ARMAMENTS

Disarmament Groups Join 130 Nations For Abolition Of Nukes

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Civil society disarmament groups threw in their weight for ushering in a world free of the atomic arsenal of mass destruction as more than 130 nations gathered on March 27 at the United Nations headquarters in New York to participate in the first round of five-day negotiations aimed at achieving a treaty banning nuclear weapons in international law. The second round is scheduled for June 15 to July 7, 2017.

While the majority of the world's governments gathered in the room, President Donald Trump's UN envoy, Nikki Haley, held a protest together with two of the five permanent (P5) veto-wielding members of the Security Council – the UK, France – and a number of Eastern European allies who feel threatened by Russia.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 28 March 2017

2020 NPT Review Conference Needs Innovative Strategies

By Jayantha Dhanapala

“ . . . and thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.” - Shakespeare: Twelfth Night

Note: The first Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will meet from May 2 to 12, 2017 in Vienna, Austria. Following the text of a Policy Brief Jayantha Dhanapala – a former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, and a former Ambassador of Sri Lanka – did for the Asia Pacific Leaders Network (APLN) middle of March 2017. It is being reproduced with the permission of the author who currently serves as the 11th President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, These are his personal views.

: Jayantha Dhanapala; ARMAMENTS; 28 March 2017

Photo: A staunch supporter of nuclear disarmament, Foreign Minister Margot Wallström of Sweden addressing the UN General Assembly’s seventy-first session in September 2016. UN Photo/Manuel Elias

Nuclear Disarmament, Trump and the Nordic Countries

By Lowana Veal

REYKJAVIK (IDN) – When asked what Sweden thought the Trump Administration should do by way of contributing to nuclear disarmament, the Swedish ambassador in Iceland, Bosse Hedberg, replied: “At this point in time, I am not aware of any common Nordic position being prepared in response to the new U.S. administration’s view on this issue. As one can gather from the media, the new president seems rather inclined to invest more in U.S. nuclear capacities than in scrapping part of U.S. weapons.”

Sweden was the only Nordic country to attend the UNOG Conference on Disarmament held March 21-22 in Geneva, although Finland and Norway are also members.

: Lowana Veal; THE WORLD; Europe & Central Asia; 23 March 2017

Photo: Sergio Duarte, then UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, at the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty on September 23, 2011. Credit: James Leynse | Copyright CTBTO Preparatory Commission.

'We Must Succeed in Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons'

By Sergio Duarte, former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs*

NEW YORK (IDN) - For the first time since the foundation of the United Nations the majority of the international community seems prepared to take a bold and fundamental step leading to the abolition of nuclear weapons. On December 27, 2016 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution 71/258 convening a Conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading to their total elimination.

It is befitting to recall a similar effort undertaken in 1946 when the first Session of the United Nations General Assembly decided to establish a Commission to “deal with the problems raised by the discovery of nuclear energy and other related matters”, and to present proposals “for the elimination of atomic weapons from national armaments”.

: Sergio Duarte; OPINION; 21 March 2017

Photo: The close China-DPRK relationship is celebrated at the Mass Games in Pyongyang. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

China Should Keep Squeezing North Korea

By Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Rocket launches galore in North Korea. Colours and flames in the sky. It’s all a bit like a peacock spreading his tail.

Murders abound. Is this a butcher’s shop – an uncle, a half-brother and a couple of high-placed generals and no doubt others?

Kim Jong-Un, the president, is no Hamlet and murder seems not to give him doubts. The day after he is photographed at some event, smiling the smile of a psychopath who ditched his conscience somewhere at the top of the Alps when he was out for a hike organised by the school in Switzerland he was sent to.

: Jonathan Power; ARMAMENTS; 14 March 2017

Photo: The AK-47, the most ubiquitous automatic weapon in the world. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Central African Convention on Small Arms Enters into Force

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – A new Convention purported to fight against the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in small arms and light weapons in Central Africa entered into force on March 8, according to the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) / Department of Political Affairs (UNDPA).

