international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons

Oslo.

The 4th and 5th of March are supposed to important dates in the international arena as the Norwegian government is hosting a conference involving the participation of 132 countries to discuss the humanitarian consequences due to nuclear weapons.

The civil society forum was held yesterday and today hosted by ICAN (international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons). I came, one, to learn, and two, to meet people. My first night at the conference, it was all informal introductions, people getting together and drinking and eating. I ended up meeting a bunch of people in the 40s, 50s and 60s. In fact, out of the 440 participants at the forum, more than half are in their 40s, 50s and 60s.

The first thing I have to say is that when I walked into the conference saturday morning, I felt like I just walked into a Christian mission conference. In fact, in the conference info booklet: "Well, it's certainly been a day full of inspiration and enlightenment...Perhaps you're bubbling with excitement and ready to run outside and spread the message right now!" I'm sure I'm so ready to go out now, pass out flyers and speak in a microphone on the streets. It really made me feel like I was back at a mission conference. People were cheering and clapping at the mention of abolishing every time. I'm not sure if this is mob psychology or people are seriously passionate about this. It is certainly nice to have a group working towards the abolition of nuclear weapons and it certainly is doable, but I think people need to have a clear head about this.

While sitting in the large auditorium with the audience, I wonder if they actually understood the politics behind nuclear weapons. I'm sure the older generation are quite aware of this, but do the younger generation know? All they know perhaps may be just the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. I mean, sure, we talked about that Saturday afternoon, about how if one nuclear weapon is detonated, it could mean a nuclear winter for us, or blow us back into the stone age, or cause a global famine, disease, etc. We even talked about treaties today. But do they (the audience) how the NPT works, or how the CTBTO and the Conference on Disarmament works? One of the scientists yesterday who was talking about environmental disasters said something along the lines of: "Russia and USA have the largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons combined. They have no right to hold humanity hostage with those weapons. We must go and tell them this is unacceptable!" By all means, go ahead, but will the government listen to you, especially when international and regional security come into play? God knows how many times we argued about the timeline in our NPT simulation class between the Nuclear Weapon States and Non-Nuclear Weapon States.

A few notable speakers:

Patricia Lewis: Currently a Researcher at the Chatham House in London, she used to be the director of UNIDIR and worked in the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute. She gave a talk on exactly what nuclear weapons are all about using simplified physics to describe it to the audience.

Rebecca Johnston: Currently the co-chair of ICAN, she gave a speech on what ICAN is al about, and why we need a nuclear ban treaty.

Gry Larsen: The state secretary at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She discussed the upcoming conference with States Parties, that there will mainly be 3 issues:

1. The immediate human impact on nuclear detonation

2. wider developmental and environmental consequences

3. Preparedness of states in case of nuclear detonation

It'll also be taking multilateral discussion on nuclear weapons forward, but isn't this what the OEWG (Open-Ended Working Group) supposed to be doing this coming March 14th?

Other notable speakers included John Borrie from Geneva UNIDIR, Survivors from the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Father John Dear.

Perhaps the most notable speaker that came to the conference was Martin Sheen. Many of you know him as the Acting president of the United States from the "West Wing"

I must say, I enjoyed his presence. He's hilarious, entertaining, and inspiring. He was arrested 65 times from him being in demonstrations and what not.

One of the speakers mentioned that this nuclear ban treaty doesn't need the support of the P5 at first. His argument was that all this time we've been cajoling, placating the P5, giving them special status in te NPT. Well, what if we didn't do that? What if we just got all the support of the non-nuclear weapon states (meaning EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM), instead of giving all the power to the P5? Interesting thought, and I'd like to hear what others have to say about this.

So, overall, I did learn some things. I didn't meet as many people as I would have liked, but then again, I was recovering from a cold so perhaps this isn't the best time to meet people. Lovely. The lack of sleep isn't helping either.

I think what I really got from this conference ultimately is, if you're going to be passionate about something, please, read about the background first. Read, delve into the treaties, the papers people have written on nuclear weapons, on international politics. Read about why the P5 have nuclear weapons and why India, Pakistan, Israel and DPRK chose to possess nuclear weapons. Read about it before trying to convince your government to abolish nuclear weapons. I certainly don't have all the knowledge, which is why I'm interning, reading and learning as much as I can, taking advantage of the fact that I'm in Geneva doing my internship. As John Borrie said at the end of the panel discussion, don't expect this to be easy. It's going to be extremely difficult and may take many years.

It's not being pessimistic, it's being realistic.

Welcome to the next generation of nuclear non proliferators. Let's see what we can achieve.