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26 May 2005 |
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29 May 2005 |
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With the failure of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference in New York, a new urgency has been given to nuclear disarmament and nuclear
nonproliferation issues. Australian peace groups are calling on the government to give a much higher priority to nuclear weapons issues, and urging it not to support the United States in
avoiding its nuclear disarmament obligations. The failure of the NPT review conference is widely attributed to obstructionism on the part of the United States, and Iran. A key factor in that failure has been the refusal of the US to discuss the blueprint for nuclear disarmament laid down in previous NPT review conferences, and to acknowledge that in the year 2000 NPT review, it agreed with every other nation except India Pakistan and Israel (who are not NPT signatories), to accomplish the 'total and unequivocal elimination' of its nuclear arsenals. According to Australian NGOs, "The Australian government must support a truly balanced approach to nuclear disarmament, that treats both the problem of nuclear proliferation and that of nuclear disarmament with due seriousness and urgency." "On the one hand, the increase in the sheer number of nations with nuclear weapons capability makes the use of nuclear weapons by accident, miscalculation, madness or malice exponentially more likely. On the other hand, the US and Russia continue to keep a sufficient number of nuclear weapons on launch-on-warning status to wipe out civilisation in hours." "If the world as a whole fails to solve that problem, then in the longer run, the future of civilisation and perhaps the human race will be in question." Contact: John Hallam FOEA 02-9567-7533 h02-9810-2598 Pauline Mitchell, CICD 03-9555-3076 Sue Gilbey APC 08-8177-0490
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26 May 2005 |
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http://www.abolition2000.org/ |
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[New York, NY] – A coalition of over 2000 groups from 90 countries today blamed the United States and other nuclear weapons states for failing to strengthen the global nuclear non-proliferation regime during four weeks of meetings at the United Nations to review the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). “The United States has had four weeks to demonstrate international leadership on nuclear proliferation. But all they have shown is a democratic deficit,” charged Susi Snyder, Secretary General of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. “Clearly, the U.S. delegation never wanted to strengthen the Treaty. Instead, they have spent four weeks behind closed doors refusing to recognize agreements they made 5 and 10 years ago. They have bottled up all substantive discussion by haggling over arcane procedures. They have demonstrated a lack of compromise and an unwillingness to move the global non-proliferation regime forward.” “It’s like the Wild West,” said Alice Slater, co-founder of Abolition 2000, the global network working toward a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons. “There is a total disrespect for the rule of law. The U.S. is fighting over acknowledgement of a deal they made ten years ago. In exchange for countries agreeing to extend the NPT indefinitely, the U.S. would, among other things, support a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). But this Administration refuses even to submit the CTBT to the Senate for an up-or-down vote on ratification. In the meantime, it is doing its own proliferating by maintaining a massive stockpile of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert and researching new, smaller, and more usable nuclear weapons.” “There are serious concerns about the proliferation of nuclear technology. But it is impossible to prevent that proliferation while the nuclear weapons states insist on maintaining large stockpiles of weapons themselves,” noted Alyn Ware of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy. “It’s like a parent telling a child not to smoke while smoking a pack of cigarettes in their face. It is not going to work and we expect better leadership than that from the world’s superpowers.” “We believe that states have a moral and political obligation to abolish nuclear weapons. But they also have a legal responsibility to do so,” noted Ware. He cited the decision in 1996 by the International Court of Justice that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal and the unanimous conclusion that states have an obligation to achieve complete nuclear disarmament. “Given the lack of implementation here, we are looking at going back to the court to force compliance on this legal obligation,” he said. “It is convenient to blame Iran and Egypt and others for the failure of the NPT Review Conference,” said Snyder. “But that begs the question. Egypt, for example, has been very vocal about
the importance of acknowledging past agreements and bringing Israel into the Treaty. And Iran has consistently called for a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East. Both of these
actions would strengthen the non-proliferation regime. When the U.S. refuses to even discuss these issues, then they are the ones sabotaging the Treaty.” Abolition 2000 is a global network of citizens, political & religious leaders, professional associations, colleges and universities, Nobel laureates, retired military leaders, and municipalities in over 90 countries committed to eliminating nuclear weapons
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26 May 2005 |
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Australian peace groups have urged the Australian Government to work toward real progress and not retreat, on the total and unequivocal elimination of all nuclear
arsenals at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, now locked in difficult negotiations in the United Nations. According to Australian peace groups: "Progress toward nuclear disarmament and not regress is vital for the future of civilisation and the human race.
