Overview and vote: Nuclear Disarmament

[simpolukadmin]

Title: Nuclear Disarmament

Proposer: Mark Horler Bogglewitch@yahoo.com

Summary: Nuclear weapons pose a risk to all human life, to our civilisations and also to the biosphere upon which we depend (though we may not think it) for our survival. This is one of the most fundamental risks we face as a species - from catastrophic loss of life to the worst case scenario of extinction. We must deal with this now.

I can only suggest that all visit the CND site: http://www.cnduk.org/

Also I suggest reading 'The fate of the earth' by Jonathan Schell.

Results in annual vote by SP Adopters:

2008
A: 60%
B: 14%
C: 20%
D: 6%

2007
A: 61%
B: 4%
C: 20%
D: 9%

[precycled]

Nuclear disarmament is a necessary ambition, along with elimination of landmines, cluster bombs, chemical and biological weapons. We should probably also include a bunch of other military technologies being actively developed that people don't get to hear about. These ambitions are in the same category as ending poverty, stopping toxic wastes accumulating and stabilising the climate. Everyone agrees that it would be a good idea but most people have been lulled into believing that it's not realistic to expect it will ever happen. Consequently the public allow governments to neglect researching how these ambitions could actually be achieved and the proposed mechanisms for achieving them remain flimsy and ineffective.

When the United Nations was set up in 1945 the destructive power of nuclear weapons had just become horribly obvious. The UN's Article 26 committed all member countries "to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the worlds human and economic resources". This should have triggered global nuclear disarmament - instead we have seen 60 years of steady increases in military spending and the spread of nuclear weapons.

The need for nuclear disarmament has not gone away. But governments and treaties will not deliver it. We need to think why? To my mind there are 3 key factors; paranoia, powerplay and economics. I don't know how to heal the psychological defects of statehood but the economic factor is repairable. Currently when governments write cheques for weapons their economic growth figures are boosted. Buy really big weapons like nuclear submarines and your economic credentials leap ahead of your competitors. Of course all this spending is counterproductive  - at best the weapons are never used and even then the funds are unavailable for use in creating any form of genuine security.

The economic incentive that drives weapons spending, including nuclear, can be reversed simply by omiting weapons-related purchases from GDP (Gross Domestic Product) calculations. This adjusted GDP can be called Gross Peaceful Product. It can be implemented anywhere and is well suited to simultaneous introduction internationally. See http://www.grosspeacefulproduct.org.uk or this forum's topic http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?board=7.0

James Greyson

[Searle88]

           RE: Supporting the Development of New Non-Lethal Weapons.


I agree entirely with the end of nuclear armanents. However, if we are living in the real world we must surely realize that this is unlikely unless there is some  credible alternative(s). Here, I would like to suggest the concept of new non-lethal weapons which could be used against a foe without death, and destruction. This may sound fanciful but I feel that this is the way forward. I do not at present know how much if any serious research is being undertaken in this area (apart from tazers ofcourse but these can prove fatal if misused, and they are not the same as nuclear weapons which ofcourse deal with big-scale conflicts!!!!!).

In an ideal world wars should never happen, and it is far too idealistic for now to have a world with no kind of weapons at all irrespective of whether they are lethal, or indeed, non-lethal...........


R.Searle http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics

[simpolukadmin]

You can find guest article on a proposed Nucelar Weapons Convention in the Spring 2008 policy update at:
http://www.simpol.org.uk/Pages/spideasspring08.pdf

This is flagged up on the CND website referenced in the policy suggestion, but has not been submitted for inclusion in the Simultaneous Policy in its own right. Any Adopter who is wishing to do so can submit it via the policy page of:
http://www.simpol.org.uk/

[precycled]

The nuclear-age debate about weapons is a curious one, now 63 years old - since the signing of Chapter 26 of the UN Charter. The lack of any progress is like taking part in a murder-mystery where the culprits remain unchallenged because the detectives all reliably follow the trail of clues to a series of dead ends. It's good to hear a mention of idealism in one of the above replies. The most idealistic thing we could do is to blindly follow yet more dead ends and hope that the story can somehow still have a happy ending.

May I offer another clue, in case it helps anyone. Issues of conflict and disarmament are not about the technology, they are about the ideas and the money. The technology follows the ideas and cannot be changed by direct interventions, new technology, conventions, etc. The ideas are the real target but these also cannot be changed directly - "peace and love, man". Money talks and changing money systems can change the world. Pity then that all the detectives are busy looking elsewhere...

james greyson
http://www.grosspeacefulproduct.org.uk  http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?board=7.0 http://www.blindspot.org.uk  http://www.climateneutral.unep.org/cnn_members.aspx?m=195

[Rob Wheeler]

This proposal includes no substantive international action that is proposed and can be taken. I would thus suggest that this thus needs to be added before the proposal becomes meaningful. We could say that maintaining nuclear weapons violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, the NonProliferation Treaty, the Nuclear Disarmament Convention, and the 1996 ruling of the Intl Court of Justice. Thus the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention and the proposal put forward under the Middle Powers Agreement must be supported by all governments as a means by which these foundational international agreements can be honored and respected - as mandated within the documents themselves.

