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Home Articles Flashpoints DID THE G20 MEETINGS IN BALI AND DELHI NEVER HAPPEN?

DID THE G20 MEETINGS IN BALI AND DELHI NEVER HAPPEN?

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 DID THE G20 MEETINGS IN BALI AND DELHI NEVER HAPPEN?

NUCLEAR WEAPONS USE OR THREAT OF USE IS INADMISSIBLE. THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN FRONT AND CENTRE IN STATEMENTS AND RESOLUTIONS AT FIRST COMMITTEE

Dear Delegate to UNGA First Committee:

On 15-16 November 2022, the G20, meeting in Bali, agreed as follows:

...4. It is essential to uphold international law and the multilateral system that safeguards peace and stability. This includes defending all the Purposes and Principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and adhering to international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians and infrastructure in armed conflicts. The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible. The peaceful resolution of conflicts, efforts to address crises, as well as diplomacy and dialogue, are vital. Today’s era must not be of war.

This declaration was greeted with strong support by many in the peace and disarmament movement worldwide. There was agreement amongst many NGOs and activists that this section of the declaration needs to be reaffirmed elsewhere. (e.g. in the UNGA First Committee). Our meetings with delegates to the NPT Review Conference in August this year found that governments were broadly supportive of this view also.


The more recent Delhi G20 leaders declaration noted that:
"...all states must act in a manner consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter in its entirety. In line with the UN Charter, all states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state. The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible."

In spite of having sent delegates (albeit perhaps belatedly) a series of memos from a number of people and organisations, the current meeting of UNGA First Committee, so far, seems to have taken place in a parallel universe of some kind in which the G20 meetings simply never took place.

Indeed, we understand that some delegates were actually unaware that the G20 has twice reaffirmed that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible – a stance that has not only political implications, but (arguably) legal ones, inasmuch as it tends to reinforce the 1996 ICJ decision.

Undoubtedly, the repeated reaffirmation of the words 'the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible' by bodies such as the G20 and the UN General Assembly does indeed make that use, an event that would be beyond catastrophic for both civilisation (so called) and the natural environment, less likely and more politically difficult.

In the meantime it is worthwhile to see who has actually assented to the statement that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.

Those who assented to the Bali declaration of 15-16 Nov 2022 were:

Presidents:

Joseph Biden (USA)

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Turkey)

Alberto Fernández (Argentina)

Emmanuel Macron (France)

Cyril Ramaphosa (South Africa)

Joko Widodo (Indonesia)

Xi Jinping (China),

Yoon Suk Yeol (South Korea)

Prime Ministers:

Anthony Albanese (Australia)

Fumio Kishida (Japan)

Giorgia Meloni (Italy)

Narendra Modi (India)

Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (Saudi Arabia)

Rishi Sunak (UK)

Justin Trudeau (Canada)

Chancellor:

Olaf Scholz (Germany);

Foreign Ministers:

Marcelo Ebrard (Mexico)

Carlos França (Brazil)

Sergey Lavrov (Russian Federation)

EU Presidents:

Charles Michel (Council)

Ursula von der Leyen (Commission)


The overwhelming majority of those who had endorsed the statement in Bali endorsed it once more when it was reaffirmed in Delhi about a month ago. New endorsees were Lula de Silva (Brazil) Li Qiang (China) and Raquel Buenrostro Sanchez (Mexico). In each case their Governments had previously endorsed in Bali. Endorsement was, in both Bali and Delhi, unanimous.

NoFIrstUse Global spotted this sentence in  the Bali Declaration and circulated a 'Declaration of Public Conscience' which gave experts and activists in the field an opportunity to express their concurrence with the G20 leadership.  Over a thousand endorsed it.

According to analyst Manpreet Sethi:

"The statement on inadmissibility of the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons seems to go a step ahead of the Reagan-Gorbachev formulation that had spoken about the inadvisability of nuclear war."

One would have thought that the inclusion of these words 'The Use or Threat of Use of Nuclear weapons is inadmissible', effectively endorsed by the heads of states containing most of the world's population and accounting for most of its economic activity, was/is what would be called a 'no-brainer'. That it could not possibly be controversial.

It is essential that these words of the G20 in Bali and Delhi be repeated and receive as wide a currency as possible.


We urge the inclusion of these words in resolutions and in statements to the Thematic Debate/ Hopefully it is not too late.

 

John Hallam
People for Nuclear Disarmament,  Human Survival Project,    
Co-Convenor,   Abolition 2000 Nuclear Risk Reduction Working Group, NFU, 

Aaron Tovish, (Formerly Mayors for Peace) Zona Libre, Phillipines, NFU, Co-Convenor, Abolition 2000 Nuclear Risk Reduction Working Group,  

Alyn Ware, NFU, Co-Convenor Abolition 2000 Nuclear Risk Reduction Working Group.




 
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To: Diplomats Negotiating in the United Nations First Committee
 
Re: Reducing the Risk of Nuclear Weapons Use
 
Please accept this brief memo regarding the inclusion of relevant language in appropriate resolutions addressing nuclear weapons arising from deliberations of the First Committee of this 78th Session of the General Assembly.
 
It is significant and laudable that a group of nations that included several possessing nuclear weapons agreed as follows:
 
"It is essential to uphold international law and the multilateral system that safeguards peace and stability. This includes defending all the Purposes and Principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and adhering to international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians and infrastructure in armed conflicts. The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible. The peaceful resolution of conflicts, efforts to address crises, as well as diplomacy and dialogue are vital. Today’s era must not be of war." — Group of Twenty (G20) 2022 Bali Summit Declaration 
 
An essential part of the statement was reiterated recently in the Declaration of the G20 Summit in Delhi, September 2023, which included an eight-paragraph section — "For the Planet, People, Peace, and Prosperity" — which reiterated, inter alia, all the points in Bali Paragraph 4, including, unaltered, the eleven-word sentence: “The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.”
 
This truism is relevant and makes the use of these devices less likely. Nothing could be more important. It is consistent with the formal statement of the leaders of the nuclear weapons states on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races of January 2022: We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. 
 
The reiteration of the formal statement from the 1985 Geneva Summit of Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev remains relevant, as will the reiteration of the aforementioned statement. Thus, we urge inclusion of the statement from the G20 deliberations in appropriate resolutions arising from the First Committee of the United Nations. 
 
Respectfully,
 
Jonathan Granoff
President, Global Security Institute
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"Nuclear weapons are unworthy of civilization."
Senator Alan Cranston, Global Security Institute
 
PRESIDENT 
Jonathan Granoff / Tel. +1 (484) 620-4967
 
CHAIR OF THE BOARD 
Kim Cranston
 
BOARD OF ADVISORS
Oscar Arias *Former President, Costa Rica / Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell, Former Prime Minister, Canada / Amb. Sérgio Duarte, Former UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs /  Dr. Jane Goodall, Founder, Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace /  Rigoberta Menchú Tum, * Founder, Fundación Rigoberta Menchú Tum / Dr. Frank Von Hippel, Princeton Co-Chair, International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) / Amb.Robert Grey Director of the Nonpartisan Security Group / Amb.Thomas Graham, US Peace and Disarmament Negotiator and Presidential Advisor  /  Hon. Douglas Roche, Former Senator / Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament
 
WITH RESPECT
Amb. Jayantha Dhanapala (b. 1938 — d. 2023), Former UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs / Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev *  (b. 1931 — d. 2022)  / Sir Joseph Rotblat * (b. 1908 — d. 2005)