Global Article9 Campaign

WORLD SUMMIT OF NOBEL PEACE LAUREATES CALLS FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION

On November 12-14, the 11th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates took place in Hiroshima, Japan.

With this year marking the 65th anniversary of the dropping of the Atomic bombs on the two Japanese cities, Hiroshima Mayor Akiba Tadatoshi invited Nobel Peace Laureates to discuss nuclear weapons under the theme "The Legacy of Hiroshima: a World Without Nuclear Weapons."

Among the attendees figured former South African President Willem De Klerk, former President Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of Poland and leader of Solidarity Lech Walesa, the Dalai Lama, Northern Irish peace activist and Article 9 Campaign supporter Mairead Corrigan Maguire, US leader of the international campaign to ban landmines Jody Williams, Iranian human rights campaigner Shirin Ebadi, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed El Baradei, as well as representatives from Laureate organizations including the United Nations, Amnesty International, the International Panel on Climate Change, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), the International Peace Bureau, Medecins sans Frontieres, the Red Cross and more.

Some Laureates, like Jody Williams and Mairead Maguire referred directly to Article 9 of Japan's constitution at several occasions. Mairead Maguire thanked "the Japanese people who have shown to the world that it is possible to move from militarism to peace (...) for the inspiration of
Article 9 in their Constitution, which rejects war and Nuclear weapons."

Others addressed the issue in general terms. For example, President Gorbachev stated "[m]ilitarism, the painful legacy of the twentieth century, which in the past repeatedly brought our planet to the brink of disaster, must be forever relegated to the past, while the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes must become the imperative norm of international relations."

Calls for disarmament for development were made repeatedly throughout the Summit. Mairead Maguire praised Japan for being a "great model", which, thanks to its peace constitution, "didn't waste money on nuclear weapons and war. It took money for education and health. Real human security is seeing that people can live really human lives. Other countries put money into war instead of into its own citizens." Shirin Ebadi deplored how "resources that should be used for human needs are being use on WMDs." She gave the striking examples of "North Korea, which has nuclear weapons but is not even able to feed its people... [and] India, which possesses nuclear weapons but [where] many people are born on the streets, marry on the streets and die on the streets."

She made concrete proposals for addressing what she calls a "legal vacuum" and made a case for an international convention on the subject. A legal instrument would establish rules such as making sure a country's military budget does not exceed the combination of its national budget allocations to health and education. If it does, the state should not be able to receive foreign aid in any form. Likewise, countries that continue building their army should not have their debt forgiven.

Mayor Akiba Tadatoshi insisted on the "need to divest from war and invest in the citizens."

Seeking to generate support for the ongoing international efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons, Japanese A-bomb survivors (known as Hibakusha) gave testimonies of their experience.

Building on the significance of being in Hiroshima, the Summit issued a Final Declaration calling for nuclear weapons to be regarded "as a crime against humanity" for they are "unique in their destructive power, in the unspeakable human suffering they cause, in the impossibility of controlling their effects in space and time, in the risks of escalation they create, and in the threat they pose to the environment, to future generations, and indeed to the survival of humanity." Nuclear weapons must be outlawed and abolished, concluded the document, as it "call[ed] upon heads of government, parliaments, mayors and citizens to join ... in affirming that the use of nuclear weapons is immoral and illegal."

The declaration further paid tribute to "the courage and suffering of the Hibakusha ... and honour[ed] those that have dedicated their lives to teaching the rest of the world about the horrors of nuclear war."

Peace Boat, which acts as the secretariat of the Global Article 9 Campaign, was invited to attend the Summit. Its director, Yoshioka Tatsuya, seized this opportunity to announce the launch of "Horizon 2012" - a project to be held in 2011-12 onboard Peace Boat that aims to generate civil society support for the realization of a United Nations-backed international conference on the establishment of a Nuclear-Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East.

Since 2008, Peace Boat has been bringing Hibakusha around the world to share their testimony of the reality of nuclear weapons, and the contemporary significance of their experiences under the "Global Voyages for a Nuclear- Free World: Peace Boat Hibakusha Project". As a continuation of this project, Horizon 2012 will bring Hibakusha throughout the Middle East in order to build momentum for a NWFZ in the Middle East. On stage at the Summit, Yoshioka said: "The time left for Hibakusha to directly share their experiences is very limited. Now is the time for action. By contributing to a Middle East NWFZ, we want to increase the momentum for a NWFZ here in Northeast Asia also." And to the total abolition of nuclear weapons.

This call echoes the pledge made by all Nobel Peace Laureates present at the summit "to work for a future committed to peace, justice and security without nuclear weapons and war."

"Efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons must proceed along with measures to strengthen international law, demilitarize international relations and political thinking and to address human and security needs," states the Summit's Final Declaration.

Read the full text of the Final Declaration issued at the Summit here.

Visit the Summit's website here.