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Don't worry there is India too.
Tiny Marshall Islands take on India in nuclear disarmament fight
Foreign Minister Tony de Brum of the Marshall Islands attends a meeting during the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) at Le Bourget, near Paris, France, December 11, 2015. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe
By Thomas Escritt
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - A small chain of Pacific islands - some of which were once vapourized by atomic bomb tests - sought in court on Monday to force India, the world's second-most populous country, to get on board with nuclear disarmament.
The tiny republic of the Marshall Islands, which has a population of less than 70,000 people, says that the world's nine nuclear weapons states have violated various obligation to negotiate in good faith to dismantle their nuclear arsenals.
Three of them - India, Pakistan and Britain - are bound by previous commitments to respond to cases brought at the International Court of Justice. India was the first to be heard, on Monday, followed during the week by Pakistan and Britain.
They say the claim is beyond the jurisdiction of the court in The Hague
Nobody expects the Marshall Islands to force the three powers to disarm, but the archipelago's dogged campaign highlights the growing scope for political minnows to get a hearing through global tribunals.
The island republic, a U.S. protectorate until 1986, was the site of 67 nuclear tests by 1958, the health impacts of which linger to this day.
"Several islands in my country were vaporized and others are estimated to remain uninhabitable for thousands of years," said Marshallese minister Tony deBrum, describing seeing the sky "aflame" from a test 200 miles distant as a nine-year-old boy.
"Many died, suffered birth defects never before seen and battled cancer from the contamination," he added.
The other nuclear powers - including declared powers China, France, Russia and the United States and undeclared nuclear states Israel and North Korea have not responded to the suit the islands filed last year.
The islands say the declared states are bound to negotiate disarmament by the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while the other states face similar obligations under customary international law.
"It is a shame that the other six nuclear armed states have decided that for them there was no need to respond," said Phon van den Biesen, lawyer for the Marshall Islands.
"Once the threshold to the use of nuclear weapons is crossed, the law will be a joke and justice will be just a relic of the past."
(Reporting By Thomas Escritt Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
Tiny Marshall Islands take on India in nuclear disarmament fight
Our nuclear security
By
Ali Sarwar Naqvi
February 26, 2016
The spectre of Pakistan’s insecure nuclear arsenal has again been raised in a US State Department briefing, when Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner answered an Indian journalist’s question about the security of Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons.
This is a ghost that is trotted out every now and then to raise doubts and suspicions about Pakistan’s nuclear programme. The issue has been addressed many times, and the broad international and national consensus is that our nuclear programme is well protected by multi-layered security, effective command and control and is based on proper legislation and institutional framework.
The concern raised by Mark Toner is surprising, and at odds with recent US policy pronouncements on the subject. Secretary of State John Kerry is on record as expressing “confidence in Pakistan’s commitment and dedication to nuclear security and appreciation for Pakistan’s efforts to improve its strategic trade controls”. He also recognised “that Pakistan is fully engaged with the international community on nuclear safety and security issues” (January 27 2014).
And a State Department spokesman stated early this year, ‘The United States has full confidence in nuclear security in Pakistan and appreciates Pakistan’s proactive engagement with the international community including through its hosting of IAEA training activities at its Nuclear Security Centre of Excellence and its active participation in the Nuclear Security Summits” (January 13 2015).
Over the years, Pakistan has established a robust nuclear security regime compatible with international standards and good practices by taking the following four steps:
I. Establishing a well-structured command and control system – comprising the National Command Authority, the Strategic Plans Division and the Strategic Forces Command – to exercise control over all aspects of policy, procurement, operations and most importantly, nuclear security.
II. Putting in place a rigorous regulatory regime covering all matters related to nuclear safety and security, including physical protection of materials and facilities, material control and accounting, transport security and prevention of illicit trafficking and border controls, as well as plans to deal with possible radiological emergencies.
III. A comprehensive export control regime with laws at par with the standards followed by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Missile Technology Regime, the Wassenar Arrangement and the Australia Group.
IV. International cooperation consistent with its national policies and interests, as well as its international obligations.
Other nuclear security related activities include: the establishment of centres for training that conduct specialised courses on physical protection and personnel reliability, a detailed assessment of nuclear power plants, periodic review of safety parameters, emergency preparedness and response, operator training, the nuclear security action plan (NSAP), a radiation response mechanism, periodic revision of national export control list by Strategic Export Control Division (SECDIV), and combating illicit trafficking of nuclear material through border control mechanisms.
Being cognisant of the fact that nuclear security cannot only be a national pursuit, Pakistan has been actively engaged with the international community in this regard. It has been mindful of the fact that a desirable nuclear security system is one in which states are actively engaged, information is shared and joint action is undertaken in areas of common interest. Pakistan has been drawing upon the technical expertise of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on matters that have international ramifications. Ever since the Nuclear Security Summit process began, Pakistan has proactively taken part in each of the summits held in 2010, 2012 and 2014 and will also do so in March-April this year. Each time, it has participated in the summits at the government level.
