Disarmament Diplomacy must be reset to keep alive inter-governmental contacts, ensure military restraint & conformity to the law, and advance nuclear arms control in today’s environment of high conflict and nuclear threats, according to Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director of Western States Legal Foundation, who presented a statement Disarmament Diplomacy Reset to the States Parties of the Non-Proliferation Treaty on July 23 on behalf of the Abolition 2000 Coordinating Committee.
The statement was presented at a plenary meeting of the NPT deliberations which took place at the United Nations in Geneva from July 22-August 2.
“What is visible today is alarming. Discourse about matters of war and peace in UN fora, from the General Assembly to the Security Council, is anything but diplomatic, seeming to consist mainly of competitive posturing,” said Ms Cabasso. “When one or another nuclear-armed state floats a tentative proposal for arms control, whether for no first use or for re-opening discussions to preserve what remains of the nuclear arms control framework, the others’ main public response is to find reasons to dismiss it. This attitude must be stood on its head. Every offer to negotiate should be taken up, even if the only immediate result is a modest expansion of contacts, of opportunities to talk.”
Ms Cabasso and other representatives of the Abolition 2000 Coordinating Committee and Abolition 2000 member organizations were active in the NPT deliberations through presentations to the NPT plenary on July 23 (see below); side-events on a range of topics including nuclear risk reduction, common security and the climate-nuclear nexus; and a #3DnukeGeneva action on July 31, the 33rd anniversary of the START 1 Treaty. (See photos of #3DnukeGeneva).
The #3DnukeGeneva action highlighted the fact that the SALT 1 agreement was negotiated during a time when tensions and conflicts between USA and the Soviet Union were possibly as bad as they are today between Russia and the West.
“Negotiations to limit armaments are needed most urgently when tensions among nuclear-armed adversaries are at their highest. History has shown us that negotiations under such conditions are possible,” said Ms Cabasso. “The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the SALT I agreement completed in 1972, with U.S. President Nixon traveling to Moscow at a time when, as Russian arms control expert Alexey Arbatov recently noted, U.S. bombs were falling around Soviet ships in Vietnam’s Haiphong Harbor.”
“The NPT itself opened for signature at the height of the Vietnam War, with half a million U.S. troops on the ground and Soviet technicians coordinating North Vietnamese air defenses that were shooting down U.S. planes.”
At the 2024 NPT Prep Com, Abolition 2000 also distributed a flyer NWC Reset: Frameworks for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World, which includes recommendations from the NWC Reset working paper, plus a summary of the background and political context for the recommendations.
And on July 26, Abolition 2000 Members Jackie Cabasso, Bill Kidd and Alyn Ware went Live from the NPT to update viewers around the world on the government deliberations at the NPT (the good, the bad and the ugly) plus civil society activities at the conference.
Key presentations to the NPT:
- Disarmament Diplomacy Reset, presentation by Jackie Cabasso to the NPT Plenary on July 23;
- Nuclear-risk reduction, no-first-use and the inadmissibility of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, presentation by Bill Kidd MSP to the NPT Plenary on July 23;
- Can Common Security replace Nuclear Deterrence?, presentation by Alyn Ware to the NPT Plenary on July 23 of a joint appeal on common security endorsed by 170 organizations;
- Pursuing Peace, Security and Nuclear Disarmament through our Common Humanity, presentation by Ayleen Roy to the NPT of an interfaith appeal endorsed by 80 organizations and an additional 180 faith-based leaders and individuals;
- Turn Back the Doomsday Clock, presentation by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer to the NPT of a parliamentary appeal endorsed by over 80 parliamentarians from 35 countries.
Abolition 2000 member organization side-events
- Common Security v Nuclear Deterrence;
- Denuclearization in North-East Asia through a 3+3 Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone;
- The Climate-Nuclear Nexus: Lessons from the NPT for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty;
- NPT related proposals for the UN Summit of the Future: Peace, Nuclear Disarmament, Artificial Intelligence and the Rights of Future Generations