On June 5, the Foreign Minister of Norway and parliamentarians from across the political spectrum engaged in a dynamic debate in the Stortinget (Norwegian Parliament) on the issue of nuclear disarmament initiated by Marit Nybakk, Vice-President of the Parliament and a featured speaker of the Basel OSCE Forum.
Soviet nuclear test in 1955 at Novaya Zemlya, approx 500 km from Norway
In a debate spanning more than an hour, humanitarian consequences were cited, a constitutional ban was promoted, nuclear near misses were recalled, the environmental impact of Societ nuclear tests close to Norway were highlighted, the ground-breaking Inter Parliamentary Union resolution was cited, and one parliamentarian even burst into song!
In response to the lack of progress on global nuclear disarmament negotiations, the Norwegian government in October 2012 co-sponsored a UN General Assembly resolution that established a new UN process to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations (the Open Ended Working Group), and in March 2013 hosted an international conference on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons.
Børge Brende, Foreign Minister of Norway
However, following a change to a more conservative government in September 2013, there were concerns that the government was no longer so committed to nuclear disarmament. Thus, Marit Nybakk lodged a formal question to the Foreign Minister in order to initiate a debate in parliament on this question. The move appears to have been successful, with Foreign Minister Børge Brende responding to Nybakk in parliament by affirming that Norway will continue to highlight the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, including at the forthcoming Vienna Conference on Humanitarian Consequences in December 2014 and the Conference of States Parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty in May 2015.
Not content with anything less than a commitment by Norway to advocate strongly for the achievement of a nuclear weapon free world, Nybakk called for the government to push for the adoption of a nuclear weapons convention – a global agreement to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons - as propsoed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and supported by over 130 countries at the UN.
She has also pushed for a constitutional amendment in Norway that would ban the manufacture, importation, use, and deployment of nuclear weapons on Norwegian soil, thus locking Norway into an anti-nuclear policy regardless of which political party comes into power.
This most recent initiative of Marit Nybakk demonstrates her smart, focused and determined efforts for nuclear disarmament. In addition to leading in the Norwegian Parliament, Nybakk has been active in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, urging NATO to adopt a no-first-use policy as a first step toward eliminating the role of nuclear weapons in NATO policy. She has also advanced cooperative security in the Arctic through her leadership in the Arctic Council, and has advanced nuclear disarmametn amongst parliaments globally in her role as Co-President of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND).
Marit Nybakk chairing an event in the Norwegian parliament on humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, March 2013
One of the events Nybakk has organised in her role as PNND Co-President was a forum in the Norwegian Parliament on humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons in March 2013 during the time of the government-sponsored international conference on humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. This was an opportunity to educate and engage parliamentarians globally about the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons, something well-known in Norway due to their proximity to the former Soviet nuclear testing site in Novaya Zemlya.
Participants in the Basel OSCE Forum are certain to be educated and inspired by this amazing parliamentarian.