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International Symposium for Peace: The Road to Nuclear Weapons Abolition

Individuals must get involved to help rid world of nuclear weapons, Asahi Shimbun , By ROY K. AKAGAWA/ AJW Staff Writer. July 28, 2019  HIROSHIMA--With a treaty to ban medium-range, ground-based nuclear missiles ending in less than a week, an international symposium here on July 27 addressed stopping a new Cold War from breaking out.

The International Symposium for Peace: The Road to Nuclear Weapons Abolition was sponsored by the Hiroshima city government, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation and The Asahi Shimbun. The theme for this year’s event was “Stop the New Cold War.”

In his keynote speech, Masaru Sato, an author and former Foreign Ministry intelligence analyst, said that the high level of nationalism and realism demonstrated by leaders around the world in terms of nuclear weapons and defense policy represented a risk that had to be changed.

He explained that history often swung like a pendulum between realism and idealism as well as between nationalism and international cooperation.

“Military escalation usually occurs when the pendulums swing in the direction of realism and nationalism,” Sato said. “But such escalation eventually spreads a sense of crisis among the leaders of those nations that have been building up their military arsenals and have led to courageous efforts to stop a nuclear disaster.”

He cited as an example the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty agreed to in 1987 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to remove intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe. ……

“We as citizens must demand of our own leaders that they enter seriously into dialogue that leads to the abolition of nuclear weapons.”

Meanwhile, the other participants in the panel discussion touched upon the importance of moving toward actual implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which was passed in July 2017 with the approval of 122 nations, although none of the nuclear states as well as those protected by a nuclear umbrella, such as Japan, took part.

Bonnie Docherty, a lecturer at the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic who was actively involved in the TPNW, said the principles of humanitarian disarmament were the key in leading to the passage of the treaty after years of little, if any, progress on eliminating nuclear weapons.

“Emphasizing the humanitarian threat made nuclear weapons a matter of global concern and motivated countries to look beyond their national interests,” Docherty said about the treaty. “In so doing, it helped break down the barriers to diplomatic action that had stalled nuclear disarmament.”

She addressed the concerns of some that the TPNW appears to have provisions that do not make it compatible with other international obligations. In Japan’s case, that would be the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to which it is a party as well as the nuclear umbrella provided by the United States.

By joining the TPNW, Japan would comply more fully with the NPT’s Article VI obligation (to work toward reducing nuclear weapons) and advance that treaty’s purported goal of general and complete disarmament,” she said.

She added that the treaty does not prohibit the alliance Japan has with the United States and noted that the Security Treaty between the two nations makes no mention of nuclear weapons.

Moreover, she said, Japan joining the TPNW would have a huge symbolic effect and place Japan in a leadership role in nuclear disarmament because it is the only nation that has been hit in war by atomic bombs. She added that as a nuclear umbrella state, Japan joining the treaty could have a domino effect on other nations that are also currently under a similar umbrella……… http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201907280029.html

July 29, 2019 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, weapons and war