International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

Cornerstones of a Future

Nuclear Abolition Strategy

Alice Slater

The Abolition 2000 Network was born at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference when NGOs from around the world gathered at the UN to urge governments to keep their promise for the elimination of nuclear weapons set forth in the treaty. Appalled by the lack of commitment to a nuclear-free world, we drafted the Abolition Statement which called for immediate negotiations to begin on a treaty to ban the bomb, with negotiations to be completed by the year 2000. Time is fleeing. Discussions go on among activists around the world as to whether we must change the name of the Network. Yet Abolition 2000 has become a well known idea - indeed, at the time the name was adopted, most people were still talking about arms control, and disarmament - a word which had lost its meaning as nuclear weapons states argued that they had already done disarmament with their piecemeal cuts, SALT treaties, START I treaty. Even as they now argue that they have committed to a Comprehensive Test Ban - as we continue to explode plutonium 1000 feet below the desert floor in Nevada, or deep below the frozen arctic snows of Novaya Zemlya, in so called "sub-critical" tests which do not cause chain reactions - or as we continue to test new weapons designs and performance in computer simulated virtual reality. Comprehensive indeed! Words do mean something.

Therefore, the first cornerstone of the future strategy for the Abolition Network is to hold on to our name - Abolition 2000! It conveys a sense of urgency. We're not talking about Abolition 3000 here. Using our Abolition Statement to enroll other organizations, we have 1400 organizations in 87 countries - still growing. One of our greatest accomplishments was to put the word "abolition" on the world's agenda and make it an idea whose time has come. We need not falter. We have already restated the argument in our terms. Enrollment must continue as the second cornerstone of our strategy. It's an activity which citizens groups can act on in unity all over the world. But we need to be strategic. We need enrollment with a difference. Goals should be set this year to enroll various sectors of society - medical, labor, religious, environmental, human rights.

As we meet here in the Netherlands at the Hague Appeal for Peace, the Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee is meeting in New York, attempting to lay out the ground rules for the NPT 2000 review. Last year the PrepCom broke up in a shambles on midnight of the last day, with no consensus, because the nuclear weapons states, with the exception of China, blocked a proposal even to discuss nuclear disarmament. Very little is likely to be accomplished at this 1999 PrepCom as well. Over the past three years, NGOs have succeeded in scheduling a number of speakers to make NGO presentations to the delegates for one three hour session during the PrepCom. A vital presence at the NPT review must be the third cornerstone of our strategy. During the 2000 Review we must change the format and put the world spotlight on the review conference. We should begin now to invite the most renowned world figures to stand for abolition before the delegates in 2000. A committee should be established to develop a wish list - the Pope, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Arundathi Roy, Mikhail Gorbachev, Archbishop Tutu, Jimmy Carter, Prince Charles, Michael Douglas, Oscar Arias. We need a list of the world's most persuasive and renowned abolitionists. The 2000 Review should be a mass media event.

Some NGOs are exploring the electrifying proposal put forth by Zia Mian at the 1997 Review, that we convert the NPT into a negotiating body for a treaty. We should be prepared to support that proposal in our own countries, and move it forward by enrolling sympathetic nations to call for an amendment conference under Art. VIII of the NPT.

An important cornerstone for our use is the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, drafted by lawyers, and policy makers under the inspiration of the Abolition 2000 Working Group for a Convention, convened by the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation. The Model Convention has been submitted to the UN as an official document by Costa Rica and has been the subject of a number of government discussions. It is referred to in a resolution gathering Congressional sponsors in the US, calling on the President to begin immediate negotiations on a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. This would be a good unified action for grassroots networks around the world - to submit similar resolutions in parliaments in every country.

There are a host of Millennium events and the Millennium Institute, located in the US has a list of them. The Institutute's draft agenda refers to the work of Abolition 2000 and supports the abolition of nuclear weapons for the new millennium. We should be bringing resolutions, statements and speakers to all the millenium events - so that people not usually associated with our movement will be reminded that our world must deal with this unfinished toxic legacy of the last century.

We need to take a leaf from the landmines campaign and make known the devastating health effects of the nuclear age. We need to make known that it is not only the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who suffered from the bomb, in a time long ago that seems so remote in history to many. Lethal radiation continues to poison our workers and communities wherever uranium is mined, processed and used. Health studies around the world show the deadly effects of the nuclear age to uranium miners, workers at nuclear weapons facilities and civilian power plants, downwinders and children - leukemia, lung cancer, multiple myeloma, carcinoma of the pancreas, malignant melanomas, brain cancers and other lethal illnesses. There are many studies and we need to educate the public to reject the corporate and government "science" that has raised unreasonable doubts as to their accuracy in order to keep these issues from public awareness, much as the tobacco industry was able to do for all too many years.

Just as the International Campaign to Ban Landmines was able to gather support for its cause by demonstrating the face of human suffering caused by anti-personnel mines, the Nuclear Abolition Campaign, as a cornerstone of its strategy, must make public the toxic legacy of the nuclear age. With huge majorities of over 80 and 90% supporting a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons according to polls on every continent, we need to clear the hurdle of misinformation which will move the public to action. Finally, we must continue to build on the enormous success of citizens all over the world in passing the New Agenda Coalition resolution at the UN last fall. The breach in the NATO wall, where every NATO country except for the nuclear weapons states and Turkey resisted US pressure to vote against the NAC proposal and abstained. Japan and China abstained as well. A new resolution will be presented this fall and we must be ready.

Contribution to HAP Workshop on Nuclear Abolition. Adress: Alice Slater, Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) 15 East 26th Sreet, Room 915, New York, NY 10010, tel: (212) 726-9161, fax: (212) 726-9160, email: aslater@gracelinks.org.