This simple fact has been emphasised by a large number of governments at the review conference. The two largest nuclear weapons powers, the US and Russia, have sufficient megatonnage on
hairtrigger alert, to eliminate civilisation a number of times over, despite the Bush-Putin agreement of 2002 which merely reduces the number of weapons. In addition, an increase in the
number of countries that possess nuclear weapons makes it more likely that they will be used by accident, miscalculation, madness or malice. The insistence of all the nuclear weapons
states on maintaining their massive arsenals provides a powerful incentive for others to acquire what the 'big boys' have got. This vicious circle can be broken only by real progress
to the elimination of all nuclear arsenals,." |
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26 May 2005 |
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The penultimate day confirmed yesterday’s prognosis that there will be no substantive agreement coming out of the NPT Review Conference. The morning opened with a
short plenary in which the president, Ambassador Sergio Duarte of Brazil, told the Conference that he would schedule two plenaries for Friday, morning and afternoon, “with presentation of
the chairs’ reports, after which we will consider and adopt the final document... after which delegations will make statements” before the conference is concluded. The meeting was then
closed and civil society requested to leave, which we did. I wondered for a hopeful moment if he intended to convene negotiations to find a way to adopt at least some of the aspirations and
recommendations contained in the stymied reports from the various committees and subsidiary bodies; but no, it turned out the business too sensitive for civil society ears was an attempt to
resolve yesterday’s replay of the agenda conflict, and the reports we can expect tomorrow are only from such scintillating bodies as the credentials committee. Though of course such
things are very important!
The rest of the day there were group meetings and closed sessions on the ‘technical report’, in particular the characterisation of the agenda decision that had been challenged yesterday by the UK. After much wrangling, it was decided to remove the text of the NAM’s statement of understanding from the technical report of the conference, while keeping in the sentence of the president’s understanding. Apart from that, the report will list various officers, documents and meetings. It will not contain any ideas or recommendations for work for the future. Having deleted the actual text of the NAM understanding, it will not even refer to the review conference outcomes of 1995 and 2000. In view of the serious proliferation problems in the world, it is a great pity that the 2005 Review Conference has not been able to adopt measures that would strengthen the NPT, but it is not calamitous, as some have suggested. Having been adopted by consensus and not yet implemented, the agreements obtained in the review conferences of 1995 and 2000 still stand. Lack of agreement at the 2005 RevCon is to be deplored because it may erode confidence in the regime, but it neither invalidates nor undermines relevant obligations and undertakings previously agreed to. They continue to stand as benchmarks for measuring progress and promoting compliance until the treaty is fully implemented in all its nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation contexts. During the plenary, the Japanese ambassador read a message from Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura: “Given the serious challenges the NPT regime is currently facing, it is an urgent task for the State Parties to maintain and strengthen the authority and credibility of the NPT”. He expressed the “strong hope” that the RevCon “would issue a robust message enabling the NPT regime to be further consolidated. Remaining time is limited and the task ahead is tremendous. Each one of the State Parties shares the responsibility to make this Conference a success. With our creative and cooperative efforts, an agreed document is still achievable. Japan will not spare any efforts to this end.” Luxembourg on behalf of the EU and Egypt on behalf of the Arab Group said they agreed with the Japanese foreign minister and pledged their full support to work intensively and cooperatively to achieve consensus on a final document, but some delegations greeted Egypt’s statement with laughter, which does not bode well. Dr Rebecca Johnson
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