The nuclear debate

By ian Williams

at the United Nations

On the surface and underground, nuclear issues reverberated

throughout this year’s United

Nations General Assembly. Although it is a fighting retreat, the .nuclear powers and their dwindling band of supporters are increasingly on the defensive.

For example, on the surface, the suc cessful adoption of the UN resolution res cuing the Test Ban treaty from deadlock in Geneva was a big step forward and a triumph for the Australians.

However, underground, the French seem to have been behind Australia’s sur prising defeat for its bid for election to the Security Council. Even though Paris had supported the Australian resolution, the fallout from Australian opposition to the French Pacific tests clearly had a long half life.

On the brighter side, the small Pacific states, Samoa, Solomons and the Marshalls, proved that you can defy the bigger powers with their victory at the International Court of Justice, which has strengthened the hands of the antinuclear forces at the UN.

“It was a challenge to the international legal system,” says Solomon Islands Ambassador to the UN Rex Horoi about the diplomatic after-effects of the court decision declaring nuclear weapons to be against international law.

“It shows that as we approach the 21st century, international law is a package that applies to big nations as well as small ones. That’s every important for us because, as small nations, in the end our only protection is the body of internation al law. And it has opened up new pres sures for international disarmament.”

The actual resolution welcoming the ICJ decision - and, in particular, its unan imous ruling that there was a legal obliga tion “to bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects” - was greeted frostily by all the nuclear powers except China, especially its suggestion that the negotiations should begin in 1997.

The Americans accused the sponsors of trying to turn the advisory opinion into “a legal edict”, while the Russians, who by all accounts are having difficulty feed ing and clothing their troops, let alone arming them with nukes, claimed the text was “inaccurate and incomplete”. The British said that their vote against should not “be seen as diminishing its high regard for the court”. Just, presumably, that they disagreed with it.

Much of the opposition invoked the split among the ICJ judges that allowed the use of nuclear weapons “in exception al circumstances”.

However, they mostly went on to dis agree equally strongly with the parts of the resolution that cited the unanimous decision of the judges that nuclear powers should be working hard towards disarma ment.

Consistency has never played a big

part in the arguments of the nuclear pow ers, however, who have never been able to prove their assertions that they alone are uniquely required to have nuclear weapons to defend themselves.

A much blander Japanese resolution on “Nuclear disarmament with a view to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons”, was carried with no opposi tion, except abstentions from anti-nuclear states who objected to its toothlessness.

More substantially, the General Assembly decided that preparations for the review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty confer ence would begin in April 1997.

Other resolutions passed with the opposition of the industrialised and nucle ar powers.

Normally, small nations have only apprehension when faced with mergers

and globalisation, but surfing along the

anti-nuclear tide is an intriguing resolu tion merging all the various nuclear-free zones into one huge united Southern Hemisphere, and adjacent areas. Nuclear Weapon Free Zone.

The resolution urged the creation of new zones and the emergence of the new

mega-non-nuke hemisphere. China

agreed, the Russians abstained and the

Western powers opposed it, claiming to be concerned at the threat to freedom of navigation on the high seas.

To celebrate, the assembly called for the implementation of existing declara tions making Africa and Latin America NWFZs and called for the setting up of such a zone in South Asia.

Much of South Asia - in the form of India - objected to this, but it was passed overwhelmingly.

In the Middle East, the position is

complicated because everyone, including

the USA, knows that Israel has a nuclear arsenal but as soon as it is openly admit ted then US aid to Israel would have to be cut off, creating a tremendous domestic problem for any American government from the immensely powerful pro-Israel

lobby in Washington.

So in typical UN style, the resolution called upon “the only state in the region not party to the NPT” to sign up prompt ly. However, this was not weaselly enough for either the US or Israel, who both voted against it. The same two were also alone in voting against the convening of the fourth special session of the General Assembly devoted to disarma ment in 1999.

So what is the fallout from this mush room cloud of hot air rising from the UN building in New York? In fact, quite a lot.

The pushes by the Pacific States in the ICJ, by Australia and the Pacific on the Test Ban Treaty and by the non-Aligned on the Non-Proliferation Treaty have been very effective in cutting the moral ground from under the feet of the nuclear powers. Each victory for the anti-nuclear lobby increases the pressure on the nucle ar powers, who no longer even have the Cold War and its associated paranoia to justify their lethal toys. In fact, ironically, it is beginning to look as if it is the nucle ar powers engaged in diplomatic war with the rest of the world rather than each other.

In this particular war, the Pacific Island states are on the frontline again but this time it is a safe and honourable position to be in. ■