NZ Nuclear Weapon Free Legislation 30 years on:the Significance of the UN Draft Treaty and to Honour the late Dame Laurie Salas

Transcription

1 The United Nations Association of New Zealand NZ Institute of International Affairs (Wellington Branch) Women s International League for Peace and Freedom (Wellington Section) NZ Nuclear Weapon Free Legislation 30 years on:the Significance of the UN Draft Treaty and to Honour the late Dame Laurie Salas Nicky Hager, Mark Roach, Dame Laurie Salas, Dr Ian Prior, Rev John Murray, Mike Rashbrooke - Parliament June Professor Ramesh Thakur Australian National University with Students and Non Governmental Organisation Representatives to acknowledge the 30 th Anniversary of the passing of our Legislation to look forward to the UN Conference Thursday 8 th June At Victoria University Council Chamber Hunter Building at 5.30pm Sponsored by PADET, UNANZ, WILPF with support from NZIIA Wgtn

2 United Nations Conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit a nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination Draft Convention on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons CANBERRA On May 22, Elayne Whyte Gomez, president of the United Nations conference negotiating a treaty to ban nuclear weapons, released a draft text of the convention based on the first session of the conference held from March 27 to 31. The conference will resume June 15 and conclude July 7. The March conference was attended by 132 countries, accounting for two-thirds of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty membership. Signed in 1968, the NPT is the normative sheet anchor of global nuclear orders, from peaceful uses to nuclear safety and security, non proliferation and disarmament. Article 6 obligates signatories to eliminate their nuclear weapons. In an advisory opinion in 1996, the World Court strengthened this by saying that the nuclear powers have the obligation not just to pursue good faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament, but to bring them to a conclusion. Yet, 21 years after the World Court s opinion and 49 years since the NPT s signing, there are still around 15,000 nuclear weapons in the arsenals of nine countries: China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Four of these India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan represent a breach of the NPT s non proliferation barrier. Moreover, four China, India, North Korea and Pakistan are still enlarging their nuclear stockpiles; North Korea is still testing nuclear weapons; and all nine are modernizing, upgrading or expanding nuclear-weapon delivery platforms. The non-nuclear-weapon NPT countries have repeatedly called on the nuclear powers to honour the NPT disarmament obligation and abolish nuclear weapons through a legally binding treaty. Promises are made at the five-yearly NPT review conferences and then ignored or broken. Efforts by the non-nuclear countries to hold states accountable for internationally made promises have gone nowhere. Meanwhile nuclear threats have become more acute and numerous. The combination of growing awareness of nuclear threats and rising impatience and frustration with the perceived will full obstructionism of the nuclear-armed states generated a powerful alliance of civil society activists and like-minded states rooted in humanitarian principles. They came together in a shared threepart conviction:

3 No country individually, nor the international system collectively, has the material and administrative capacity to cope with the humanitarian disasters that would result from a nuclear war. Even a limited regional war between India and Pakistan, for example, could over the decade long effects on crop production and food distribution chains, kill up to 2 billion people globally. A regional war in North Asia could involve four nuclear armed countries (North Korea, China, Russia and the U.S.) plus South Korea and Japan. It is in the interests of the very survival of humanity, therefore, that nuclear weapons are never used again. The only guarantee of never again is the verified elimination of nuclear weapons, following the precedents of biological and chemical weapons banned by legally binding international conventions. Accordingly, at the conclusion of the last humanitarian consequences conference in Vienna on Dec. 9, 2014, 127 of the 158 attending countries signed a humanitarian pledge to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons and the U.N. conference seeks to give effect to that pledge. None of the nine nuclear-armed countries, and almost none of the many NATO and Pacific allies who shelter under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, attended the U.N. conference, describing it as impractical, ineffective and likely to damage the NPT. Japan walked out after delivering an opening statement sharply critical of the conference, leaving the hibakusha heartbroken. Australia is among the most outspoken of the non-nuclear states in attacking the very concept of a special U.N. conference instead of the building blocks or step-by-step approach of engaging with the countries that possess nuclear weapons to reduce their stockpiles... The initial draft convention marks an important milestone in the long campaign to ban the most indiscriminately inhumane weapons ever invented. It affirms that signing it will not affect the rights and obligations of members under the NPT. Rooted in humanitarian principles, the text provides a good basis to complete negotiations of a treaty to prohibit unequivocally the acquisition, development, production, manufacture, possession, transfer, testing, extraterritorial stationing and use of nuclear weapons as major steps toward their eventual elimination. It will enter into force 90 days after the ratification of its 40th member. Professor Ramesh Thakur is director of the Centre for Nuclear Non- Proliferation and Disarmament, Australian National University.

4 NZ Nuclear Weapon Free legislation 30 years on The significance of the UN Draft Treaty And to Honour the Late Dame Laurie Salas Victoria University Council Chamber Hunter Bldg Programme: Thursday 8 th June 5.30 Welcome Brian Lynch - Chair NZIIA Wellington 5.35 Acknowledgement of Dame Laurie Salas s work Joy Dunsheath President UNANZ 5.40 Prof Ramesh Thakur - Dame Laurie Salas and the Fierce Urgency of Freedom from the Sum of Nuclear Fears Questions from the floor 6.30 Youth Panel - Is there a Role for Nuclear Weapons in Today s World?- Wgtn Sec School Students Chair Emily Watson Joseph Sison St Patrick s College Kilbirnie Panel - Zita Keller, Ralph Zambrano. Rebecca Farquuhar, Mira Karunamadhi 6.45 NGO s representatives going to New York Lucy Stewart NZ Peace Foundation Dr Lyndon Burford 7.00 Musical Interlude Salas family 7.10 International NGO s input Dr Rebecca Dudley - International Red Cross Edwina Hughes - Ican and WILPF 7.25 Closing Remarks Joy Dunsheath Refreshments served.

