From left, SGI Executive Director for Peace Affairs Hirotsugu Terasaki, IPS Director General Ramesh Jaura, and honoree Jayantha Dhanapala. Credit: Roger Hamilton Martin/IPS

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 19 2014 (IPS)

Jayantha Dhanapala was awarded the IPS International Achievement Award for Nuclear Disarmament Monday at the United Nations in New York.

Dhanapala, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs until 2003, has remained committed to the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world since leaving his post, presiding since 2007 over the Nobel Prize-winning Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. 

“A nuclear weapon-free world can and must happen in my lifetime,” Dhanapala told attendees at an official ceremony sponsored by the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai International.

“Scientific evidence is proof that even a limited nuclear war – if those confines are possible – will cause irreversible climate change and destruction of human life and its supporting ecology on an unprecedented scale. We the people have a ‘responsibility to protect’ the world from nuclear weapons by outlawing them through a verifiable Nuclear Weapon Convention overriding all other self-proclaimed ‘R2P’ applications.”

The event was attended by U.N. ambassadors including the president of the General Assembly, Sam Kutesa, who said that “the work of organisations such as Pugwash Conferences on Science and World  Affairs – which Mr. Dhanapala presides over – Inter Press Service, our host this evening, or Soka Gakkai International, the sponsor of this award, contributes to raising awareness of the dangers of nuclear weapons and to advocating for their total elimination.”

Kutesa spoke of the importance of upcoming opportunities to make further inroads into global non-proliferation and disarmament. “The 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference will present an opportunity to further strengthen the global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime.”

CTBTO support

Kutesa’s sentiments were echoed by other speakers including Dr Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO). Zerbo noted that Dhanapala was born in the same month (December 1938) that German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission.

“In 1995, Jayantha chaired the landmark review and extension conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He masterminded the central bargain, a package of decisions that balanced the seemingly irreconcilable interests of the nuclear weapon states and the non-nuclear weapon states.”

The result of this work was that the CTBT, which was being contested in Geneva, was adopted by the General Assembly in 1996. Dhanapala continues to support the CTBTO, as part of a group of experts who work to advance the CTBT’s entry into force.

Zerbo recalled Dhanapala’s criticism of India’s position in opposing the CTBT. India’s criticism of the CTBT has been that it will not move disarmament sufficiently forward. In response to this, Dhanapala has said, “Opposing the CTBT because it fails to deliver complete disarmament is tantamount to opposing speed limits on roads because they fail to prevent accidents completely,” Dhanapala has pointed out.

Collectively known as the “Annex 2” states, India forms part of a group of eight countries that are required to ratify before the treaty before it can enter into force. India, Pakistan and North Korea have yet to sign the treaty, while 5 other states have signed but failed to ratify.

Zerbo also noted the relevance of Dhanapala’s nationality in his advocacy for disarmament and non-proliferation, saying, “Jayantha and I both come from countries in the developing world.

“One of the most persuasive arguments he has consistently made is the opportunity cost a developing country incurs when embarking on a weapons of mass destruction programme. In particular, a nuclear weapons programme requires vast resources that could have been allocated to support development and infrastructure.”

IPS Director General Ramesh Jaura, who read a statement from IPS founder Roberto Savio, spoke of the origins and importance of the award.

“The award was created in 1985 with the idea to provide a link between the action of the U.N. at global level, and actors who would embody that action,” he said.

“The U.N. way is not to recognise individuals, so the award is a recognition of the bridge between ideals and practice.” The award has been resurrected after a six-year hiatus, and will be in place next year again. Additional awards in 2016 and 2017 will focus on the Sustainable Development Goals.

There are several opportunities in the coming months for inroads to be made in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Notably, early next month’s Vienna Conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons.

In the meantime, Dhanapala called on groups to support the ICAN and PAX “Don’t Bank on the Bomb” divestment campaign, saying, “I appeal to all of you present to make your own practical contribution to nuclear disarmament by joining the divestment campaign. The faded rhetoric of President Obama’s celebrated Prague speech in April 2009 about a nuclear weapon free world has little to show as results unless civil society acts.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

By Jayantha Dhanapala
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 19 2014 (IPS)

A nuclear weapon-free world can and must happen in my lifetime. This may seem a bold and wildly Pollyannaish statement for me to make after a lifetime of work in peace and disarmament.

