrument.  On another note, he said that although it was the sovereign right of each State party to withdraw from any instrument, provisions must be put in place to ensure that was done in the “most proper way”.  Any withdrawal must be taken very seriously, he added.

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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Fiji’s representative echoed statements made by several other Pacific delegations throughout discussions in pointing out that nuclear testing had unfortunately come to define the region.  Expressing “utmost faith” that the draft instrument would be a “game-changer”, not only for the Pacific but also the entire world, he voiced support for Article 17, which states that the articles are not subject to reservations.  Such a clause would make the instrument most effective, he said.

Conference President Elayne Whyte Gómez (Costa Rica) presented a revised version of the preamble to the draft instrument, noting that a total of three dozen new paragraphs had been proposed.  She said that, in trying to address all suggestions, she had incorporated proposals that could take the preamble towards consensus, adding that she had also tried to consolidate proposals that would ensure strict avoidance of repetitions in the text.  The preamble must be as short as possible in order to be similar to that of related legal instruments.

Highlighting some of the most significant changes, she said that she had tried, in paragraph 2, to incorporate the risk posed by nuclear weapons to people, health and humanity’s very survival.  Paragraph 3 had been expanded to incorporate the disproportionate impact of nuclear-weapon activities on indigenous peoples.  A paragraph on relationships with other instruments had also been consolidated by the addition of a reference to the pillars of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.  Also added to the last paragraph of the draft preamble — as suggested by several delegations — were references to the role of civil society and academia in furthering the principles of humanity.

Also speaking today were representatives of Mexico, Venezuela, Singapore, Thailand, Nigeria, Philippines, Peru, Guatemala, Malaysia, Argentina and Brazil.

Others addressing the meeting were speakers representing the following entities:  the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Pace University, the International Disarmament Institute and the Centre for International Security and Policy Studies (Kazakhstan).

The Conference will reconvene in open session at a date and time to be announced.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, United Nations,

Banning landmines taught us how to bring about real change in the world, now we’re sharing these lessons to ban nuclear weapons

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An email from Mines Action Canada

Our humanitarian disarmament partners in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) are currently working hard at the United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.

In a process inspired by the Ottawa Process banning landmines, states with support from civil society and international organizations are negotiating a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons from 15 June to 7 July 2017.

After 20 years of work on the Ottawa Treaty and other efforts to address the humanitarian impact of indiscriminate weapons, we have learned a lot and have considerable experience we are sharing with our colleagues. In that spirit Mines Action Canada has drafted three documents for states to review during their negotiations.

First, we submitted a new Working Paper to the negotiating conference. Our paper on The Disproportionate Impact of Nuclear Weapons Detonations on Indigenous Communities is available on the United Nations website. It follows on some themes from our Working Paper submitted with ICAN to the March session of negotiations.

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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Second, we have a new Frequently Asked Questions document about victim assistance in the draft treaty text. This FAQ aims to help states and civil society ensure that the provisions regarding assistance to affected persons in the final treaty support existing norms around victim assistance.

Third, we co-published a paper on sustainable development and the draft text of the treatywith the International Disarmament Institute at Pace University. Our work has shown that indiscriminate weapons are lethal barriers to development.

We are pleased to offer these papers for free but please consider supporting Mines Action Canada work to ensure that we can continue to promote humanitarian disarmament in Canada and internationally.

Over the next three days, MAC staff will be attending the negotiations and speaking at a briefing event on positive obligations in the treaty on Wednesday June 21, 2017 to further outline lessons learned from previous disarmament treaties. For more on the negotiations please visit ICAN's website at www.nuclearban.org, follow @MinesActionCan on Twitter plus the hashtag #nuclearban on social media.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global

Korea: 500 Global Students to Hold Peace March near DMZ

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from KBS radio

About 500 students from around the world plan to hold a peace march near the Demilitarized Zone(DMZ) separating the two Koreas.


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Gangwon Province Office of Education said on Tuesday that it will hold the 2017 world peace education festival from May 27th to 31st in Gangneung and Goseong.

About 500 middle and high school students as well as teachers from seven countries including Japan, China, Russia and Indonesia plan to participate. 

The event is jointly sponsored by the organizing committee of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and the Asia-Pacific Center of Education for International Understanding under UNESCO.

Participants plan to hold a debate on ways to make a better and peaceful world in Gangneung.

They are then schedule to visit the Unification Observatory located in Goseong and hold a peace march to the nearby DMZ museum. 

(Editor’s note: It is not clear if this is the same initiative as the peace march by 300 youth in the demilitarized zone scheduled for June 23 and sponsored by the U.S.-based International Cooperation of Environmental Youth (ICEY), led by Korean-American environmentalist Jonathan Lee – see article in the Yonhap News Agency).

(Thank you to the Global Campaign for Peace Education for calling this article to our attention.)

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, East Asia

UK: Surprise, Surprise, Jeremy Corbyn’s Anti-War Policies Turned out to Be a Vote Winner

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Chris Nineham for Stop the War Coalition

Theresa May’s humiliating failure to gain a majority in the General Election is a great boost to everyone who opposes foreign wars. May is an enthusiast for the ‘War on Terror’ and has been one of the political world’s keenest supporters of Trump’s deranged foreign policy since day one. She very publicly backed his provocative attacks on Assad’s forces in April and, during the election period, she threatened to follow up with a British escalation against the Syrian regime if she got a majority. 


