In the wake of recent diplomatic successes to address the chemical weapons of Syria and the nuclear program of Iran, Global Zero, a global movement of high level experts and civil society campaigners, has called on the UN Security Council to use similar diploatic efforts to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction (WMD) including nuclear weapons.
Global Zero promo calling on UN Security Council to eliminate all WMD
"For years, a choir of skeptics insisted it was impossible – that “tough cases” like Iran and Syria could never be disarmed of their weapons of mass destruction" says Global Zero in their new appeal. "But Syrian chemical weapons are being dismantled as you read this, and the interim deal with Iran signals the beginning of the end of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The skeptics were wrong."
Global Zero invites you to endorse their appeal to the UN Security Council which reads:
To the Distinguished Members of the UN Security Council:Weapons of mass destruction anywhere are a threat to people everywhere. Now is the time to act, before another of these weapons is unleashed upon the world – not after.
We, the undersigned, urge you to commit to bring world leaders to the table to develop time-bound, actionable and verifiable plans to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. All of them. Everywhere.
With regard to nuclear weapons, the UN Security Council has in the past been very active on addressing nuclear proliferation - taking action with regard to the nuclear tests by India, Pakistan and North Korea, disantling the nuclear weapons program of Iraq, providing security assurances to non-nuclear weapon States to dissuade them from developing the nuclear weapons option, and adopting resolutions to implement comprehensive prevention measures such as UN Security Council Resolution 1540.
However the UN Security Council has done little to constrain the nuclear weapons programs of the P5 - the five permanent Security Council members who were also the first five countries to possess nuclear weapons, i.e. China, France, Russia the United Kingdom and the United States. The Security Council has also done little to address the nuclear weapons program of Israel apart from calling for the establishment of a Middle East Zone Free from Nuclear Weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction.
U.S. President Obama chairing the 2009 UN Security Council Sumit meeting on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament
The first step by the Security Council to address nuclear weapons more comprehensively was taken on 24 September 2009 during a Summit Session presided by US President Barack Obama at which the Security Council adopted Resolution 1887 which called for 'negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to nuclear arms reduction and disarmament.' However, this call was watered down by caveats including that there was a need to 'create conditions' to establish a world without nuclear weapons, and that nuclear disarmament needed to be done "in a way that promotes international stability, and based on the principle of undiminished security for all' (not necessarily a bad thing, but something that can and has been used by the P5 to block progress on nuclear disarmament).
Meeting of Global Zero leaders and experts
Thus, moving the P5 to agree to a more comprehensive program for eliminating all WMD including nuclear weapons could be very difficult.
However, Global Zero does have some influence with the P5. Global Zero members include high level current or former officials from P5 countries including Chuck Hagel (US Secretary of Defence), Des Browne (former UK Defense Secretary), Margaret Beckett (former UK Foreign Secretary), General Sir Hugh Beech (former Deputy Commander of UK Land Forces), Jimmy Carter (former US President), General James Cartwright (former Vice Chair of the US Joint Cheifs of Staff), Major General Vladimir Dorkin (Russia Strategic Rocket Forces), Mikhael Gorbachev (former Premier of the Soviet Union), Col General Victor Esin (former Chief of Staff of Russian Strategic Rocket Forces), General Bernard Norlan (former Air Defense Commander of the French Air Force) and Maj Gen Pan Zhenqiang (former Director of Instittue for Strategic Studies at China National Defense University).
Jarosław Wałęsa MEP, Global Zero member, Co-Chair PNND European Parliament section, and co-sponsor of the Global Zero written declaration
The Global Zero plan for the elimination of nuclear weapons has already gained some traction in the United States, so much so that it stimulated considerable attention during the confirmation proceedings for US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. It is also gaining attention around the world. In the European Parliament, for example, over half of the members of parliament physically signed a Written Declaration Supporting the Global Zero Plan that was circulated jointly by Global Zero and Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (PNND).
Global Zero has also been gaining attention through its global youth campaign and a series of short successful videos circulated on Youtube and other social media, including:
* How will you celebrate a nuclear-weapons-free world? narrated by Michael Douglas
* Demand Zero - with US celebreties repeating the nuclear abolition words in US President Obama's historic Prague Speech
Eventually the UN Security Council will have to act to support the total prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons, along with all other WMD. Even if the P5 resist this now, starting the pressure on them will help bring the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world closer, as long as this is complemented by simultaneous action in other UN bodies not so dominated by the P5 - including the UN General Assembly and Open Ended Working Group (see United Nations General Assembly takes new action for nuclear disarmament!) - and in other key bodies like the International Criminal Court and Inter Parliamentary Union - and in wider civil society.