But consider some of the key global threats facing us today, 25 years after the Berlin Wall fell, symbolising the end of the Cold War and on the cusp of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations – this centre for harmonising the actions of 193 nations mandated by the Charter to maintain international peace and security.

Credit: cc by 2.0

There is the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), conveying the unambiguous message that climate change is caused by human action and that unchecked it will lead to catastrophe;

There is inequality of income as a feature throughout the world, where the poorest 1.2 billion consume just one percent while the richest billion consume 72 percent, causing increasing frustration and tension, especially among the youth who are 26 percent of the global population;

There is religious extremism, racism and the bestial violence of ISIS, Boko Haram and other anarchic groups which challenge our shared values and civilised societal norms;

There is the state terrorism of Israel waging unequal war against the Palestinians while occupying their territory and depriving them of their statehood in violation of international law;

There are more than 50 million who are currently displaced by war and violence – some 33.3 million in their own countries and approximately 16.7 million as refugees – the highest number since World War II;

And there are the problems of hunger, disease, poverty and violations of human rights that continue to disfigure the human condition.The spectre of the use of a nuclear weapon through political intent, cyber attack or by accident, by a nation state or by a non-state actor is more real than we, in our cocoons of complacency, choose to acknowledge.

Is the nuclear weapon ever going to be a deterrent to combat these threats, let alone be used to solve these problems? Or is it not more likely that in a skewed world of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” we are going to have increasing proliferation, including by terrorist non-state actors?

Scientific evidence is proof that even a limited nuclear war – if those confines are possible – will cause irreversible climate change and destruction of human life and its supporting ecology on an unprecedented scale.

We the people have a “responsibility to protect” the world from nuclear weapons by outlawing them through a verifiable Nuclear Weapon Convention overriding all other self-proclaimed “R 2 P” applications.

Despite this overwhelming evidence, the world has 16,300 nuclear warheads among nine nuclear weapon-armed countries, with the United States and the Russian Federation accounting for 93 percent of the weapons. Of this, about 4,000 warheads are on a deployed operational footing.

The spectre of the use of a nuclear weapon through political intent, cyber attack or by accident, by a nation state or by a non-state actor is more real than we, in our cocoons of complacency, choose to acknowledge.

At a time of declining resources for development, a huge amount – 1.7 trillion dollars – continues to be spent on arms in general and nuclear weapons modernisation. In the U.S. alone, in a glaring contradiction of President Obama’s promises, nuclear weapon modernisation will cost 355 billion dollars over the next 10 years.

A far-sighted military general twice-elected president of the U.S., Dwight Eisenhower, warned over 50 years ago about the insidious influence of the “military industrial complex” in his country. That influence, driven by an insatiable desire for profit, has spread globally, stoking the flames of war even as the United Nations and other peacemakers try to find peaceful solutions in terms of the Charter.

I am proud that the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, which I am privileged to lead today, has campaigned assiduously for over five decades seeking the total elimination of nuclear weapons based on the 1955 London Manifesto co-signed by Albert Einstein and Lord Bertrand Russell.

Sir Joseph Rotblat, one of Pugwash’s founding fathers who walked out of the Manhattan Project as a conscientious objector, shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Pugwash in 1995.

Pugwash is but one of the many citizen movements who have since 1945 urged the abolition of nuclear weapons. It was pressure from civil society that finally led to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and other significant milestones on the road to outlawing nuclear weapons.

The world has already accomplished a ban on two other categories of weapons of mass destruction – biological and chemical weapons.

I salute the Marshall Islands for taking the nine nuclear weapon states to the International Court of Justice, accusing them of violating their legal obligations, and look forward to the outcome at next year’s hearings.

Two NGOs -ICAN and PAX – have painstakingly researched the money behind nuclear weapons and have revealed in their “Don’t Bank on the Bomb” report that since January 2011, 411 different banks, insurance companies and pension funds have invested 402 billion dollars in 28 companies in the nuclear weapon industry.

