David Mackenzie, Scottish Scrap Trident Coalition
HANS Rosling, the Swedish physician who died this month, was fond of saying that resistance to positive news was not down to ignorance as such but was due to our biased views of the world. Thus we are reluctant to accept such facts as the dramatic increase in life expectancy worldwide.
Something like this has been happening with a piece of good news for Scotland and the world about nuclear disarmament. Last October the UN voted to hold negotiations next month and in June, leading to a treaty to ban nuclear weapons.
The vote was 123 in favour, 38 against with 16 abstaining. Among the nuclear-armed states, North Korea voted in favour, while China, India and Pakistan abstained, with the remainder, the US, France, Russia, the UK and Israel voting against. The Netherlands stood out from the Nato states by abstaining.
The story has been cooking for a long time. There was the 2010 statement by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent to the effect that the consequences of a nuclear exchange would be so catastrophic that they would be unable to respond.
Then there were the three inter-governmental conferences on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons convened between 2012 and 2014. All of this has reflected a growing realisation of the utterly horrifying consequences of even a regional nuclear exchange. A limited nuclear war involving around 100 Hiroshima-sized weapons would not only obliterate cities and contaminate states but also cause severe and widespread climate change and famine.
This impact could result from the firing of the payload of just one Trident submarine.
There followed the meetings of the UN Open-Ended Working Group on disarmament held earlier last year, open to all but boycotted by the UK. Both America and the UK have spoken out stridently against the treaty but their behaviour in the background is clear evidence that they are worried that it will be effective. In a leaked letter sent just before the October vote the US urged Nato states to vote against, on the grounds that if the treaty were to go ahead, their nuclear weapon activity would be seriously hampered by restrictions on the transport of weapons and materials.
They warned that their ability to maintain the nuclear umbrella would be threatened. The US and the UK are also aware that a treaty a minority of states fail to sign can still be effective in practical and moral ways, as is the case with the bans on chemical weaponry and landmines. The US and UK argue that the negotiations are a distraction from the main route for nuclear weapon control and disarmament – the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Yet the NPT is in stasis, with the last conference unable even to agree an outcome statement. The sticking point has been the failure of the nuclear-armed states to allow any genuine progress towards the fulfilling of Article V1 – the obligation of these states to make progress in good faith towards the elimination of their arsenals. Supporters of the ban treaty point out that negotiations are precisely the way to advance that Article.
The relevance for the UK is huge. Defenders of the UK’s nuclear weapon posture will always say that disarmament will only be achieved through multilateral negotiations.
Yet the ban treaty process is a multilateral initiative and they will have nothing to do with it. We have always known that, for many if not most Trident supporters, the claim to favour a multilateral route is mere avoidance.
In the middle of all of this, Scotland’s position is unique. We are solidly behind the abolition of Trident and all nuclear weapons. We are also the only significant and relatively autonomous part of a nuclear-armed state that opposes its possession of weapons of mass destruction.
Yet the anti-Trident stance of our Parliament and our MPs is ignored in the UK Government’s determination to renew Trident. On top of this, having voted against the treaty negotiations, the UK is unlikely to play a positive part in the negotiations and so, in an echo of our democratic deficit over Brexit, Scotland’s view may well be formally misrepresented in New York.
Scotland’s civil society, its elected representatives and its political leaders can still be visible, articulate and assertive around the negotiations. At last week’s UN pre-negotiation meeting the ability of civil society representatives to participate in the sessions was restated.
At least two Scots will be at the March diet: SNP MSP Bill Kidd, as co-president of the international NGO Parliamentarians for Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Disarmament and Janet Fenton, vice-chairwoman of Scottish CND. More will attend the June diet. It’s a challenge that must not be missed.
David Mackenzie, Scottish Scrap Trident Coalition
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