In the joint statement issued during Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Washington in October 2015, it was stated: “The United States and Pakistan committed to work together to make the Nuclear Security Summit, hosted by President Obama next year a success. President Obama welcomed Pakistan’s constructive engagement with the Nuclear Security Summit process and its cooperation with... international forums.”
Given this background, it is quite strange that Mark Toner has expressed concern regarding Pakistan’s nuclear security. Could it be the beginning of a new campaign to put us on the mat once again, and go after our nuclear programme on this new issue of security? I say this because there is a pattern to such positions adopted by the US from time to time.
Many years ago, when I was in our embassy in Washington, the US State Department, think tanks, experts and scholars, were harping on the ‘roll back’ of our programme. This was at the time of the imposition of the Pressler Amendment. Then came the refrain of ‘freezing’ enriched uranium production. After our nuclear tests, the US began urging that we sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). More recently, the US Administration and opinion making circles in the Washington Beltway have been decrying Pakistan’s ‘hard’ stance in the Conference of Disarmament (CD) negotiations on the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT).
When such demands do not bring a change in Pakistan’s policies, the US also changes tack. Since a year or two ago, there has been talk of ‘mainstreaming’ Pakistan, whereby Pakistan would be brought into the international nuclear order in return for certain steps that it would be required to take. US think-tanks, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Stimson Center, brought out a monograph last year titled ‘A Normal Nuclear Pakistan’, which made the rounds of the US nuclear community. It seemed that President Obama would propose some steps for Pakistan to take in return for a civil nuclear deal akin to the one made by the US with India. Perhaps Pakistan’s public rejection of the proposal made at the Obama-Sharif meeting dissuaded the US administration from broaching the matter in the bilateral summit in October 2015.
Since this approach did not work, it is possible that the US wants to raise the issue of security to put pressure on Pakistan to accede to their demands with regard to the FMCT and CTBT. Interestingly, Toner’s reply to the Indian journalist was in answer to a question on Pakistan’s so-called tactical nuclear weapons – which he said were a cause for concern – without making any reference to India’s Cold Start doctrine, which led to the development of these short-range battlefield missiles. In any case, there is nothing wrong with our nuclear security.
The writer is the executive director of the Center for International Strategic Studies.
Email:
sarwarnaqvi@yahoo.com
Our nuclear security | Opinion | thenews.com.pk
Announcement of the Nuclear Security Summit in 2016
August 5, 2015 at 11:51 AM ET by
Laura S. H. Holgate, Laura S. H. Holgate
Twitter Facebook Email
Summary:
The fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit will be held March 31-April 1, 2016, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.
Last year in Berlin, the President formally announced his plan to host a fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit in 2016. The Summit will be held March 31-April 1, 2016, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.
As the President stated in his
speech in Prague in 2009, nuclear terrorism is the most immediate and extreme threat to global security. He announced an international effort to secure vulnerable nuclear materials, break up black markets, and detect and intercept illicitly trafficked materials. The first Nuclear Security Summit was held in Washington, DC in 2010, and was followed by additional Summits in
Seoul in 2012 and The
Hague in 2014. These Summits have achieved tangible improvements in the security of nuclear materials and stronger international institutions that support nuclear security.
- The Summit will continue discussion on the evolving threat and highlight steps that can be taken together to minimize the use of highly-enriched uranium, secure vulnerable materials, counter nuclear smuggling and deter, detect, and disrupt attempts at nuclear terrorism.
- The planned outcomes of the Summit include a communiqué highlighting progress made and work still to be done to prevent nuclear terrorism. Leaders will also endorse plans to strengthen the enduring international institutions and initiatives that support nuclear security to enable them to carry forward and build upon the legacy of the Summits.
- The U.S. seeks a strengthened global nuclear security architecture that is comprehensive, is based on international standards, builds confidence in nations’ nuclear security implementation, and results in declining global stocks of nuclear weapons-usable nuclear materials.
- We cannot afford to wait for an act of nuclear terrorism before working together to collectively improve our nuclear security culture, share our best practices, and raise our standards for nuclear security.
Laura S. H. Holgate currently serves as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism and Threat Reduction on the National Security Council.