The nuclear-armed nations spend a combined total of more than 100 billion dollars on their nuclear forces every year. Let me quote from the report:

“The top 10 investors alone provided more than 175 billion dollars to the 28 identified nuclear weapon producers. With the exception of French BNP Paribas, all financial institutions in the top 10 are based in the U.S. The top three – State Street, Capital Group and Blackrock – have a combined 80 billion dollars invested. In Europe, the most heavily invested are BNP Paribas (France), Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays (both United Kingdom).

“In Asia, the biggest investors are Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial (both Japan) and the Life Insurance Corporation of India.”

I appeal to all of you present to make your own practical contribution to nuclear disarmament by joining the divestment campaign. The faded rhetoric of President Obama’s celebrated Prague speech in April 2009 about a nuclear weapon-free world has little to show as results unless civil society acts.

The world has scaled many heights in my lifetime.

Colonialism which enslaved my country for 450 years was dismantled in my lifetime, liberating numerous countries, including mine;

The civil rights movement in the U.S. ended segregation, racial discrimination and other indignities imposed on black Americans;

I have seen the end of the odious apartheid regime and the peaceful transition to a non-racial democracy in South Africa;

And, finally, we have witnessed the end of the Cold War with its global tension and rivalry.

These are inspirational achievements of which humankind can be proud. Through all these achievements we remember gratefully the exemplary leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. It was their unswerving dedication to non-violence that ensured victory over evil and injustice.

Nuclear disarmament is likewise an achievable goal and not the mirage that the nuclear weapon states would have us believe. The successful conclusion of a final agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme and the forthcoming NPT Review Conference in 2015 are opportunities for us all to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons by eliminating the weapons themselves.

I fear that the longer we wait for nuclear weapon states to act, the greater the risk that the anger of impotence may lead to extremist groups seizing control of nuclear weapons.

We are fortunate to have in Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon a global leader dedicated to the cause of nuclear disarmament and his Five-point Plan remains a lodestar for the global community.

The Inter Press Service (IPS), our hosts this evening, must be congratulated on their 50th anniversary. Serving the cause of the developing world, IPS has held aloft important principles of equity and justice in international relations calling for an end to unequal exchange in all its forms.

I am deeply grateful for the award conferred on me today. I have long believed in the dictum of Jean Monnet – the European Union’s architect and visionary – that “Nothing is possible without men, but nothing lasts without institutions.”

Thus this award honours the organisations with which I have been associated in a long struggle to rid the world of the most inhumane and destructive weapon ever invented. I take this opportunity to rededicate myself to this noble cause and its early fulfillment.

*Excerpts from an address by Jayantha Dhanapala when he received the 2014 IPS International Achievement Award for Nuclear Disarmament at the United Nations Nov. 17.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Jayantha Dhanapala, a former U.N. under-secretary-general for disarmament affairs (1998-2003) and a relentless advocate for a world free of nuclear weapons, will be the recipient of the 2014 International Achievement Award for Nuclear Disarmament sponsored by Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency.

“Short of actually dismantling nuclear devices himself,” says Dr. Randy Rydell, until recently a senior political affairs officer at the U.N. Office for Disarmament Affairs, “he has contributed enormously in constructing a solid foundation upon which the world community will one day fulfill this great ambition.”

Current president of the Nobel Prize-winning Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (since 2007) and a former Sri Lankan ambassador to the United States, Dhanapala played a crucial role in the 1995 Conference of States Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0

The award – which is co-sponsored by the Tokyo-based Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a 12-million-strong, lay Buddhist non-governmental organisation (NGO) which is leading a global campaign for the abolition of nuclear weapons – will be presented at an official ceremony at the United Nations Nov. 17.

The event, to be attended by senior U.N. officials, ambassadors and representatives of the media and civil society, is being hosted by the U.N. Correspondents’ Association (UNCA).

Douglas Roche, a former senator, an ex-Canadian ambassador for disarmament, and visiting professor at the University of Alberta, told IPS, “When the Non-Proliferation Treaty was indefinitely extended in 1995, the person most responsible for making nuclear disarmament a permanent legal obligation was Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala.”

He said Dhanapala’s “masterful diplomacy” – threading a course between the powerful nuclear weapons states and the non-nuclear world – was responsible for delineating three specific promises.

