[Peace] Cumbie-Drake|D. Moines Reg.: UN vote provides momentum to eliminate nuclear weapons

[Robert Naiman]

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/
iowa-view/2016/12/22/un-vote-provides-momentum-eliminate-
nuclear-weapons/95754288/



U.N. vote provides momentum to eliminate nuclear weapons

Claire Cumbie-Drake
Iowa View contributor
5:01 p.m. CST December 22, 2016



*Claire Cumbie-Drake is a Des Moines attorney in private practice with a
background in public health administration.*



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.



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.”



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.”



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.



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.



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.”



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.



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.”



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.


===

Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1 <(202)%20448-2898>
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