wfn.org | WCC FEATURE: Nuclear weapons: No ban in sight, but new pressure on armed minority

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>World Council of Churches - Feature

NO BAN IN SIGHT, BUT MAJORITY PUTS NEW PRESSURE ON MINORITY’S  NUCLEAR

>WEAPONS

>For immediate release: 08 June 2010

>by Jonathan Frerichs*

Is it time to start work on banning nuclear weapons? “Yes”  says a
growing majority of governments and civil society groups. “No�� � insists
a tiny nuclear-armed minority. “Premature” say some  of their closest
allies.

That is the barest summary of what happened at the United Nations  when 189
countries met recently on what to do about nuclear weapons. Churches
seeking specific steps to stop nuclear arms shared long-standing
disappointments – plus a few new grounds for hope –  with many
governments and most of the 120 civil society organizations in New  York
during May for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review
conference.

A World Council of Churches (WCC) delegation met with a cross-section  of
the governments at the conference to promote first steps toward  a legal
ban, a critical set of 10-year-old arms control steps, the
nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East, and other issues from  six
decades of ecumenical opposition to nuclear armaments.

The tiny minority of treaty states with nuclear weapons –  the United
States, Russia, China, United Kingdom and France – showed  little of the
will that would be required to actually eliminate their arsenals  and end
their status as nuclear-weapon states. But the US and UK provided  new
information about the size of their nuclear arsenals, and all five
governments were subjected to the majority will on several fronts.

The pressures included a growing demand for a legal ban of nuclear  weapons,
an unmet promise to keep nuclear weapons out of the Middle East,  a
stronger stigma against nuclear weapons use, and increasing international
impatience with the nuclear-weapon states over their treaty obligations.
After much debate, each of these issues gained a new lease on life  via the
conference action plan.

Compared to the same review conference five years ago, such references  are
a kind of success. Compared to the recently rekindled vision of  a world
without any nuclear weapons, the decisions are modest nods in the  right
direction.

Demonstrating grassroots and global concern, the WCC delegates presented
the United Kingdom delegation with a joint petition backed by eight  major
UK churches (Link: http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=5fde3886a0db 
223fb5f6 ). WCC
delegate Rev. Dr Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National
Council of Churches USA, cited the call of sister churches in the  UK for
their government to support the negotiation of “a nuclear  weapons
convention that would make the possession of nuclear weapons illegal�� �.
He noted that the WCC was bringing similar requests from churches  in
Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas to their governments at  the
conference.

In twelve government meetings the WCC delegates also raised a set  of
practical steps agreed by the NPT conference of 2000. “The  steps need to
be updated to address current disarmament challenges. But this time  there
must be a timeline for implementation of the steps,” WCC  delegate Dr
Ninan Koshy said. Koshy is an analyst, commentator and former WCC  advocacy
director from India. After four weeks of civil society groups and
governments making the same point, steps with some deadlines were  included
in the conference action plan.

Two-thirds of the governments and most of the 120 non-governmental
organizations present called for a process leading to negotiation  of a
convention banning nuclear weapons. The nuclear-weapon states insisted  on
watering down the reference to simply “note” the  idea and omit the
proposed timelines, but even that was seen as progress.

“The high aspirations which churches place on achieving  critical
long-term goals like nuclear disarmament have proved themselves  in various
fields,” moderator of the European Council of Religious  Leaders Rev. Dr
Gunnar Stalsett, former bishop of Oslo and member of the WCC delegation,
said to one government. “Such hopes can play a vital role  in supporting
incremental steps toward the ultimate goal.”

The WCC delegation supported an agreement to open talks on a Middle  East
zone free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, which  became
one of the conference’s most important achievements. “The  Arab and
Israeli positions are not mutually exclusive – there cannot  be peace
without security, or security without peace. Therefore we call on  regional
state delegations to make a clear commitment to parallel peace and  arms
control tracks,” said a joint civil society paper on the  issue, which
WCC helped prepare.

In its final document the NPT conference welcomed the establishment  of new
nuclear-weapon-free zones in Africa, which churches helped realize,  and
Central Asia. Prior to the conference, the WCC presented church  activities
to a meeting of civil society groups and governments from five
nuclear-weapon-free zones that cover the Southern Hemisphere and  adjacent
countries north of the equator.

>[746 words]

(*) Jonathan Frerichs, WCC programme executive for peace building  and
disarmament, is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

WCC project: Churches engaged for nuclear arms control (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=43f4d957772b0f4d4104 )

WCC Central Committee, September 2009: Statement of hope in a year  of
opportunity: seeking a nuclear-weapon-free world (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=1886725bab70c412d674 )

More information on the ecumenical presence at the NPT conference
(Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=174832eab6758e7a01b6
)

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith,  witness and 
service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship  of churches 
founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant,
Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560  million 
Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the  Roman 
Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse  Tveit, from 
the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.

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