First, the systematic and progressive efforts towards elimination of nuclear weapons; second, a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty by 1996; third, an early conclusion of negotiations for a fissile material ban.

“Jayantha raised both the global norm and the conscience of the world that nuclear weapons are incompatible with the full implementation of human rights,” said Roche, founding chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative and chairman of the U.N. Disarmament Committee at the 43rd General Assembly sessions in 1988.

Jonathan Granoff, president of the Global Security Institute (GSI), told IPS “it is fair to say that no one has done more to preserve and strengthen the international legal system constraining the spread of nuclear weapons and setting clearly the compass point for the universal elimination of nuclear weapons than Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala.”

“His leadership in the U.N.’s Department of Disarmament Affairs and president of the 1995 Review and Extension Conference was rooted in an insight that clearly guides his life,” he added.

As a young student during the Cuban missile crisis, he wondered “how could the two superpowers of the time place millions of innocent citizens in non-nuclear weapon and non-aligned states in danger of the blast, radiation, climatic and genetic effects of such a weapon exchange?” Granoff recounted.

Dhanapala has tirelessly made nations, organisations, and individuals aware and empowered to act on the realisation that nuclear weapons and civilisation present a choice: one or the other, he pointed out.

“His work in the international field has exemplified the fusion of idealistic aspirations based on universal values and practical policies informed by the constraints of political realities and power,” said Granoff, who is also a senior advisor of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Arms Control and National Security.

He was also instrumental in reviving U.N. interest in the subject of “disarmament and development” at a time when military spending was once again starting to rise in the post-Cold War era, as social and economic needs went unmet in vast sectors of the world.

Dhanapala served as director of the U.N.’s Institute for Disarmament Research (1987-1992), where he successfully expanded its financial base while also broadening its areas of research to include non-military challenges to security.

Dhanapala has also been a member of two of the most influential international commissions established to advance nuclear disarmament: the Canberra Commission (1996) and the International Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (Blix Commission, 2006).

He was later awarded a MacArthur Foundation grant, which enabled the publication of his book, ‘Multilateral Diplomacy and the NPT: An Insider’s Account.’

He has served or is continuing to serve on several advisory boards of institutions known for their work in supporting nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, including the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the Stanford Institute of International Studies, the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Conflict, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, among others.

He has served as honourary president of the International Peace Bureau.

In all of his posts held over his career, said Rydell, he has inspired his colleagues to fight persistently for the interests of the world community even in the face of great obstacles.

“One day, this will be how nuclear disarmament is finally achieved,” he added.

Rydell said Dhanapala was one of the U.N.’s most prolific voices for global nuclear disarmament, which was apparent in his countless major keynote addresses, book chapters, articles, oped pieces, and frequent meetings with NGOs.

Roche told IPS: “If the nuclear weapons states had lived up to the standards set by Ambassador Dhanapala, the world would be a safer place today. Dhanapala had the vision to move forward in a way that held the international community together. We must not give up on that course.”

Reflecting on the diplomatic achievements of Dhanapala’s home country, Granoff said Sri Lanka is a small island and the world owes it a big thank you for producing several towering figures who have been instrumental in advancing global security, the rule of law, and standards of intelligence and virtue in global public service.

To state the case succinctly: “Without Ambassador Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe there would be no Law of the Sea Treaty.”

Judge Christopher Weeramantry’s work on the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where he helped define global legal standards of justice and practicality in the fields of nuclear weapons and sustainable development, is matched in excellence only by the wisdom and insightful legal analysis found in his prolific writings, making him one of the most respect international legal minds of modern times, said Granoff, who is also on the advisory board of Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy.

Sri Lanka, having barely emerged from four and half centuries of crippling colonialism, was threatened along with other countries by a contest for global supremacy in which it wanted no part, he added.

The past recipients of the IPS International Achievement Award for their contributions to peace and development include: Brazilian President Lula da Silva (2008), U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (2006), Global Call to Action Against Poverty (2005), Group of 77 developing countries (2000), U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1995), and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari (1991).

