The growing nuclear disarmament clamor

By Brahma Chellaney

NEW DELHI (JP): Once the nuclear powers conclude their test- ban celebrations, pulling off a second consecutive nonproliferation coup in two years, they are likely to confront a world less than patient with their ruses to indefinitely hold on to the weapons of holocaust -- "the ultimate evil" according to the World Court.

Having got what they wanted -- a permanent extension of their political instrument, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), without any legally binding reciprocal commitments and a new technical nonproliferation tool in the guise of a "Comprehensive" Test Ban Treaty -- the nuclear powers will be hard put to justify their continued refusal to accept even the idea of international negotiations on total nuclear disarmament. The two coups, although aimed at reinforcing the five-nation nuclear monopoly, are likely to set off a spiraling chain of demands for concrete disarmament measures.

Recent developments are already beginning to challenge the right of the major powers to indefinitely employ these weapons of genocide as lawful instruments of national security. First came a landmark International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling which declared nuclear weapons "generally contrary to international law" and expounded a legal obligation to achieve the complete dismantlement of nuclear arsenals.

The 14 justices ruled unanimously in July that the nuclear powers are legally obliged not only to negotiate in good faith, but "to achieve a precise result -- nuclear disarmament in all its aspects". The two-fold obligation defined by the court can only embarrass the great powers, who have refused to allow a disarmament negotiating committee to be set up at the Geneva- based United Nations forum, the Conference on Disarmament (CD).

Their refusal has spurred the non-aligned group at the CD to unveil its "Program of Action on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons". The plan, released on Aug. 8, specifies a step-by-step process to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020.

More recently, a commission appointed by a close U.S. ally that midwifed the back-room delivery of the test-ban treaty released a report calling for "immediate and determined efforts" to eliminate nuclear weapons. According to the Canberra Commission, "Nuclear weapons are held by a handful of states which insist that these weapons provide unique security benefits, and yet reserve uniquely to themselves the right to own them. This situation is highly discriminatory and thus unstable; it cannot be sustained.

The 17 commissioners, who include the reigning intellectual guru of nuclear disarmament, Robert McNamara, said the possession of nuclear weapons by some states goads other nations to acquire them and therefore "it is much more likely that the nuclear club will expand and the nuclear arms race re-ignite". This statement can only dismay those powers who believe that the latest test-ban feat will further fortify their nonproliferation regime.

The commissioners, lamenting great-power assertions about the continuing utility of nuclear weapons despite their "intolerable threat to all humanity and its habitat," have warned that the indefinite deployment of such weapons carries a "high risk" of their use by accident or design.

Their 119-page report provides a forceful set of arguments in support of non-nuclear security but shies away from defining the precise steps towards zero. It simply recommends an unspecified series of phased verified cuts in existing arsenals while expressing the hope that the first disarmament steps can be taken in 1997.

The Commission accepts the logic of a disarmament timetable, saying it is "convinced of the basic importance of agreed targets and guidelines", but here again it shies away from setting out a timeframe for weapon dismantlement.

It cites the ICJ ruling but misses some of the important new legal principles established by the world's supreme judicial organ. The new principles are a major boost to global efforts to delegitimize nuclear weapons.

The commissioners are most at ease while suggesting a menu of immediate steps. These include the removal of all nuclear forces from alert status and the physical separation of warheads from delivery vehicles so that any force reconstitution to an alert posture could occur only within known or agreed upon timeframes.

They also call for ending the deployment of non-strategic weapons, a measure unlikely to be accepted by China because it would leave much of its arsenal in cold storage. Most of China's nuclear weapons are of intermediate- and short-range and pose a threat mainly to its immediate neighbors.

Even though the non-nuclear states have for long sought caveat-free, legally backed non-use assurances, the Commission only recommends a non-binding agreement among the nuclear powers that they would not be the first to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against each other and that they would not use or threaten to use such arms in any conflict with a non-nuclear state.

This suggestion flies in the face of the ICJ advisory opinion which strips offensive nuclear doctrines pivoted on the first use of nuclear weapons of any claim of legitimacy and implicitly outlaws the unleashing of a Hiroshima or Nagasaki-style nuclear holocaust. Now the only gray area in international law relates to a rare self-defense situation where the very survival of the concerned state is at stake.

If the nuclear powers are to be asked not to commit certain aggressive actions already judged contrary to law, the right course to recommend is the setting up of an international convention formalizing the new legal principles. The Commission could also have seized upon the ICJ ruling to challenge the legality of tactical or battlefield "nukes" since they cannot and are not intended to safeguard the survival of a nation. China is known to deploy such weapons, while the U.S. -- Russian bilateral accord on elimination of tactical arms specifically excludes air- launched "nukes".

The Commission's most important message is that nuclear weapons cannot be kept indefinitely, as the big powers assert, and yet never be used. It argues that the risks of not disarming far outweigh the risks of disarming. The report, however, is marred by some naivete.

It reaches the absurd conclusion that if the three nuclear- threshold nations of India, Israel and Pakistan are not ready to relinquish their nuclear option, the nuclear powers will not begin dismantling their arsenals. "Bringing these states into the nonproliferation regime through acceptance of internationally verifiable, legally binding nonproliferation obligations will be an essential step in the process of eliminating nuclear weapons", it contends gullibly.

The Commission was appointed by the previous Labor Party government as part of a strategy to mollify its grassroots constituency outrange by the initially tepid official reaction to renewed French nuclear testing in the South Pacific. The new conservative government's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, had as opposition leader dismissed the Commission's establishment as a contemptible electoral stunt. But having been presented the report, Prime Minister John Howard has a duty to follow up its recommendations.

One of the first steps Australia should take is to urge the United States to drop its offensive first-use nuclear posture in the light of the Commission report and the ICJ opinion. The United States' first-use doctrine is aimed primarily at safeguarding the credibility of its nuclear umbrella, which currently shelters Australia and 15 other allies. By suggesting a no-first-use doctrine, Canberra can show that America's allies do not demand an offensive nuclear posture for their security.

The writer is professor of security studies at the New Delhi- based independent think tank, the Center for Policy Research.