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Given her dreadful election result a May-led government, if it gets off the ground at all, is likely to be way too weak to pursue any more foreign wars. She may try to do so using her unholy alliance with the DUP, but her fatal weakness makes this much easier to oppose. What is more, the fact that Trump has been forced to call off his planned visit in October for fear of demonstrations is an unprecedented blow against the special relationship as well as being more proof that protests work. Trump says he won’t visit if there are going to be demonstrations and while people do not welcome his visit, so we can safely assume he won’t be coming over any time soon.

This is more than a matter of movement self-congratulation. Britain has been the US’s key political and military ally throughout the ‘War on Terror’. The removal of Britain at least as a public champion of the US is a big foreign policy setback for a regime whose serial aggressions are isolating it further and further on the world stage.  

But there is more heartening news to be extracted from the experience of the election. First, the concerted attack on Jeremy Corbyn over his refusal to promise to ‘press the nuclear button’ failed to make an obvious difference to the election campaign, despite the fact that an ambush was staged against him on the high-profile Question Time ten days before the election. 

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Question related to this article:

How can the peace movement become stronger and more effective?

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Reeling from her manifesto blunders, it was felt by some that the two appalling terrorist attacks in the election campaign would allow Theresa May to play the security card and re-establish her ‘strong and stable’ credentials but this was clearly not the case. In the days after the attacks the media went on a co-ordinated rampage against Corbyn’s record on war and peace. The day before the election the Sun led with a so-called expose on ‘Jezza’s Jihadi Comrades’, the Telegraph claimed ‘Corbyn Ducks Terror Challenge’ and the BBC obediently followed suit with a photomontage of Jeremy Corbyn next to Osama Bin-Laden.  

All this appears to have failed to make much of an impact on the general public. The surge to Labour continued right up until election day and beyond. Jeremy Corbyn had responded to the dreadful attack in Manchester by calling a press conference at which he explicitly argued that Western foreign policy has been one of the drivers of the spread of terrorist attacks and organisation. Despite the media onslaught an opinion poll taken days after showed that the overwhelming majority of the population agreed with him. The ORB survey found 75 per cent of people believe interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have made atrocities on UK soil more likely. Even 68% of Tory voters agreed.

This underlines the growing sense that despite the fact that 70% of the newspapers backing the Tories, the print media is losing what ability it ever had to shape popular opinion. Partly no doubt it was a product of the novelty of a party leader breaking the taboo on discussing the causes of terrorism and putting a coherent and clear argument against the record of the War on Terror. But partly it revealed something deeper.

Despite the failure of the media to engage in a real debate, despite the refusal of the establishment to accept the findings of the Chilcot report and at least four parliamentary investigations into the wars that we have been dragged into, popular opposition to foreign aggression has only deepened over the years. A largely unreported YouGov poll which came out during the election campaign showed that between 43% and 55% of the population disapproved of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya with less than 25% in favour and that more people opposed than supported even the first Gulf war in 1991. 

All this is important for a number of reasons. It is a reminder that we mustn’t make the mistake of reading public opinion off from the people who claim to be opinion formers in British society almost all of whom regard criticism of Britain’s war record as being beyond the pale. It tells us too that those siren voices in the Labour Party who believe that anti war policies are too radical for the British electorate are plain wrong.

It indicates in fact that it is now time to launch a concerted campaign for a fundamentally new foreign policy. Such a new direction is a necessary counter to the right wing vision of a world of more security, surveillance and international retribution.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Europe

Tel Aviv rally for two-state model

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Deutsche Welle

Some 15,000 Israelis at a Tel Aviv rally have demanded progress on the long awaited two-state solution, almost 50 years since Israel occupied Palestinian land. Opposition leader Isaac Herzog said chances had been wasted.


(Click on photo to enlarge)

Israeli supporters of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, including the non-government group Peace Now, heard a written message from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas that it was time for both peoples to “live together in harmony.”

It was read out at the Tel Aviv rally, where the turnout was 15,000, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

“It is time to live together in harmony, security and stability,” Abbas was quoted as saying.

Missed opportunities

Attending Saturday evening’s rally on Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, Israeli opposition Labour party leader Isaac Herzog accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sowing fear and of missing opportunities for apeace settlement based on two states.

Early this week, Netanyahu hosted US President Donald Trump, who also visited East Jerusalem’s Western Wall and Abbas in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, but made no specific mention of the two-state model.

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Question related to this article:

How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?

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Fifty years ago

In June 1967, Israel seized the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan during the so-called Six-Day War withneighboring Arab-majority states.

Israel’s later annexation of east Jerusalem was never recognized by the international community. Palestinians claim the city’s eastern part as the future capital of their anticipated state.

Netanyahu’s right-wing government has pressed settlement in the West Bank despite international legal objections, raising the settler count to beyond 400,000.