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Anna MacDonald of Control Arms speaks at the start of the ceremony for the signing of the Arms Trade Treaty at United Nations headquarters in New York, Jun. 3, 2013. Credit: Keith Bedford/INSIDER IMAGES (UNITED STATES)

By Lucy Westcott
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 4 2013 (IPS)

The United Nations witnessed a historic moment Monday with the signing of the Arms Trade Treaty, first adopted in April by the General Assembly, and the first time the 85-billion-dollar international arms trade has been regulated by a global set of standards.

Negotiations took place between 193 countries, 63 of which signed on Monday. More countries are expected to sign by the end of the week.“We all know about history, so [the U.S. has] a big responsibility." -- Alex Gálvez of Transitions Foundation of Guatemala

The treaty will regulate all transfers of conventional arms and ban the export of arms if they will be used to commit crimes against humanity.

The treaty also calls for greater transparency and for nations to be held more accountable for their weapons trading. States will undergo rigorous assessment before they move arms overseas and have to provide annual reports on international transfers of weapons.

But some of the world’s major arms importers and exporters, whose inclusion is crucial for the treaty’s success, have abstained or declined to give their signatures. Syria, North Korea and Iran were the only three countries to fully oppose the treaty, while Russia, China and India abstained.

The United States, the world’s largest arms exporter, did not sign, but is expected to by the end of the year. Technicalities in the language of the treaty were the reason for not signing; while U.S. support for the treaty is “strong and genuine,” there were inconsistencies in comparison between the English-language and translated versions of the treaty, said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.

“All other countries are looking to what the United States does,” Kimball added.

Ray Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, said it is “critical” that the United States sign the treaty, which has been “10 years in the making.”

In a statement released by the State Department Monday morning, Secretary John Kerry welcomed the treaty, ensuring that the U.S.’s signing would not infringe on the fiercely debated Second Amendment rights of U.S. citizens.

“We look forward to signing [the treaty] as soon as the process of conforming the official translations is completed satisfactorily,” Kerry’s statement said.

The treaty is a crucial step towards ending the deaths of the 500,000 people Oxfam estimates perish from armed violence each year.

“The most powerful argument for the [treaty] has always been the call of millions who have suffered armed violence around the world,” Anna Macdonald, head of Arms Control, Oxfam, said in a statement. “Their suffering is the reason we have campaigned for more than a decade,” she added.

When asked if the treaty could prevent atrocities like those which have occurred in Syria, Macdonald said she believed it could, if implemented correctly.

With such vast negotiations taking place, disagreements were bound to arise.

“Items [such as] the scope of weapons covered by the treaty and the strength of human rights provisions preventing arms sales in certain circumstances are not as strong as we would have wished,” Jayantha Dhanapala, president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science & World Affairs and former under secretary general for disarmament affairs, told IPS.

Nevertheless, he believes the treaty is a “long overdue step” in realising Article 26 of the U.N. Charter, which calls for the “establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments”.

And considering the treaty was adopted just weeks ago, 63 signatures is an “excellent number,” Macdonald said.

The treaty will go into force after it receives 50 ratifications from states that have signed. This is expected to take up to two years, but some states, including the United Kingdom, have agreed to already start enforcing the rules of the Treaty.

One victim of gun violence was at the U.N. to witness the signing, the first step on the path to the treaty’s ratification.

Alex Gálvez, 36, was 14 years old when he felt a bullet course through his right shoulder, exiting through his left one. Buying sodas for lunch in Guatemala, Gálvez was caught up in a territorial dispute. The bullet perforated his lungs, but Gálvez said he was too young at the time to realise that he was dying.

Gálvez is now executive director of Transitions Foundation of Guatemala, an organisation that helps Guatemalans living with disabilities, many of whom have been injured by small weapons.

“They left a lot of small weapons without control” after three decades of violence in Guatemala, Gálvez told IPS.

“Unfortunately not everyone had had the opportunity to get treated in time, to get educated [about arms],” Gálvez said. “It’s not just Guatemala that is suffering [from armed violence]; many other countries are suffering too.”

While he received his medical treatment in the United States and understands that it’s a complex process, Gálvez would like to see the country sign, especially as it has provided small arms to many countries, including his own.

“We all know about history, so they have a big responsibility,” Gálvez said.