ABOLITION 2000

STATEMENT

A secure and liveable world for our children and grandchildren and all future generation requires that we achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and redress the environmental degradation and human suffering that is the legacy of fifty years of nuclear weapons testing and production.

Further, the inextricable link between the "peaceful" an warlike uses of nuclear technologies and the threat to future generations inherent in creation and use of long-lived radioactive materials must be recognized. We must move toward reliance on clean, safe, renewable forms of energy production that do not provide the materials for weapons of mass destruction and do not poison the environment for thousands of centuries. The true "inalienable" right is not to nuclear energy, but to life, liberty and security of person in a world free of nuclear weapons.

We recognize that a nuclear weapons free world must be achieved carefully and in a step by step manner. We are convinced of its technological feasibility. Lack of political will, especially on the part of nuclear weapons states, is the only true barrier. As chemical and biological weapons are prohibited, so must nuclear weapons be prohibited.

We call upon all states--particularly the nuclear weapons states, declared and de facto-- to take the following steps to achieve nuclear weapons abolition. We further urge the states parties to the NPT to demand binding commitments by the declared nuclear weapon states to implement these measures:

1) Initiate in 1995 and conclude by the year 2000 negotiations on a nuclear weapons abolition convention that requires the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.*

2) Immediately make an unconditional pledge not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons.

3) Rapidly complete a truly comprehensive test ban treaty with a zero threshold and with the stated purpose of precluding nuclear weapons development by all states.

4) Cease to produce and deploy new and additional nuclear weapons systems, and commence to withdraw and disable deployed nuclear weapons systems.

5) Prohibit the military and commercial production and reprocessing of all weapons-usable radioactive materials.

6) Subject all weapon-usable radioactive materials and nuclear facilities in all states to international accounting, monitoring, and safeguards, and establish a public international registry of all weapons- usable radioactive materials.

7) Prohibit nuclear weapons research, design, development, and testing through laboratory experiments including but not limited to non-nuclear hydrodynamic explosions and computer simulations, subject all nuclear weapons laboratories to international monitoring, and close all nuclear test sites.

8) Create additional nuclear weapons free zones such as those established by the treaties of Tlatelolco and Rarotonga.

9) Recognize and declare the illegality of threat or use of nuclear weapons, publicly and before the World Court.

10) Establish an international energy agency to promote and support the development of sustainable and environmentally safe energy sources.

11) Create mechanisms to ensure the participation of citizens and NGO's in planning and monitoring the process of nuclear weapons abolition.

A world free of nuclear weapons is a shared aspiration of humanity. This goal cannot be achieved in a non-proliferation regime that authorizes the possession of nuclear weapons by a small group of states. Our common security requires the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Our objective is definite and unconditional abolition of nuclear weapons.

* The convention should mandate irreversible disarmament measures, including but not limited to the following: withdraw and disable all deployed nuclear weapons systems; disable and dismantle warheads; place warheads and weapons-usable radioactive materials under international safeguards; destroy ballistic missiles and other delivery systems. The convention could also incorporate the measures listed above which should be implemented independently without delay. When fully implemented, the convention would replace the NPT.

New York, April 25 1995

This statement is endorsed by members of the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO)
Abolition Caucus and other groups listed on the attachment.

(the attachment is not available at this web site)

Please do sign on, we think it is important! The endorsement list will NOT close. Our numbers are still growing.

In Peace,

Ak Malten,
GANA.

To sign on to this statement please send a fax or an e-mail stating the name, address,
fax, telephone and e-mail of your organisation to:

Europe: Xanthe Hall, IPPNW Germany, Koertestrasse 10, D-10967 Berlin 61, Germany
tel: +49.30.693.0244, fax: +49.30.693.8166, E-mail: ippnw@oln.comlink.apc.org
Website: http://www.ippnw.de

or to:
USA: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, NAPF, 1187 Coast Village Road, Suite 123,
Santa Barbara, CA 93108-2794, USA tel: +1.805.965.3443, fax: +1.805.568.0466,
E- mail: wagingpeace@napf.org, Website: http://www.wagingpeace.org

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