PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

SYDNEY AUSTRALIA 23 MAY 2015

PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

 

NUCLEAR WEAPONS STILL GREATEST SHORT-MEDIUM TERM THREAT TO CIVILISATION, HUMAN SURVIVAL: NEED FOR ABOLITION YESTERDAY

 

 

NPT REVIEW CONFERENCE 2015 BRINGS NO RESULT

 

 

As the 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference comes to a close with no final outcome document, nuclear weapons remain the greatest short to medium-term threat to human civilization and human survival. Their abolition, together with the reduction of nuclear risks, remains the single action that will do most to assure the survival of civilization and of humans as a species.

 

The most important single dynamic in the just-closed 2015 NPT Review Conference at the United Nations in NY has been precisely the clash of views between the overwhelming majority of governments, who believe that nuclear weapons are a clear and pressing danger to us all, and who at conferences in Oslo, Nayarit, (Mexico) and Vienna have affirmed just that, and a 'denial brigade' comprised exclusively of the P5 nuclear weapons states. While most nuclear weapons analysts and most governments see that the danger of a nuclear exchange has dramatically escalated in the last 2-3 years, and that the use of nuclear weapons would be a global catastrophe, the P5 (especially France) have denied either that there is any increase in risk or that there is anything new in the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons use.

 

Blind Freddie can see this is nonsense.

 

The already grossly watered-down final draft statement has failed to gain support from the conference – even from the nuclear weapons states themselves in spite of their vigorous attempts to weaken and eviscerate it. Had it been adopted it would anyway have been meaningless.

 

A number of things of vital importance have emerged from the failed conference:

 

The Catastrophic Humanitarian Consequences of nuclear weapons use as well the the reality of the risk of such use will be a permanent feature of future discussion whether the nuclear weapon states like it or not. This does more that put the apocalypse firmly on the global table: It adds an absolute, non-negotiable urgency to future discussions of nuclear abolition. Non-nuclear-weapons states find it unacceptable for every year to be a spin of the chamber in a game of American and Russian, Indian Pakistani and Chinese, French, British Israeli, and DPRK roulette, and demand action to eliminate nuclear weapons yesterday.

 

This means that avenues other than the blocked NPT process, and processes that are not blockable, will be increasingly sought to eliminate nuclear weapons.

 

An immediate step to fill the 'legal gap' and move to a ban on nuclear weapons is the 'Humanitarian Pledge' now signed by over 100 governments. The 'Humanitarian Pledge', started out life after the Vienna Conference in Dec2014 as the 'Austrian Pledge' and became the 'Humanitarian pledge' during the NPT Revcon as support for it snowballed.

 

The Humanitarian Pledge will hopefully lead to a process that will be block-able by none and that will lead inexorably and quickly to the banning and then to the elimination of nuclear weapons.

 

This needs to take place yesterday, not 'eventually' or 'in some century'. We may not be around so long.

 

The humanitarian pledge deserves the support of every single government on the planet.

 

John Hallam

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