GS(NP) 92: Letter to the Chairman of the Committee from the United Nations Association, Edinburgh Branch

 

 

"A world without nuclear weapons"

 

We enclose the Resolution, "A world without nuclear weapons", adopted by all 48 countries represented at Seoul in August at the Annual Council of the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA). Annex A. The Resolution, based on the Report of the International Conference, "Civil Society and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty", held at the Scottish Parliament last April, was proposed by UNA-US, UNA-Ireland and UNA-UK (represented by our Convenor, Dr. Gari Donn JP). The Resolution was presented to Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary-General of the UN.

 

The signing by all nations and the adoption of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the adoption of a treaty to Terminate the Production of Fissile material (Russia, for example, stopped producing fissile material ten years ago) will draw to a close the testing and production of nuclear weapons. It will also make the design of updated nuclear weapons pointless. (HMG has signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and is indeed pressing for a treaty to Terminate the Production of Fissile Material. Recently HMG postponed the signing of a contract to design an updated Trident system at least until after the 2010 Review of the NPT next April/May).

 

Declarations by each nuclear power that they will never be the first to use nuclear weapons would obviously minimise belligerence and make the world less dangerous . Such declarations have already been made by China and by India (though India is not a signatory of the NPT). For reasons we find difficult to understand, our MOD has refused to make such a statement.

 

We suggest the Resolution, supported by continued bilateral reduction by Russia and the US of their astonishing numbers of alerted nuclear weapons, is a measured approach to a world without nuclear weapons that in no way endangers national safety.

 

As we have written, the Resolution was supported by a wide range of world opinion. We beg you to see that it receives ardent support by HMG as the first step towards ensuring constructive results from the 2010 Review of the NPT.

 

 

10 September 2009

 

ANNEX A

 

a world without nuclear weapons

 

Noting that the Charter of the United Nations specifies "disarmament and the regulation of armaments" as a core element of the maintenance of international peace and security (Article 11), links international peace and security to "the least diversion for armaments of the world's human and economic resources" (Article 26), and provides for high-level military advice on "the regulation of armaments, and possible disarmament" (Article 47);

 

Recalling that before the Charter even entered into force, the invention and wartime use of the first generation of atomic weapons had added a hitherto unimaginable annihilative power to military arsenals, such that the very first resolution adopted by the very first session of the General Assembly of the infant United Nations called for the total elimination of nuclear weapons (Resolution 1(1));

 

Lamenting the continued spread of nuclear weapons, despite the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, to now nine countries, each of which has a nuclear weapons establishment with a deep interest in their perpetuation;

 

Reaffirming the cornerstone principle of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that nuclear-armed states have the concomitant obligation to implement elimination of their own nuclear weapons arsenals as non-nuclear-armed states undertake in not developing nuclear weapons capabilities-an obligation that the NPT's nuclear-weapons states explicitly recognized at the NPT review conference of 1995, and for which they committed themselves to a 13-step implementation plan at the NPT review conference of 2000;

 

Welcoming the recommitment of the first nuclear weapons state to these weapons' complete elimination worldwide, announced by the new American president Barack Obama in Prague this year, and the agreement between president Obama and Russian president Dmitri Medvedev to conclude a treaty this year making substantial reductions in the nuclear stockpiles of the United States and Russian Federation;

 

Applauding the achievement of agreement in the long-deadlocked U.N. Conference on Disarmament on a work program including negotiation of a treaty to end production of fissile material and a working group on banning weapons from space;

 

Applauding also the announced intention of the Security Council to meet at the summit level this fall to act on plan to advance nuclear disarmament, paving the for a successful NPT review conference in 20I0; and

 

Recognizing that achievement of a nuclear weapons-free world will require verification, transparency, and guarantees of a robust global response to any state or entity that seeks "break-out" capability to acquire nuclear weapons in the future,

 

The World Federation of United Nations Associations:

 

1. Endorses the political priority that' leaders of several nuclear-weapons states now

publicly place on reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons

 

2. Calls on the nuclear-weapons states parties to the NPT to move quickly to implement previously agreed measures to achieve a nuclear-weapons free world in the near future, and calls on states that are not parties to the NPT, even though nuclear weapons-capable, to commit to joining an international regime of build-down, transparency, and weapons elimination;

 

3. Appeals to all states that have not yet done so to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty without delay;

 

4. Reaffirms the need, in the interim before complete elimination of nuclear weapons, for all nuclear-armed states to commit themselves unequivocally to "no first use" of nuclear weapons, and for each to commit itself to the Security Council's negative security assurances to non-nuclear-armed states;

 

5. Calls for the universal application of International Atomic Energy Agency Additional Protocols;

 

6. Urges member states to work promptly in the Conference on Disarmament to negotiate a treaty to end verifiably the production of fissile materials;

 

7. Calls for creation of an international nuclear fuel bank that guarantees access to civil nuclear power generation without increasing the risks of weapons proliferation;

 

8. Urges the United Nations Security Council to create effective multilateral means for giving full effect to Resolution 1540 on controlling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to non-state actors;

 

9. Calls on all U.N. member states to support and implement energetically decisions taken by the Security Council to discourage, deter, or disrupt development by states of nuclear weapons capabilities; and

 

10. Urges the Security Council to respond vigorously and effectively to any such emerging nuclear threat to international peace and security, in order to assure in perpetuity a nuclear weapons-free world.