DISARMAMENT: Canberra Commission Urges Immediate Steps to Disarm

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 1996 (IPS) - The world’s five declared nuclear powers must state their commitment to disarm their nuclear arsenals and follow up with concrete steps, including the end of nuclear testing, a 16-member international commission argues.

The Canberra Commission, a high-level, expert group first convened last year by the Australian government, also urges the five nuclear powers to consider taking all nuclear forces off alert, removing warheads from delivery vehicles and mutually agreeing not to be the first party to use nuclear weapons.

Anti-nuclear activists praised the Canberra Commission’s tough stance as the strongest case for disarmament backed by a major Western ally, Australia.

“We believe this is very significant,” says Nicola Butler, an analyst at the British-American Security Information Council (BASIC), which monitors arms concerns.

“This is the first time a government has done anything like this,” Butler says. “Also, Australia usually works with and votes with the Western group at the Conference on Disarmament, so the nuclear states will have to look at (the report).”

The commission warns against the nuclear status quo, in which Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States all possess nuclear weapons, while three other countries — India, Israel and Pakistan — are believed to have nuclear capability.

“This situation is highly discriminatory and thus unstable; it cannot be sustained,” the Canberra Commission says in its report released Wednesday. “The possession of nuclear weapons by any state is a constant stimulus to other states to acquire them.”

Although the end of the Cold War reduces the threat of war among nuclear powers, the commission warns against what it considers to be the emerging threat of nuclear terrorism.

“In the absence of extremely tight controls, the development of an already significant illegal trade in fissile materials — particularly from sites in the former Soviet Union — will make it easier for terrorist or sub-state groups to obtain enough nuclear material for a nuclear device,” the group argues.

The report notes that 100 pounds of highly-enriched uranium — an amount “roughly the size of a grapefruit” — could, if used in a bomb, produce a blast that “would devastate a three-square- mile urban area.”

Not only are there continuing dangers from the world’s nuclear stockpile, the commission argues, but there is less justification for maintaining nuclear weapons. The report disputes the rationale for nuclear weapons as useful deterrents to conventional warfare or as guarantors of international status.

The only safe option, the authors say, is the elimination of all nuclear weapons — starting with an unequivocal commitment by the five nuclear powers to pursue that course.

“We are advising the U.S. government and other nuclear weapons states to respond to the report, and particularly its recommendation that immediate action be taken,” says Daryl Kimball, associate director for policy for the U.S.-based Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Beyond a clear statement to disarm, Kimball says, the nuclear states could also “create a new ad hoc commission on disarmament at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.”

Kimball adds that he hopes the new government in Canberra will submit the commission’s report to the United Nations to open up debate on its recommendations.

Yet the current government, headed by Prime Minister John Howard’s rightist Liberal Party, may not be as eager to push the report as its predecessor, the centre-left Labour Party under Paul Keating.

One nuclear expert, speaking to IPS on condition of anonymity, says that Australia is now seeking to distance itself from the commission’s findings, and will not push the expert group’s conclusions. Australia’s U.N. mission and consulate were unavailable for response by press time.

Butler, however, is certain that Howard’s administration will stand by the Canberra Commission. “They have obviously decided to go on with the commission,” she notes. “They seem to have done quite extensive work drawing attention to the report in the media.”

Moreover, she adds, the commission includes several prominent statesmen, including former leaders of the nuclear weapons states. “It’s quite a broad range of experts,” she says.

Among the commission’s members are former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, former U.S. Defence Secretary Robert McNamara and former British Chief of Defence Staff Michael Carver. Other prominent members include 1995 Nobel laureate Joseph Rotblat and Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, who chaired last year’s talks on extending the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

However, efforts to gain support for the Canberra Commission’s recommendations are likely to take a back seat to current negotiations to secure a nuclear test ban treaty at the U.N. Disarmament Conference. India and Iran have threatened to block a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty at the Geneva conference, delaying talks among the group’s 61 member states.

“It’s a very frustrating moment,” Kimball says of the problems in concluding test ban talks. “But it’s not the end of the road.”