Known as the Central African Convention for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons, their Ammunition and all Parts and Components that can be used for their Manufacture, Repair and Assembly (Kinshasa Convention), it complements and reinforces the existing regional and global framework comprising, among others, the Arms Trade Treaty, the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), and its Firearms Protocol.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; ARMAMENTS; Conventional Arms; 13 March 2017

Nuclear Disarmament Is Humanity's Common Cause

By Dr. J. Enkhsaikhan

Note: Dr. J. Enkhsaikhan is Chairman of Blue Banner NGO and former Permanent Representative of Mongolia to the United Nations in New York and Vienna. This article comes in run-up to the UN General Assembly's two sessions – scheduled for March 27-31 and June 15-July 7 – to negotiate “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”.

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia (IDN-INPS) - Some believe that those that do not possess nuclear weapons have no basis to demand that those that do possess alter their nuclear policies. However, as the three recent international conferences on humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons vividly demonstrated yet again, the detonation of a nuclear weapon, intentionally or otherwise, will have catastrophic consequences with far-reaching climatic, genetic and other devastating effects.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 10 March 2017

Graphic: Created 20 November 2005 the graphic shows relative sizes of various types of nuclear weapons. Clockwise from upper left: a Fat Man (MK-IV) bomb similar to the type dropped on Nagasaki, Japan; a MK-17 hydrogen bomb of the sort detonated at the Castle Bravo test; a W-87 warhead inside its re-entry vehicle (see MIRV, LGM-118A Peacekeeper); and a W-59 warhead used on the early Minuteman missiles. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

The Key to Realizing Trump’s Nuclear Dream is the CTBT

Viewpoint by Brenna Gautam

Note: Brenna Gautam, a J.D. Candidate at Georgetown University Law Center, is a member of the CTBTO Youth Group. This article appears in cooperation with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), as part of the initiative ‘Youth for CTBTO’. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the CTBTO. - Editor

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) - "It would be wonderful, a dream would be that no country would have nukes,” President Donald Trump announced, “but if countries are going to have nukes, we're going to be at the top of the pack."

The announcement can be neatly split in two. The first, wistful for nuclear disarmament, falls in line with the history of Republican successes in arms reductions: while Democrats since Kennedy have frequently proposed reductions, it has been Republican administrations that ultimately put these into effect.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; CTBTO; 10 March 2017

Photo: Mushroom cloud from the largest atmospheric nuclear test the United States ever conducted, Castle Bravo.

US 9th Circuit Court To Hear Marshall Islands Lawsuit Appeal

SAN FRANCISCO (IDN) – On March 15, 2017 at 9:00 AM, the appeal of the dismissal of the Republic of the Marshall Islands’ case in the U.S. Federal District Court will be heard in the Ninth District Court of Appeals.

The case, initially filed on April 24, 2014, alleges that the United States failed to uphold its legal obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law to begin negotiations “in good faith” for an end to the nuclear arms race “at an early date” and for nuclear disarmament.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; ARMAMENTS; 08 March 2017

Photo: Montage of an inert test of a United States Trident SLBM (submarine launched ballistic missile), from submerged to the terminal, or re-entry phase, of the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

A Dark Shadow Looms Large Over UN Talks On Abolishing Nukes

By Rodney Reynolds

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – The 193-member UN General Assembly is to hold two key sessions – in March and in June – in what is expected to be a do-or-die attempt towards the elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide.

“Whether 2017 will be the year that sees nuclear weapons being banned or whether the effort to achieve this gets turned into a form of “fake news” remains to be seen?,” says a sceptical Tariq Rauf, Director of the Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The dark shadow that looms large over the upcoming General Assembly sessions will be the imposing figure of US President Donald Trump – whose trigger-finger is dangerously close to over 7,000 nuclear weapons, and whose views on nuclear disarmament appear consistently inconsistent, ranging from proliferation to strengthening existing arsenals.