The agenda covered a wide range of arms control and security
issues but featured nuclear disarmament, beginning with an examination of “humanitarian issues and nuclear weapons”. This was an understandable focus given
Japan’s experience of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it gave
rise to an intriguing dynamic.
Of course, Japan was part of the consensus adoption by the
2010 NPT Review Conference of the action plan in which deep concern was
expressed by the NPT parties of the “catastrophic
humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons”. And in a joint public statement in
September 2010, the foreign ministers of the NPT lobby group of 10 states known
as the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative (NPDI), which includes
Japan, publicly echoed the Review Conference’s concern about humanitarian
consequences of nuclear weapons’ use.
Japan has not, however, subscribed to the efforts of a
larger, Swiss-led group to amplify this expression of concern. At the first
preparatory committee meeting in the current review cycle of the NPT last May
in Vienna, Switzerland delivered a statement on behalf of 16 states parties. Barely 6 months later a similar statement was delivered in the name of 34 states and the Holy See during
the most recent session of the UN General Assembly.
That statement concludes with these words: “The only way to guarantee [that nuclear
weapons are never used again] is the total, irreversible and verifiable
elimination of nuclear weapons, under effective international control,
including through the full implementation of Article VI of the NPT (see
further below). All States must intensify
their efforts to outlaw nuclear weapons and achieve a world free of nuclear
weapons. Civil society plays a crucial role in raising the awareness about the
devastating humanitarian consequences as well as the critical IHL implications
of nuclear weapons”.
Japan, though sympathetic to this message, seems concerned that
that over-emphasizing a humanitarian approach and a “rapid push for a ban” on nuclear weapons might invite staunch
opposition from states possessing nuclear arsenals and thus prove
counter-productive. Japanese
officials prefer for the meantime to approach the goal of nuclear disarmament
in a manner it characterizes as “realistic”, “practical and gradual”, or
“step-by-step”. Its view that the negotiation of a fissile material cut-off
treaty (FMCT) should be the first such step is well known.
Whether concern about the humanitarian consequences of the
detonation of a nuclear weapon will eventually inspire the successful push
needed to ban those armaments remains to be seen. Indeed, how best to make progress on nuclear disarmament is
itself an open question, when existing forums hold so little promise. The Conference on Disarmament (CD) – a
body in which all nine of the nuclear weapons-possessing states are represented
– is still chronically unable to reach the necessary consensus for a mandate
for negotiations on nuclear disarmament (or on FMCT or anything else for that
matter).
Even embracing the word “negotiations” in relation to a
mandate for progress on nuclear disarmament is a step too far for nuclear-armed
states in the CD. And in the NPT,
the negotiations envisaged by Article VI of that treaty are not in
prospect. In the NPT, as in the
CD, nuclear weapons states essentially control the agenda, relying on the
consensus rule (or practice) to do so.
Some civil society representatives at the Shizuoka meeting
seemed skeptical of a step-by-step approach, at least in part because of the
obstacles in the way of taking the first step. They are aware that Japanese
delegates are very active in the UN General Assembly, NPT, CD as well as in the
NPDI group where Japan, with Australia, has been pressing the nuclear weapon
states for more reporting on nuclear weapons’ holdings and doctrines. But they are equally aware that those states have not yet been responsive to these calls for
transparency.
Civil society in Japan holds the key to influencing their
government, in order to help it to recognize the potential for the humanitarian
approach for re-energizing the nuclear disarmament debate, and refocusing
discourse on the effects of the use
of those weapons rather than on their strategic and military purposes.
In this connection, the words of the UN High Representative
for Disarmament Affairs delivered at another recent event in Japan are
instructive. On 2 February, during
her keynote address to "The Second
World Citizen Forum" commemorating the 125th anniversary of the
Kwansei Gakuin University, Angela Kane made these observations: “Given the horrible humanitarian and
environmental consequences from any war involving the use of nuclear
weapons—consequences that would not only cross national borders but affect the
entire planet—citizens everywhere are quite justified in raising their voices
on behalf of progress in nuclear disarmament. There is enormous potential for
progress in this great collective effort, provided the people are willing to
pursue this goal, willing to encourage diverse organized groups throughout
society to work for its achievement, and willing to extend this cooperation to
the peoples of other nations”.
Measuring the potential for progress to which the High
Representative refers will be the subject of further analysis in Disarmament Insight. The
forthcoming events in Oslo on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons – the
Civil Society Forum on 2-3 March and the international conference on 4-5 March -
will be important pointers in this regard. Indeed, the fact that these events are
taking place at all – and that they are currently the subject of widespread reflection in many states at present – is testimony to the value of
bringing fresh humanitarian perspectives to bear on a problem of global
significance that, in disarmament and non-proliferation terms, has become a
Gordian knot.
Tim Caughley, Resident Senior Fellow, UNIDIR
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