Liberation Day minus 7737 (log#8)
Leading up to the 1995 NPT Extension Conference, anti-Bomb groups created the Abolition 2000 network. The aspiration was a NWFW by the new millennium. When that wasn’t on the horizon, the network made a push to increase its participation to 2000 groups worldwide. This was achieved on time and so the name, and its abbreviation A2000, was retained.
At the upcoming consultation of A2000, I will propose the following:
The Abolition 2000 network decides to change its name to Abolition 2045 with the objective of achieving a NWFW no later than August 6th, 2045. This shall be previewed at the third NPT PrepCom meeting in 2025, and then formally announced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that August. A 2045 Working Group shall be established to prepare for this change and announcement. The Working Group shall solicit and collate proposals from the network on activities underway or projected for the 2025–2045 period. Network members shall be encouraged to brainstorm about potential activities all the way to 2045. The 2045 Working Group’s compilation shall be circulated to the network no later than April 2025.
There is also potential to expand the network (well beyond 2045 members!). I believe that dedication to sustained activism for a score-years will attract many more groups and keep them actively engaged (a problem to date) over the long haul.
Obviously, I have a few(!) activity proposals to pass on to the 2045 Working Group; but I am very curious to see what ideas others come up with when challenged to think within this score-years framework. What are your ideas?
For those in their twenties or younger, 20 years may well seem like a lifetime. They would like to see more rapid progress. (And who wouldn’t?) Having — barely at times (including right now) — made it through four score years, courting nuclear dangers for yet another score is not something pleasantly contemplated, whatever one’s age. To address these concerns, there must be a nearer goal/accomplishment that marks real progress and makes the subsequent years significantly less precarious. This is where the Great Renunciation comes in.
In Log#7, I introduce FM Frank Aiken, the “father” of non-proliferation. I am working with colleagues in NoFirstUse.Global on a presentation to be made to the 2nd PrepCom plenary. My suggestion is that the presentation’s proposal for action be based on Aiken’s UNGA operative paragraph; here it is again:
[The UNGA] decides to establish an ad hoc commission to study the dangers inherent in the further dissemination of nuclear weapons and [to] recommend to the fourteenth session of the General Assembly appropriate measures for averting these dangers.
I can imagine tweaking it like so:
The Preparatory Committee for the 2026 NPT Review Conference decides to establish an open-ended commission to study the dangers inherent in retaining options — and threatening — to initiate nuclear warfare and to recommend to the third meeting of the Preparatory Committee, for its consideration, appropriate measures for averting these dangers.
The hope is that the commission’s recommendations would be forwarded as formal recommendations of the PrepCom to the RevCon; and that the RevCon would incorporate them into its Final Document. While the odds of jumping successfully through all these hoops are not great, the reward for success makes it worth trying. (And failure would justify further, more drastic means of getting the NWSs and their allies to pay attention.)
The argumentation for the decision would, in part, be modelled on the case made for “non-dissemination” made by Aiken. It could also be based on our letter to Xi and Biden (covered in Log#6).
I will report on the outcome of the presentation drafting in the coming week or so.
