Doctors gather in global opposition to nuclear weapons

This week in New Delhi, India about 400 doctors and 300 medical students from over fifty countries met to discuss and plan action responsive to their shared commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons. The 18th World Congress of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) was inaugurated with a speech by the Vice President of India, Shri M. Hamid Ansari, who recalled India's tradition of advocacy for nuclear disarmament, including its role in proposing a nuclear test ban in 1954 and a non-proliferation treaty in 1965 (unfortunately, India would refuse to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty concluded three years later). The Vice President surfaced a three-point plan for Indian leadership on nuclear disarmament, calling for universal reaffirmation of the goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons, negotiation of a convention prohibiting the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, and a Nuclear Weapons Convention that would ban production, stockpiling, or use of nuclear weapons in a global, nondescriminatory, and verifiable plan for the elimination of these weapons in a specified time frame.

The World Congress featured detailed discussions on a variety of related topics, including the signature effort of IPPNW, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) initiated last year under the leadership of Dr. Tilman Ruff of Australia. Other topics inlcuded opposition to the U.S.-India agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation, the danger of global "nuclear famine" resulting from even a limited regional nuclear war, globalization and militarization, torture, and religious intolerance.

ICAN physician diplomats held meetings with the President and the Prime Minister of India on the margins of the World Congress to encourage India to assert a more active leadership role in moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons. This work builds on the model of physician diplomacy for which IPPNW was awarded the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize and holds substantial promise for widening and deepening the commitment of governments worldwide to work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons on the basis of facts and expert medical testimony physicians are able to provide on the dangers nuclear weapons pose to human life and health.

European Union grant funds African nuclear security, misses NPT opportunity

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that the European Union (EU) has provided a nearly 7 million Euro grant “to upgrade physical protection of nuclear materials and facilities in the countries, secure vulnerable radioactive sources, and combat illicit trafficking in nuclear and radioactive materials, with much of this funding to go to African states.”

The EU is to be commended for providing this support, the IAEA for its important work to enhance nuclear security globally, and recipient nations for their willingness to collaborate productively with international efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation or misuse of nuclear materials.

But all parties have missed an important opportunity to declare their renewed support for their obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons:

Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

At least half a dozen recipient states have not ratified the Treaty of Pelindaba and a few have not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Envisioning and working toward a world free of nuclear weapons means that no opportunity should be missed to increase the normative pressure and web of international legal rules that promote nuclear disarmament. Failing to do so reinforces the naïve and artificial separation between nonproliferation and disarmament that threatens the achievement of both.

The Prodigal State Party

Yoo Cheong-mo of Yonhap reports that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Mohammed El Baradei called for North Korea to return to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) at the Inchon International Airport in Seoul on Wednesday:

“Now is a very crucial time for the IAEA, Korea and the entire world. North Korea has just returned to a verification process. I wish it would lead to North Korea's return to the NPT and complete scrapping of its nuclear weapons program.”

This is an important step toward reigning in the North Korean breakout from the NPT. Some observers have contested the legal force of North Korea’s asserted departure from the NPT on January 10, 2003.

The argument that North Korea’s withdrawal is illegal because it was asserted to have immediate effect is weak. Complex negotiations following the DPRK’s original assertion of its intention to withdraw from the NPT around March 9-11, 1993 (Wit, Poneman, Gallucci, Going Critical, page 25-6) led to interesting disagreement as to whether a state party to the NPT could “suspend” its withdrawal after the three month waiting period specified in Article X of the NPT had run out or, in the alternative, its withdrawal clock was reset if it chose to remain in the Treaty after having announced its intent to withdraw. This disagreement cleverly widened room for diplomacy and sparked discussions about how procedural measures might raise the bar against further NPT defections, but it did not fundamentally change North Korea’s right to withdraw. It only mattered so long as everyone – including the North Koreans – agreed that North Korea remained a state party to the NPT.

Law is important, but legalistic debate cannot reclaim the four-and-a-half years that the North has spent outside the NPT any more than IAEA inspectors can travel back in time to verify compliance during that period. But an unambiguous North Korean return to the NPT would be good for three reasons. First, it would multilateralize North Korea’s commitment to verified nuclear disarmament – even if entered into cynically, this global commitment to all NPT members would demonstrate that even a state that seems to spoil for an adjective (like “rogue” or “outlaw”) must acknowledge the relationship between verified and legally binding nonproliferation and contemporary sovereignty. Second, it would emphasize the resilience of the Treaty. Today, North Korea stands outside the NPT as a model to other states that might choose nuclear weapons proliferation over the rule of law, although no other states have yet followed suit. The DPRK’s return to the NPT would signal that breakout is not sustainable. Third, returning North Korea to the NPT would move this nearly universal Treaty even closer to universality – emphasizing that the historical and strategic circumstances that have left only three other states outside the Treaty should not be immune to creative efforts to bring them into meaningful and effective levels of partnership with NPT states parties for nonproliferation.