A nuclear challenge to the world

The legal and moral issues attached to deterrence are even more challenging to Australia’s position.

In 1996 the International Court of Justice, delivering its advisory opinion that nuclear weapons are generally illegal, treated the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons as a single indivisible concept. An illegal act must be neither committed nor threatened.

Australia is of course not alone in seeking security under the US nuclear umbrella.

Hundreds of US nuclear weapons are stored at bases in five NATO countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey). In Japan, where nuclear sensitivities run deeply, the issue arose during the recent election campaign when Yukio Hatoyama, now the country’s prime minister, vowed to keep American nuclear weapons out of Japan.

One US ally has long since rejected the “protection” of nuclear weapons. In 1987 New Zealand banned US nuclear weapons from entering its ports, and that policy remains to this day.

Time is running short if further proliferation of these weapons is to be avoided. Next year the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will have its five-yearly review.

Following the disastrous 2005 review conference, many civil society organisations around the world galvanised to push for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, a treaty to ban all nuclear weapons. Such a treaty is feasible and long overdue. This week in New York, the UN Secretary General referred to the need for “new agreements including a Nuclear Weapons Convention …”

Prime Minister Rudd has taken the issue of nuclear weapons very seriously, not least through the setting up of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. However our contribution to nuclear disarmament depends not so much on what we say but on what we do. Currently, Australia’s position is fraught with inconsistencies.

President Obama is right that every nation must play a part if we are to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The greatest contribution Australia could make would be to stop relying on them.