Hiroshima in the news

These are comments made by UNIDIR Fellow, Tim Caughley, at a Public Meeting organised by UNITAR at the Hiroshima International Conference Centre, Japan, on 1 June 2016

Future perspectives for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

The immediate future for multilateral nuclear disarmament is difficult to predict. There are only two certainties.  The first is that the global security environment will remain a complicating factor for making real progress on nuclear disarmament.  The second is that a new review cycle for the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will begin in May 2017, building up to 2020 and the 50^th anniversary of entry-into-force of the treaty that year. It can confidently be said that of the three pillars of the NPT all parties retain a strong interest in sustaining two of them, the proliferation and peaceful use pillars. However, efforts to agree effective measures for shoring up the shaky third pillar—on nuclear disarmament—are, for the meantime, taking place in a parallel forum, an Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) established by the UN General Assembly. Those efforts are intensifying despite—or perhaps because of—the highly unsettled international security environment.

For the rest, the future can only be a matter of further speculation:

1. In the NPT review, what will be the attitude of nuclear-weapon states (NWS) to the sharpening focus on the nuclear disarmament pillar of the NPT in the OEWG?

2. And in the immediate future, what will be the outcome of the work of the OEWG when it meets again this August to agree its report and make recommendations to the 71^st session of the UN General Assembly?

3.  Equally, what will be the outcomes of any initiatives in the General Assembly this October to reconvene the OEWG or any other new group or negotiation that may be set up by UNGA71?

4. For instance, will UNGA71 agree on a new process stemming from one or other of two proposals made during the OEWG’s May for negotiations on a prohibition of nuclear weapons. One proposal was tabled by the entire group of Latin American and Caribbean states (CELAC). The other came from a cross-regional group (including 3 states from this region [i.e., Asia])?

5. Will states that do not support such a negotiation participate in it? The dynamic that might unfold could take this form: there could be pressure from nuclear-weapons states on their allies and friends not to participate.  On the other hand, there would be pressure from civil society on non-nuclear weapon states, including those that are allied to NWS, to attend and to press for a prohibition even if the NWS did not participate.

In any event, future perspectives are necessarily of a speculative nature at this stage.

Answers to pre-submitted questions covered the following points during the Hiroshima public meeting:

The latest meeting of the OEWG took place in May 2016. What is the significance of these sessions?

The significance lies in the fact that are taking place:

i) under UNGA rules of procedure (in which voting can occur if consensus is absent);

ii) in parallel to forums that have proved to be either blocked (Conference on Disarmament) or unproductive (NPT) and which both operate under the consensus rule for the taking of decisions.

As well as being able to take decisions by voting, the conduct of the meetings is more informal and flexible than the CD and the NPT. For instance, interactivity – i.e., an actual exchange of views or debate – is strongly encouraged.  Civil society participates actively.  The chair arranges experts to make presentations in order to stimulate debate.

How is the OEWG contributing to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation?

The OEWG is providing a forum in which all states are able to participate alongside intergovernmental organisations and civil society unlike the CD (65 members) and the NPT (which doesn’t include nuclear armed states, the DPRK, India, Israel and Pakistan).

What are the limitations and opportunities of these Open Ended Working Group meetings?

Limitations have resulted because the nuclear armed states have chosen not to participate, leaving the defence of nuclear weapons possession and the stationing of US nuclear weapons on the territories of some NATO allies to states under the nuclear ‘umbrella’. The opportunity for a direct expression of views from the weapon states themselves is an important missing ingredient.

Opportunities stem from the ability for civil society to be heard and to contribute to the debate.

How do milestones such as the visits to Hiroshima by the US President and US Secretary of State affect nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation? Do these visits help promote this issue?

The visits have various symbolic impacts, especially President Obama’s as the first serving US President to come to Hiroshima since the dropping of the atomic bomb. The visits affect nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation by their recognition of the unique impacts of a nuclear weapon on civilians (as opposed to conventional bombing), an impact wreaked by a single weapon rather than hundreds of conventional ones, an impact which is indiscriminate and, because of radio-activity, goes on killing people and affecting the health of survivors long after the explosion. It is impossible to imagine that visitors would not be affected by their visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but with the aging of hibakusha (affected survivors) it will be left to all of us to honour their testimony and to press for a nuclear weapon free world.

What can be done to achieve a break-through for a world without nuclear weapons? What else could the people of Hiroshima do to promote nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation?

A nuclear weapon detonation, especially an exchange of nuclear weapons between enemies, will not respect national boundaries. And the risks of a damaging accident are difficult to calculate but are greater than zero. Therefore, everyone has a stake in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. A break-through will require much wider public understanding that the health, safety and security of everyone is at stake. The hibakusha and other people of Hiroshima can continue with their moving efforts to remind us all of the horrific and lasting impacts of a nuclear weapon.

Tim Caughley

UNIDIR

70 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Commemorating the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the subject of a posting written on the joint site that UNIDIR  shares with ILPI, called 'Effective Measures'. Readers who may be interested in the latest posting are invited to go to 

http://unidir.ilpi.org/?p=376

Civil Society and Humanitarian Issues

 In Japanese tradition, fireworks are flowers offered to the sky, converting gunpowder from a weapon of war to a prayer for peace.  “Creating a Peaceful and Safe Future: Pressing Issues and Potential Solutions” was the theme of a conference held recently in Japan.  Organized by the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, through its Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific in cooperation with the government of Japan, the meeting was hosted by the city of Shizuoka beneath the inspiring presence of Mt Fuji.

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