5 Bios Speakers and Participants Professor Ramesh Thakur Prof Thakur is a former UN Assistant Secretary General and currently Director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Australian National University, Co-Convenor of the Asia Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non- Proliferation and Disarmament ( and UNA Australia Goodwill Ambassador for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. Joseph Sison - St Patrick s College Kilbirnie Winner of UNA Wellington Speech Award 2017 Topic: Is there a Role for Nuclear Weapons in Today s World Participants Youth Panel: Ralph Zambrano Runner Up St Patrick s College, Zita Keller,St Mary s College, Rebecca Farquhar, Wellington Girls College, Mira Karunamdhi, Queen Margaret s College Lucy Stewart: NGO representative Ban Treaty Conference in New York - Youth Programme Coordinator Foundation for Peace Studies Auckland Secretary NZ Centre for Global Studies Waiheke Island Formerly Teacher SABIS Educational Education Services Sardam School Duhok Iraq Refugee Resettlement Support Worker Mangere. Masters of Professional Studies International Relations and Human Rights 1 st Class Honours Graduate Diploma in International relations Victoria Univ. Dr Lyndon Burford: Lyndon is an award-winning academic author with 12 years' experience in nuclear disarmament research, education and outreach. His PhD thesis explored the relationship between national identity and nuclear disarmament policy in Canada and New Zealand. Lyndon was an Advisor to the New Zealand government delegation at Review Conference of the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty in 2015, and since 2009, has periodically served as a New Zealand representative to a Track II regional study group on nonproliferation and disarmament in the Asia-Pacific. From 14 June to 7 July 2017, he will attend the United Nations negotiations for a nuclear weapon prohibition treaty at UN Headquarters, New York, as a member of New Zealand civil society

6 Dr Rebecca Dudley: Rebecca is the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Advisor to New Zealand Red Cross, Dr Rebecca Dudley promotes awareness and implementation of legal frameworks relating to humanitarian emergencies, especially IHL and Disaster law. She holds degrees from Yale and Columbia universities, and a PhD in international law from Queens University Belfast. She has worked in a number of countries including many years in Northern Ireland where she was involved in transitional justice roles related to the peace process, and reducing gender based harms. Edwina Hughes: Edwina Hughes is the Coordinator of Peace Movement Aotearoa, the national networking peace organisation. Among other things, Peace Movement Aotearoa provides coordination for the national campaigns of five international humanitarian campaigns, including ican (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons). Her work comprises research, analysis, resource publications, presentations, education and action on a range of peace, disarmament, social justice, Treaty and human rights issues, including the impacts of militarism, militarisation and climate justice, and the relationships between human rights and peace. She is the author of eighteen substantive reports to UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies, including eight which raised disarmament issues. Edwina is Secretary of WILPF Wellington, and Co- Secretary of WILPF Aotearoa. Brian Lynch: Chair - New Zealand Institute of International Affairs Wellington branch - Former diplomat Joy Dunsheath: President United Nations Association JP and former Chair Federation of Graduate Women Emily Watson: Policy Analyst - International Red Cross youth representative at Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear War Conference in Mexico 2014 and WILPF rep at NPT Review Conference in 2015 Writes great blogs interesting and informative.

7 Song Danny Boy Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling From glen to glen, and down the mountain side. The summer s gone, and all the roses falling, It s you, it s you must go and I must bide. But come ye back when summer s in the meadow, Or when the valley s hushed and white with snow, It s I ll be here in sunshine or in shadow.- Oh, Danny boy, Oh Danny Boy, I love you so! But if you come, when all the flowers are dying, And I dead, as dead I well may be, Ye ll come and find the place where I am lying, And kneel and say an Ave there for me. And I shall hear, through soft you tread above me, And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be, For you will bend and tell me that you love me, And I will sleep in peace until you come to me!

8 Remembering Dame Laurie - February January 2017 Dame Laurie Salas was a peace campaigner who believed you had to try to change the world for the better. You had to make a difference. And so she did. She dedicated her life, beyond her family, to a legion of organisations for women whose objectives embraced the concepts of peace, justice and humanitarian assistance. She always pushed for the total abolition of war. there must be an alternative to resolving conflict other than by killing each other, she told the Evening Post on receiving her damehood in The National Council of Women and the United Nations Association were her main platforms for change. She represented these and other non-governmental organisations at many international conferences over her career, travelling to Paris, Oslo, Tashkent, New York and Beijing. Women and children were the main beneficiaries in her fight for change. As a staunch anti-nuclear campaigner she once pointed out that the cost of one nuclear submarine was equivalent to the education costs of 160 million children in 23 Third World countries. Addressing 400 women gathered for the Save the Children Women of the Year Awards in 1988 she told them they must bring pressure on politicians to stop the unacceptable and outmoded concept of war The world must replace fear with understanding, tanks with tractors, she said Dame Laurie was National Secretary and Vice President of the National Council of Women. National President of United Nations Association an International Vice President of WFUNA and a founding member of Women s International League for Peace and Freedom. Photo: UN Disarmament Conference in New York 1982 From Dompost Obituary