DISARMAMENT-UN: Non-Aligned Nations take on Nukes at ICC

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

ROME, Jun 28 1998 (IPS) - Non-aligned nations are gearing up for a fight to include nuclear weapons on the list of prohibited weapons, the use of which would constitute a crime under the statuites of the proposed International Criminal Court (ICC).

With many of the issues concerning the ICC breaking the mold of traditional disputes between North and South, developing nations in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) mostly were silent in the first days of the ICC conference, which began Jun. 15. But the nuclear dispute energised the group, leading to its first meetings to develop joint stances this week.

The nuclear stance could be a difficult one for Northern countries. Many European states in the “like-minded” group of nations favour the inclusion of language that would prohibit the use of nuclear weapons. Until now, the views of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) – which oppose that step – have been expected to prevail.

NAM member states, however, are united behind placing nuclear weapons on a list of weapons – including landmines, chemical and biological weapons, and blinding lasers – that are “inherently indiscriminate” and cause unnecessary suffering, one Asian diplomat says.

“It would be hypocrisy for the Western nations to support other kinds of prohibitions (of weapons systems), but not against nuclear arms,” he argues.

The problem for some Western states, however, is that the United States and NATO have been adamant that it will not accept the inclusion of nuclear weapons.

Inclusion of nuclear weapons, landmines or blinding laser weapons “is entirely unacceptable to the United States…This is a non- starter,” declares U.S. Ambassador David Scheffer. “This is a negotiating conference, not a law-making exercise.”

The hard line from Washington has convinced some activists that there is no chance for the inclusion of nuclear weapons in the ICC statute, at least for now.

“The United States and NATO will probably have their way,” says Fredrik Heffermehl, an activist for the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms. What is crucial, Heffermehl contended, is that Washington not use any lack of explicit prohibition in the ICC statute to argue for the legitimacy of nuclear weapons.

Currently, the United States favours language that would ban chemical and biological weapons, among others “calculated to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.” A variation accepted by some NATO members would also not mention nuclear weapons or mines but would provide for the addition of “such other weapons or weapons systems as become the subject of a comprehensive prohibition” at any later time.

The latter formula, by keeping open the prospect that other weapons systems could be banned later, has seemed in recent days a compromise several sides are willing to accept.

Scheffer, for example, has left open the possibility that other weapons systems could be subject to prohibition later; while Heffermehl points to the need for some language to ensure that any list of banned weapons that does not include nuclear arms does not, on the other hand, allow nuclear states to claim that the ICC statute has legitimised by omission their use of such weapons.

The NAM drive could change all those calculations. On the one hand, the Southern states want the broad range of weapons – from landmines, prohibited under last year’s Ottawa Convention, to nuclear arms and blinding lasers – on the prohibited list.

On the other hand they specifically have targeted weapons which are “inherently indiscriminate”. That wording echoes the language of a 1996 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which, although stopping short of a call to ban nuclear weapons, deemed that their use would be “generally illegal.”

The issue seems to have rallied together not only the non-nuclear NAM states, but also India and Pakistan, which both staged nuclear tests last month. China, the only one of the five current declared nuclear powers to interpret the ICJ ruling as justification for full disarmament, also seems o be supporting the effort, diplomatic sources said.

“What the NATO states had hoped was that their clout would decide the issue,” says Alyn Ware, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy. “The NAM have shown they’re not going to take this lying down, that they’re not going to give up on weapons systems.”

The dilemma is that, if their effort succeeds, it may ensure that the United States and some other NATO countries will not sign the ICC statute, Ware says. That, he adds, could be worse than having a text which does not – for now – ban nuclear weapons.

Yet the Southern nations may also have other goals in mind besides nuclear arms. As one diplomat acknowledges, the nuclear issue could also provide a valuable “bargaining chip” in days ahead.