Nuclear Weapons

Photo: Mushroom-shaped cloud and water column from the underwater nuclear explosion of July 25, 1946, which was part of Operation Crossroads. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Strong Plea for Early Entry into Force of Nuclear Ban Treaty

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – On the eve of a crucial international conference, an eminent Buddhist organization advocating a nuclear-weapon-free world has called for the signing, ratification and early entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) adopted by 122 UN member states as a sign of their resolve to overcome nuclear terror in the interest of protecting human rights and dignity.

Since the adoption of the TPNW in July 2017, non-nuclear-weapon, nuclear-weapon and nuclear-dependent states are meeting for the first time in the Second Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) – Second PrepCom of the 2020 NPT Review Conference – from April 23 to May 4 in Geneva.

Photo (left to right): Michiko Kodama, Assistant Secretary General of Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- & H- Bomb Sufferers' Organizations); Akira Kawasaki, Executive Committee Member, Peace Boat and an international steering committee member of ICAN; Terumi Tanaka, co-chairperson of Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- & H- Bomb Sufferers' Organizations); Haruko Moritaki, co-director of Hiroshima Alliance of Nuclear Weapons Abolition (HANWA). Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri | IDN-INPS

Pressure Mounts on Japan to Join the Nuclear Ban Treaty

By Katsuhiro Asagiri

TOKYO (IDN) – Japan is coming under pressure from within to sign and ratify the UN Nuclear Ban Treaty, which acknowledges the "unacceptable suffering" of the hibakusha – survivors of hitherto the first ever atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

122 member nations of the United Nations adopted what is formally known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in July 2017.

Aging survivors – 81.41 on an average as of March 2017 – have deplored the Japanese government's decision to stay out of the TPNW for the reason that joining the Treaty could "result in the distance between nuclear weapons and non-nuclear weapons states being further widened."

Photo: Back of a $1 million note, indicating what the money should instead be spent on. Design by Michael Green

Campaign For Moving 'Nuclear Weapons Money' to Boost Peace

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – While governments meet in New York for the first ever United Nations High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament from May 14-16, 2018 campaigners for 'zero nuclear weapons' will be busy counting one million specially designed notes each of $1 million value, adding up to $1 trillion.

The amount of one trillion dollars (with twelve zeros and even eighteen zeros in some countries) is being allocated over the next ten years to 'modernize' the nuclear arsenals of nine countries, which together possess around 15,000 nuclear weapons.

Photo: President Donald Trump with Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Deputy Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, on March 14, 2017, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. Credit: Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead.

U.S. Congress Should Prevent Saudis from Going Nuclear

By Kingston Reif, Daryl G. Kimball and Kelsey Davenport

Kingston Reif is Director for Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy and Daryl G. Kimball is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. Kelsey Davenport is the Association's Director for Nonproliferation Policy. This article appeared as Issue Brief on April 5, 2018 with the caption 'The Risks of Nuclear Cooperation with Saudi Arabia and the Role of Congress'. It is being reproduced with permission from the Association. – The Editor.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) – Curbing the spread of nuclear weapons and the technologies to make them has long been and remains strongly in the U.S. national security interest, especially in the troubled Middle East.

Kazakhstan Supports Proposals Discussed by UN Disarmament Commission

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Amid global anxieties about nuclear peril, Kazakhstan has joined representatives of several countries around the world in calling on the international community to work together through inclusive dialogue that takes into account the views of other States.

The general debate in the UN Disarmament Commission (UNDC) on April 2, 2018 also heard delegates expressing frustration over the lack of progress in implementing disarmament obligations by nuclear-weapon States and calling on them to reduce or eliminate their arsenals, while highlighting the three pillars of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT): disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Photo: Western States Legal Foundation Executive Director Jackie Cabasso, second from left, at the press conference at the United Nations on March 28. On her right is John Burroughs, and on her left are: Holger Guessfeld, Gene Seidman and Alyn Ware.

Experts Stress Importance of UN High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – The increasing fragility of international peace and security is accentuating the critical need for persistent dialogue and relentless diplomacy to deter multiple conflicts triggering nuclear confrontation, disarmament experts and campaigners say.

Conflicts related to nuclear weapons, including in Northeast Asia, between the U.S. and NATO on the one hand and Russia on the other, they say, should be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy and every effort must be undertaken to make the UN High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament from May 14 to 16, 2018 in New York a success.

Photo: John Bolton speaking at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland on February 27, 2015. Credit: CC BY-SA 2.0

Bolton's Policy Opinions Would Worsen Proliferation Dangers

By Daryl G. Kimball

Daryl G. Kimball is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. Following is the text of his statement on the choice of John Bolton, former U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, as President Donald Trump's National Security Advisor.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) – The United States already faces an array of complex and dangerous foreign policy challenges that require pragmatic decision and sober diplomatic engagement with American allies and foes alike.

Photo: Early September 2017 the U.S. government conducted flight tests of the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb over Nevada. More are required before it enters service in 2020. Credit: TomoNews YouTube video

U.S. Undermining the Global Nuclear Testing Taboo

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | GENEVA (IDN) – A new document that outlines U.S. nuclear policy, strategy, capabilities and force posture for the next five to ten years proclaims that the Trump Administration does not intend to ratify a global treaty banning nuclear weapons tests. Nor does it rule out resuming such tests.

The document, titled 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), proclaims that "the United States does not support the ratification of the CTBT." But the U.S. will continue to support the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

Photo: The House of Peace on the 38th parallel, likely to be the venue of the Trump-Kim summit by May 2018. Source: lifeinkorea.com

Surprise Trump-Kim Summit by May with Global Repercussions

By Jayantha Dhanapala

The writer is a former Sri Lanka Ambassador and UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs. He was also President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs for ten years until August 2017. Click here for his previous stimulating contributions for IDN. – The Editor.

KANDY (IDN) – Donald Trump has always had the capacity to surprise us. Amidst the actions to fulfil his Presidential Campaign promise to "Make America Great Again" by slapping tariffs on friendly allies and having declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel, he has now signalled a dramatic volte-face on talks with Kim Jong-un of the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) whom he had frequently taunted as the "little rocket man".

Photo: CTBTO Executive Secretary Dr. Lassina Zerbo addressing the UN Conference on Disarmament on 26 February 2018. Credit: Kazakh Mission in Geneva.

Action Needed to Ratify the 1996 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

By Dr Lassina Zerbo

The author is Executive Secretary of CTBTO, Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization. The following is a slightly abridged and modified text of his address on 26 February to the High-level segment of the Conference on Disarmament, multilateral disarmament negotiating forum where the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in Geneva was negotiated in the 1990s. (Read the original text here.) Dr. Zerbo stressed that "we must take great care to preserve the integrity of the institutions and instruments we have and to build trust in them and around them. This means maintain and securing the NPT and its entire chain of responsibilities – of which the CTBT entry into force is an integral part". – The Editor