Disarm Now! – Call to Action
Mobilizing Call of the NPT Review 2010
Today our world is facing crises on an unprecedented scale: global warming,
poverty, war, hunger, and disease. They threaten the very future of life as we
know it, and on a daily basis bring death, sorrow and suffering to the majority of
people on our planet. Yet these problems are almost entirely the results of
human action and they can be equally be resolved by human action. We have an
unprecedented opportunity to create the political will to manage the riches and
natural bounty of our world in such a way as to meet the needs of all peoples,
and to enable us to live together in peace and justice.
Such is the desire of the overwhelming majority of peoples, yet we face a
situation today where global military spending – money for killing – has now
reached a total of $1.46 trillion in 2008. Furthermore, nine countries maintain
arsenals of nuclear weapons – all together, over 23,000 warheads. These uniquely
destructive weapons can not only destroy life on our planet many times over, but
they are also used as political weapons of terror, reinforcing an unjustifiable
global inequality. The eradication of these weapons will not only end the threat
of global annihilation and this hierarchy of terror, but it will unlock enormous
resources to address climate change and mass poverty, serve as the leading edge
of the global trend towards demilitarisation, and make advances in other areas
of human aspiration possible.
In spite of treaty obligations and international resolutions and rulings over the
decades since the criminal atomic bombings of Japan by the United States in
1945, the nuclear weapons states have failed to eliminate their nuclear arms.
Their continued possession of these weapons, together with modernisation of
systems and increasingly aggressive nuclear use policies in recent years, have
contributed to an increasing tendency towards their proliferation, and a greater
likelihood of nuclear war.
The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) requires both non-proliferation and
disarmament, and must be supported and strengthened – yet it lacks a concrete
process for achieving these essential goals. Furthermore, there are grave
problems with its Article IV. This guarantees the right to peaceful nuclear
energy but overlooks the inextricable link between nuclear power and weapons
technologies and their health and environmental costs. The newly-launched
International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) provides an opportunity to
phase out nuclear power, superseding the Article IV guarantee. This said, the
NPT continues to provide the framework for advancing towards an essential new
initiative – a timetable for the elimination of nuclear weapons so urgently sought
by the global majority.
The NPT Review Conference in May 2010 presents a precious opportunity to
take that initiative. It is an opportunity that must on no account be missed. After
the spiralling aggression of the Bush era, the Obama presidency provides a new
context for our campaigning. President Obama’s commitment, alongside that of
President Medvedev of Russia, to global abolition of nuclear weapons is greatly
welcomed, and their first steps towards bilateral reductions and support for
treaties restricting nuclear developments are positive. However, the goal of
global abolition cannot be postponed into the indefinite future, for only a
defined, achievable and timetabled process can halt the proliferation that
threatens us all.
To this end, to secure a future for humanity and our planet, to help create the
conditions for a world of peace, justice and genuine human security, we urge the
2010 NPT Review Conference to make an unambiguous commitment to begin
negotiations on a convention for the time-bound elimination of all nuclear
weapons, a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
Such a step will not happen without the active encouragement of civil society,
giving voice to the yearning of the global majority for a world free from the fear
of nuclear annihilation. We urge all those who share this vision to join us in
mobilising for the international peace conference in New York on May 1 st and
the International Day of Action for a Nuclear Free World, in New York and
globally, on May 2nd, as well as for the presentation of petition signatures to the
NPT Review Conference.
