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Nuclear Energy - Nuclear Weapons

Spiritual Leaders Urge Action On Nuclear Disarmament

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 13 2015 (IPS) - Religious leaders addressed the United Nations in New York last week, pleading on moral grounds for global nuclear disarmament.

Leaders representing a number of faiths spoke at the ‘Nuclear Weapons and the Moral Compass’ event, presented by the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See, outlining religious and moral arguments for nuclear disarmament.

Outlining the objections of successive Popes, Archbishop Bernadito Auza, Permanent Representative Observer Mission of the Holy See, called nuclear arms “the terrible weapons modern science has given us.”

“Since the emergence of the nuclear age the Holy See see has not ceased to raise the moral argument against the possession and use of nuclear weapons,” Auza said.

“Because of the incalculable and indiscriminate consequences of such weapons, their use is clearly against international humanitarian law.”

Auza said the nuclear disarmament movement “is currently in crisis,” and called for nations to renew their push for a nuclear-free future.

“The institutions doing this [pushing for disarmament] have been blocked for years,” he said.

“The pre-eminent nuclear countries have not only not disarmed, they are modernising their arsenals.”

The United Nations will host a Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in New York from Apr. 27-May 22. Several speakers alluded to the upcoming talks during their presentation, urging world leaders to work for stronger action and reform during the conference.

Jonathan Granoff, president of the Global Security Institute, disputed arguments that management of nuclear weapons could lead to a secure future. He stated disarmament, not management, was the only acceptable solution.

“The situation… is in fact abnormal, immeasurably dangerous, certainly not sane, and morally unacceptable,” he said.

“The possession and threat to use nuclear weapons in the pursuit of security represents unprecedented folly of the highest order and an expression of the law of power in its most raw form.”

Bishop Oscar Cantu, of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, outlined his own moral arguments against nuclear weaponry on the grounds of discrimination, proportionality and probability of success.

“The moral problem of nuclear weapons is, the incredible devastation they wreak cannot discriminate between combatants and non-combatants,” Cantu said.

“Death and destruction caused by force cannot be out of proportion of protecting human lives and rights.”

Cantu said the prospects of success in any nuclear conflict would be unclear.

“What would success look like? It’s impossible to imagine,” he said.

Follow Josh Butler on Twitter: @JoshButler

 
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