‘Lack of hope’ being perpetuated

Peace Now head Avi Buskila said Saturday’s rally was to protest what he termed “the lack of hope being offered by a government perpetuating occupation, violence and racism.”

“The time has come to prove to the Israelis, the Palestinians and the entire world that an important segment of the Israeli population is opposed to occupation and wants a two-state solution,” Buskila said.

Hunger strike ends as Ramadan begins

Saturday’s rally coincided with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the end of a hunger strike by hundreds Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The Middle East peace process has been deadlocked since April 2014 when indirect negotiations led by then US secretary of state John Kerry collapsed.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Mideast

United Nations: Time to Ban the Bomb

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Alice Slater for World Beyond War

This week [on May 22], the Chair of an exciting UN initiative formally named the “United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination” released a draft treaty to ban and prohibit nuclear weapons just as the world has done for biological and chemical weapons.  The Ban Treaty is to be negotiated at the UN from June 15 to July 7 as a follow up to the one week of negotiations that took place this past March, attended by more than 130 governments interacting with civil society.  Their input and suggestions were used by the Chair, Costa Rica’s ambassador to the UN, Elayne Whyte Gómez to prepare the draft treaty. It is expected that the world will finally come out of this meeting with a treaty to ban the bomb!

This negotiating conference was established after a series of meetings in Norway, Mexico, and Austria with governments and civil society to examine the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war.  The meetings were inspired by the leadership and urging of the International Red Cross to look at the horror of nuclear weapons, not just through the frame of strategy and “deterrence”, but to grasp and examine the disastrous humanitarian consequences that would occur in a nuclear war.   This activity led to a series of meetings culminating in a resolution in the UN General Assembly this fall to negotiate a treaty to ban and prohibit nuclear weapons. The new draft treaty based on the proposals put forth in the March negotiations requires the states to “never under any circumstances … develop, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess, or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices … use nuclear weapons …  carry out any nuclear weapon test”. States are also required to destroy any nuclear weapons they possess and are prohibited from transferring nuclear weapons to any other recipient.
None of the nine nuclear weapons states, US, UK, Russia, France, China, Indian, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea came to the March meeting, although during the vote last fall on whether to go forward with the negotiating resolution in the UN’s First Committee for Disarmament, where the resolution was formally introduced, while the five western nuclear states voted against it, China, India and Pakistan abstained.   And North Korea voted for the resolution to negotiate to ban the bomb! (I bet you didn’t read that in the New York Times!)

By the time the resolution got to the General Assembly, Donald Trump had been elected and those promising votes disappeared.  And at the March negotiations, the US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, flanked by the Ambassadors from England and France, stood outside the closed conference room and held a press conference with a number of  “umbrella states”  which rely on the US nuclear ‘deterrent” to annihilate their enemies (includes NATO  states as well as Australia, Japan, and South Korea)  and announced that “as a mother” who couldn’t want more for her family “than a world without nuclear weapons” she had to “be realistic” and would boycott the meeting and oppose efforts to ban the bomb adding, “Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons?”

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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The last 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) five year review conference broke up without consensus on the shoals of a deal the US was unable to deliver to Egypt to hold a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone Conference in the Middle East.  This promise was made in 1995 to get the required consensus vote from all the states to extend the NPT indefinitely when it was due to expire, 25 years after the five nuclear weapons states in the treaty, US, UK,  Russia, China, and France, promised in 1970 to make “good faith efforts” for nuclear disarmament.  In that agreement all the other countries of the world promised not to get nuclear weapons, except for India, Pakistan, and Israel who never signed and went on to get their own bombs. North Korea had signed the treaty, but took advantage of the NPT’s Faustian bargain to sweeten the pot with a promise to the non-nuclear weapons states for an “inalienable right” to “peaceful” nuclear power, thus giving them the keys to the bomb factory. North Korea got its peaceful nuclear power, and walked out of the treaty to make a bomb.    At the 2015 NPT review, South Africa gave an eloquent speech expressing the state of nuclear apartheid that exists between the nuclear haves, holding the whole world hostage to their security needs and their failure to comply with their obligation to eliminate their nuclear bombs, while working overtime to prevent nuclear proliferation in other countries.

The Ban Treaty draft provides that the Treaty will enter into effect when 40 nations sign and ratify it.  Even if none of the nuclear weapons states join, the ban can be used to stigmatize and shame the “umbrella” states to withdraw from the nuclear “protection” services they are now receiving.    Japan should be an easy case.   The five NATO states in Europe who keep US nuclear weapons based on their soil–Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Turkey– are good prospects for breaking with the nuclear alliance.  A legal ban on nuclear weapons can be used to convince banks and pension funds in a divestment campaign, once it is known the weapons are illegal.   See www.dontbankonthebomb.com

Right now people are organizing all over the world for a Women’s March to Ban the Bomb on June 17, during the ban treaty negotiations, with a big march and rally planned in New York.   See https://www.womenbanthebomb.org/

We need to get as many countries to the UN as possible this June, and pressure our parliaments and capitals to vote to join the treaty to ban the bomb.   And we need to talk it up and let people know that something great is happening now!    To get involved, check out www.icanw.org

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, United Nations,