Announcement of the Nuclear Security Summit in 2016 | whitehouse.gov
2016 Nuclear Security Summit: Can Obama ‘Finish Strong’?
By
Ana Alecsandru
Doctoral student at the University of Birmingham
Thursday 7 January 2016
The fourth and most likely the final Nuclear Security Summit will be held March 31-April 1 in Washington, DC. The three previous summits in Washington (2010), Seoul (2012), and The Hague (2014) have been the most visible features of an accelerated international effort to help prevent nuclear terrorism. President Obama, who launched the effort in a speech in Prague in April 2009 and set the aim to ‘
secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years’, has expressed his intention to ‘
finish strong in 2016’. Assessing the achievements of the summits so far, one can argue that, whilst the risk of nuclear terrorism has not gone away, the potential for the acquisition of nuclear materials by terrorist groups has been greatly reduced. Despite this progress, the job of securing all nuclear materials is far from finished. More work will be needed to strengthen the global nuclear security system. What then are the challenges to addressing the remaining gaps in the field of nuclear security?
First, the summit fatigue among heads of state could be an obstacle to further developments. Therefore, at the 2016 Summit, leaders must agree on a way to ensure that collective efforts to strengthen the global nuclear security system do not fade, or worse, backslide, after the Summit process ends. States must consider various options for the future that would involve heads of state meeting at longer intervals, together with lower level meetings at shorter intervals.
Further ratifications of legally binding instruments such as the 2005 Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) are necessary to sustain attention on the issue. With regards to the 2005 Amendment, the United States’ ratification in
July 2015 brings entry into force one step closer but more states need to ratify it before the amendment can take effect. As a
recent piece in the Arms Control magazine explained, the amended Article 16 could provide a vehicle to ensure continued progress: the amendment’s entry into force would set in motion a process requiring a conference of the parties to take place after five years to assess implementation and the adequacy of the convention. Similar to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) process, more frequent meetings of officials, taking place prior to leader-level meetings, could then ensure the continuity of efforts.
The group of 35 countries that signed the Joint Statement on ‘
Strengthening Nuclear Security Implementation’ at the 2014 Summit can take its contents as a template to implement a more ambitious agenda. The Joint Statement, also known as the Trilateral Initiative, is an initiative through which states agreed to implement the major recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for nuclear and radiological source security. In October 2014, these 35 countries requested that the Joint Statement be circulated by the IAEA Secretariat as an
IAEA Information Circular. Two key benefits to this change are that the Joint Statement now has a life beyond the Summit process and any country willing to subscribe to the commitments can join.
A goal for the 2016 Summit should be to increase the number of endorsements as much as possible, ideally convincing nuclear-armed states China, India, Pakistan, and Russia to join the initiative. Ultimately, all these initiatives and treaties should lead to the establishment of a legally binding framework convention on nuclear security that will complement the current regime.
The second challenge is how to include in the nuclear security system all nuclear materials, military as well as civilian. The mechanisms that already exist apply to only 17 percent of weapons-usable nuclear materials, those that are used in civilian applications. A recent NTI international study group led by Sam Nunn, Richard Lugar and Des Browne has developed a number of recommendations on how to strengthen the security of the remaining 83 percent, commonly categorised as ‘military materials’. The
report underlines the urgency of subjecting the ‘military materials’ to the current international security standards, mechanisms, and confidence-building arrangements.
The third potential challenge for the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit is Russia’s decision not to attend. Of course, the decision was not a complete surprise given recent icy relations between Russia and the west, in particular the United States. The deep mistrust that has developed between the west and Russia is having a massive effect on cooperation on security matters. However, it is clearly in Moscow and Washington’s common interest to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and global nuclear terrorism. Russia and the United States continue to work together on some nuclear security issues. US cooperation with the Russian nuclear regulator continues; the US and Russia will continue to work to repatriate HEU from Kazakhstan and Poland. Also, Russia and the United States will continue to co-chair the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT). Although Russia is not participating in preparations for the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit, US officials are keeping Russian officials informed of developments.
Both the United States and Russia have a tendency to regard nuclear cooperation as a bargaining chip. Both countries, however, need to acknowledge the imperative to provide global leadership in this field. Fortunately, the United States ratified in 2015 both the 2005 Amendment and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, and thus is in a stronger position to encourage other countries to do likewise.
These developments have been very closely associated with President Obama’s Prague agenda. The important question to ask, in the context of the US elections in 2016, is what impact will these elections have on the Summit and its future? Nuclear security initiatives are just
too important to be hindered by political divides. Further cooperation on nuclear security is thus likely even under a Republican president.
Laura Holgate, the senior director for WMD Terrorism and Threat Reduction at the US National Security Council, who is involved in the preparations for the summit,
said that the process reflected ‘the incremental nature of success’, adding ‘That’s just the way it is in this field. You don’t have giant thunderclaps and then the world is different’. Hopefully, this statement does not indicate that Obama has scaled back his goals in this area. We need sustained commitment of all engaged states, led by the US, to build on existing efforts to ensure continued high-level attention on nuclear security beyond 2016.
The opinions articulated above represent the views of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Leadership Network or any of its members. The ELN's aim is to encourage debates that will help develop Europe's capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time.
2016 Nuclear Security Summit: Can Obama ‘Finish Strong’?
