Trashing nuclear promises

In Singapore last week Mr Rudd announced that Australia would not stand in the way of the controversial India-US nuclear deal, and that this decision had been communicated to Washington and Delhi. He offered no explanation publicly.

The timing is important - on August 21-22 (today and tomorrow) the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meets in Vienna to consider the Bush administration’s proposal to exempt India from longstanding guidelines that require comprehensive IAEA safeguards as a condition of supply for nuclear materials and technology. It is also important because the NSG operates by consensus.

Mr Rudd confirmed that Australia did “not stand in the way” when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors approved a tailor-made safeguards package for India on August 1.

In 1974, India detonated a nuclear bomb made from plutonium produced from a heavy water reactor supplied by Canada and fuelled by the US, in violation of its agreements. It was the shock waves around the world from India’s flagrant use of nuclear technology and fuel supplied for “peaceful purposes” to build nuclear weapons which led to the formation of the NSG, aiming to prevent such diversion in future.

It would be bitter irony indeed and a gymnastic feat that would make Olympic gymnasts look rigid were the NSG, this week, to make an exception and reward the state which initiated the nuclear arms race in South Asia by trashing its nuclear promises.

A driving reason India wants access to nuclear trade is precisely to further the nuclear proliferation the NSG was established to prevent. Senior Indian military leaders have publicly said so.

In his Singapore Lecture last week Mr Rudd said “It is crucial that we build widespread support for the [nuclear Non-proliferation] Treaty, across regions and between those states with nuclear weapons and those without”. Referring to the new International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, he added “The Commission’s task is to help build that support”.

This laudable aim is undermined by supporting a deal which trashes a founding principle of the NPT: the sharing of nuclear technology should be limited to non-nuclear weapon states which have foresworn nuclear weapons by joining the treaty.

The NPT, cornerstone of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, is already under severe strain. The nuclear weapons states, 38 years after the treaty entered into force, have utterly failed to live up to their binding obligation to disarm. Indeed, all are developing new nuclear weapons and threatening to use them pre-emptively against states without nuclear weapons.

Israel and Pakistan joined India in developing nuclear weapons outside the NPT. North Korea developed weapons and then walked away from the treaty.

A corrosive nuclear double standard eats away at equitable and consistent rule of law. Non-existent nuclear weapons in Iraq were deemed such a serious threat that they warranted an illegal invasion and bloody occupation which have killed at least a million people, displaced 4 million, devastated the country, destabilised the region, and exacerbated terrorism. The invasion was led by a state with 10,000 nuclear weapons. The law of the jungle rules.

Instead of the IAEA thoroughly and impartially investigating allegations of nuclear proliferation, we have extremely hazardous non-proliferation by unilateral bombing. Israel’s bombing of the Osiraq reactor in 1981 and of an alleged Syrian reactor in 2007 met not with international condemnation but tacit approval. Following Iran’s ambiguous nuclear program, most of the oil-rich states of the Middle East are embarking on nuclear programs. Access to proliferation-sensitive nuclear technology is increasingly widely available, assisted by the international nuclear black market headed by Pakistan’s AQ Khan.

Of the 13 practical steps agreed by all the 188 states party to the NPT in 2000, none have been effectively implemented. And at the last five-yearly NPT Review Conference in 2005, not a single line of substance was agreed. Enter the India-US deal into this frayed and fractured regime: whether the blow is fatal or not remains to be seen, but a body blow it is.

What incentive apart from good sense and morality will exist for countries to abide by their NPT obligations when India is rewarded for developing nuclear weapons?

What is gained under the deal? Eight additional reactors, to a total of 14 out of 22 will be subject to safeguards. India can determine which facilities are designated civilian and subject to safeguards. However India has not committed to make safeguards on civilian facilities or materials permanent or unconditional. For example, if other countries suspended nuclear fuel supply, even if this was because India exploded further nuclear weapons, India could withdraw its facilities from safeguards.

Eight power reactors, all research and plutonium-fuelled breeder reactors, all enrichment and reprocessing facilities - i.e. the facilities most relevant to weapons, will not be covered. India reserves the right to classify future reactors as civilian or military. India has not committed to nuclear disarmament, not committed to stop nuclear tests, not signed or ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, not stopped or committed to stop production of highly enriched uranium or plutonium bomb fuel, and not committed to full-scope safeguards.

India will be able to divert more of its own uranium to weapons. The net result of the deal will be to boost India’s capability to produce fissile material for weapons.

Not surprising is the response by Pakistan, which appears to be building two new plutonium production reactors and expanding its capacity to produce highly enriched uranium. And pressures are already mounting for similar exceptionalism for Israel and Pakistan.

The alleged greenhouse mitigation benefits of nuclear trade with India do not stand up to scrutiny; and there are much safer ways to help India slow growth in greenhouse gas emissions. For example, a major program of energy efficiency could substitute for all the future nuclear power being planned in India between now and 2020.

Moreover, the boosted Indian nuclear power program following as a consequence, would divert urgently needed massive investments in developing and deploying environmentally benign renewable sources of energy, including wind and solar. This, in turn, would have grave impacts on prospects for long-term energy security and limiting climate change.

It is important to remind ourselves just how much is at stake. Any use of nuclear weapons in South Asia, or anywhere, would be a global catastrophe, and Australia would not be spared.

Recent scientific studies examine the effects of a regional nuclear war involving 100 Hiroshima size weapons, just 0.03 per cent of the explosive power in the world’s arsenals - within the current capacity of India and Pakistan. Apart from immediate incinerating devastation and radioactive fallout killing tens of millions, global climatic consequences would be severe and persist for 10 years. Cooling, with killing frosts and shortened growing seasons, rainfall decline, monsoon failure, and substantial increase in UV radiation would combine to slash global food production. One billion people could starve.

The Australian government’s renewed voice for nuclear disarmament is welcome. The new Commission is a timely and laudable initiative. Australia’s policy not to sell uranium to states outside the NPT, including India, is principled. But especially at this critical time, staring at the prospect of a nuclear free-for-all that brings us closer to unspeakable catastrophe, the Australian Government desperately needs to break out of the obsequious mould within which it has been bound for far too long.

Mr Rudd should assert a consistent policy on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation which is unequivocal, which walks the talk with integrity and courage. He should reject the dishonourable India-US nuclear deal. He might even find that he is not alone.