Further we should call upon the UN Member States to pass a resolution stipulating that any country that continues to obstruct a new agreement to disarm the nuclear weapons states and dismantle their nuclear weapons, or that does not take active steps to disarm and dismantle its nuclear weapons, shall have its rights and privileges of UN membership suspended, as authorized under Article 18 of the Charter with a 2/3rds vote of the General Assembly. The Middle Powers should determine which of these rights and privileges should be suspended - perhaps the rights and privileges that are suspended could increase the longer that the Nuclear States fail to negotiate in good faith and to take steps to disarm.

[Bren]

So, for example, what might be the consequences of the USA or the UK, or Russia or China or any other nation having their UN rights suspended?

[Cellularsociety]

This proposal includes no substantive international action that is proposed and can be taken. I would thus suggest that this thus needs to be added before the proposal becomes meaningful. We could say that maintaining nuclear weapons violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, the NonProliferation Treaty, the Nuclear Disarmament Convention, and the 1996 ruling of the Intl Court of Justice. Thus the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention and the proposal put forward under the Middle Powers Agreement must be supported by all governments as a means by which these foundational international agreements can be honored and respected - as mandated within the documents themselves.

...

Are any of these things really necessary? All the above arguments have been made because there is no other perceived way of getting round 'first mover disadvantage'. The substantive action you mention is disarmament itself.

Mark

[mikebrady]

The substantive action you mention is disarmament itself.

Indeed, Mark.

The International Nuclear Weapons Convention which is referred to on the CND page and was featured in a policy supplement to the It's Simpol ! newsletter is a useful expansion of this proposal. It is a document which is already serving as a rallying point, so could be included in the Simultaneous Policy, if Adopters wish to put it forward.

[Cellularsociety]

Hi Mike. 

Do you know, no matter how many times I look I can never find that convention on the CND page. Could you provide a link please thankyou.

Also If I read it and it seems appropriate, how do I then go about incorporating it into my proposal?

Mark

[mikebrady]

Hi Mike. 

Do you know, no matter how many times I look I can never find that convention on the CND page. Could you provide a link please thankyou.

Also If I read it and it seems appropriate, how do I then go about incorporating it into my proposal?

Mark

On the CND page, under campaigns, there's a link to 'Global Abolition'. That campaign page has a link to the 'Nuclear Weapons Convention' page. The direct link is:
http://www.cnduk.org/index.php/campaigns/global-abolition/nuclear-weapons-convention.html

One way to put it forward would be to reference is directly with a short summary of what it is about. Something along the following lines could be added to your text, which draws from the summary on the CND page:

---
This can be achieved by incorporating the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention in the Simultaneous Policy. This prohibits development, testing, production, stockpiling, transfer, use, and threat of use of nuclear weapons. States possessing nuclear weapons will be required to destroy their arsenals according to a series of phases. The Convention also prohibits the production of weapons-usable fissile material and requires delivery vehicles to be destroyed or converted to make them non-nuclear capable.
----

The full text, or a link to it, could then be provided as additional information.

Under the existing system, this counts as a new proposal, requiring 9 seconders - you could easily gather those I'm sure, by requesting them on this board and also flagging it up in the 'Works in Progress' section.

It will be for the new Policy Committee to handle the proposal. We haven't yet had an existing proposal replaced by an updated one, but I would imagine it should be easy in a case like this. I can only see complications arising if a revised proposal goes off in a different direction which may not make it a straight replacement of a policy that has already received support.

As there seems to be a good body of support behind the Convention, gathering support for it within the Simultaneous Policy should be straightforward. People who want to back it, can sign up as Adopters to do so if they are not already.

[Cellularsociety]

Thanks Mike.

Right then I'm off to the 'works in progress' section. 

Mark

[jonward]

there are a few problems with nuclear non-proliferation efforts currently. the 'contraction and convergence' style approach with the START treaties seems to have fallen by the wayside with talk of a new generation of weapons, or re-coding nuclear weapons to 'tactical' etc in true Orwellian style. A further problem is no safeguards for latent nuclear capability that can arise with research or military programmes such as the Inertial Confinement Fusion projects in Germany and Japan which require a stockpiling of Tritium, access to the cutting edge of the physics of fusion. Not only can it allow clandestine testing (which is still better than atmospheric testing), but improve the understanding to design new weapons. Countries that have fissile materials and such programmes could produce nuclear weapons on a very short time span and may be able, like the US, UK and France, use such fusion programmes to create a new generation of weapons with the improved fusion and plasa physics knowledge.

This then calls into question ethics and funding of science, as well as simultaneous monitoring and policy for nuclear weapons.