<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2016/12/22/un-vote-provides-momentum-eliminate-nuclear-weapons/95754288/" target="_blank">http://www.desmoinesregister.<wbr>com/story/opinion/columnists/<wbr>iowa-view/2016/12/22/un-vote-<wbr>provides-momentum-eliminate-<wbr>nuclear-weapons/95754288/</a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">U.N. vote provides momentum to eliminate nuclear weapons<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Claire Cumbie-Drake<br>
Iowa View contributor <br>
5:01 p.m. CST December 22, 2016<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Claire Cumbie-Drake is
a Des Moines attorney in private practice with a background in public health
administration.</i><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This past October I had the extraordinary opportunity to
participate in a lobbying effort at the United Nations during committee debates
on disarmament and international security.
Our lobbying efforts, with Physicians for Social Responsibility and a
coalition of other non-governmental organizations, focused on a proposed resolution
to commence negotiations in 2017 on a new international treaty to ban nuclear
weapons, similar to existing treaties that ban all chemical and biological
weapons.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The resolution is co-sponsored by more than 40 of the 193
member nations and is the culmination of a multi-year effort to examine recent
scientific findings regarding the humanitarian consequences of a nuclear
exchange. A letter authored by six Nobel Peace Prize Laureates states that
“even a limited nuclear war, involving less than 0.05 percent of the world’s
nuclear arsenals, would cause catastrophic climate disruption across the planet
and lead to a global famine that could put up to 2 billion people at risk of
starvation. Other data shows that a
large-scale war between the U.S. and Russia would cause even more profound
climate disruption, producing a nuclear winter that would kill the vast
majority of the human race and could cause our extinction as a species.”<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On April 5, 2009, President Barack Obama stood in Hradcany
Square in Prague, Czech Republic, and stated:
“As a nuclear power, as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear
weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed
in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it. So today, I state clearly and with conviction
America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear
weapons.”<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Contrary to the official position of the U.S., as stated by
President Obama, the United States U.N. delegation used the rationale of
deterrence and national security to stand in strong opposition to the nuclear
ban resolution. The U.S. and other nuclear powers have failed to follow their
obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to move towards the
elimination of their nuclear arsenals. In the weeks leading up to the election,
Donald Trump stated he would not take the use of nuclear weapons off the table.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All of the non-nuclear nations who signed the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, except North Korea, have followed their treaty
obligation not to develop nuclear weapons.
Among the U.N. delegations with whom we had contact, widespread
international support for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons was
evident. These nations are committed to
a world without nuclear weapons and to putting pressure on the nuclear powers
to explicitly prohibit the acquisition, possession, stockpiling, development,
testing, and production of nuclear weapons.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Oct. 27, the resolution to commence negotiations for a
nuclear ban treaty passed the U.N. First Committee by a 64 percent majority. IT
will proceed to the General Assembly for a vote as soon as Friday. As the Nobel
Laureates stated in their recent letter, the ban treaty "will create a
powerful new norm about nuclear weapons, defining them not as the status
symbols of great nations, but as the badges of shame of rogue nations.”<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Congress has approved the expenditure of $348 billion over
the next decade (that’s $34.8 billion per year or about $2.9 billion per month)
to "modernize" our nuclear arsenal. These same taxpayer dollars that
could be spent for health care, education, renewable energy, and job-creating
infrastructure projects — endeavors that truly make us strong and secure as
individuals and as a nation.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The threat of nuclear war is not a subject most of us care
to dwell on, especially when it seems we have no power or vehicle for making
change. As Obama stated in his Prague
address: “Such fatalism is a deadly adversary, for if we believe that the
spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then in some way we are admitting to
ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable.”<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Assuming the treaty negotiations move forward, we have a new
vehicle to move toward a more secure world without nuclear weapons. The people
of the United States must seize this historic moment to raise our voices and
create the political will to lead the way in negotiating for a complete
elimination of nuclear weapons.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
</div>===<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div><br clear="all"><div><div class="m_1731230902650034504gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">Robert Naiman<br>Policy Director<br>Just Foreign Policy<br><a href="http://www.justforeignpolicy.org" target="_blank">www.justforeignpolicy.org</a><br><a href="mailto:naiman@justforeignpolicy.org" target="_blank">naiman@justforeignpolicy.org</a><br><div><span style="text-align:left"><a href="tel:(202)%20448-2898" value="+12024482898" target="_blank">(202) 448-2898 x1</a></span><br></div><div><span style="text-align:left"><br></span></div></div></div></div>
</div></font></span></div>
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