[Show OHT No. L1]
- the following quote from Weeramantry, that sums up the illegality of nuclear weapons.
"One wonders whether in the light of common sense, it can be doubted that to exterminate vast numbers of the enemy population, to poison their atmosphere, to induce in them cancers, keloids and leukemias, to cause congenital defects and mental retardation in large numbers of unborn children, to devastate their territory and render their food supply unfit for human consumption - whether such acts as these can conceivably be compatible with 'elementary considerations of humanity'. Unless one can in all conscience answer such questions in the affirmative, the argument is at an end as to whether nuclear weapons violate humanitarian law, and therefore violate international law."
Quoted from the Dissenting Opinion of Judge Weeramantry. Appended to the Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, International Court of Justice, p. 29, General List No. 95, July 8th 1996.
Introduction.
I would like to thank you for this opportunity to speak to you about the need for people's disarmament and how global citizens within the Trident Ploughshares Campaign in Britain are engaging in active nuclear disarmament.
What I have to say is quite simple really.
The world is dying.
A growing number of people now recognise many of our society's activities as 'immoral' and 'unsustainable' , including nuclear power generation; nuclear weapons; arms exports; logging in old-growth forests; industrial fishing; chemical agro-farming; private car use; the world bank and international debt, and especially the promotion of global 'free' trade through the World Trade Organisation.
Yes, the world is dying. Natural eco-systems are disintegrating as well as human communities being destroyed. Many indigenous peoples and cultures have been decimated. Tragically huge numbers of non-human species have become extinct, destroying the diversity of life upon which all life relies. Global warming is creating unprecedented climate change and ozone layer depletions are causing serious health problems for many life forms.
I believe it is all linked. The link is 'abuse of power'. And possession and threat to use nuclear weapons is the ultimate in 'abuse of power'.
As governments, states and small elites in each country work with global financial institutions and trans-national corporations to take away the traditional community control of land and resources, as individuals are dis-empowered, as we are all controlled and corralled, domesticated and industrialised, so we all suffer from a growing poverty of spirit and diminishing quality of life.
In our interconnected world of email and inter-net communication, it is now impossible, for any caring and sensitive human being, to ignore the cries of pain and anguish from fellow human beings and from other species because we can see and feel it intimately. In an instant we can be aware of the wrongdoing of our corporations, financial institutions and governments.
We can feel the impact that our lifestyles are having on others in other parts of the world and we can see the impact it is having within our own societies, as they break down before our eyes. With this knowledge comes responsibility and the possibility of change.
As society's structures seem impotent to address our current needs, ordinary people have begun to take responsibility to create a caring, loving world by working with others to peacefully stop the negative, life-destroying patterns and to create viable alternatives. As people see their communities shattered or as they see great wrong being done in their names, then they take direct action and demand and create the changes that are needed. Nonviolent direct action is a catalyst for change and is emerging on a global scale, with peaceful blockades to prevent loggers destroying forest peoples' resources; fasts to stop dams flooding lands; machinery sabotage to prevent gold mining poisoning rivers; economic boycotts to prevent oil pollution; and people's practical disarmament.
Direct action is a natural human self-defence mechanism. And more importantly, local struggles in one part of the globe are being linked with local struggles in other parts, in a spirit of internationalism and with a recognition that we must act for the good of the whole planet and this includes not just all peoples but all species and the whole material and spiritual fabric of our fragile planet. There are thus more and more people, like myself, who choose to call ourselves 'global citizens'.
It is within this current global context that my own ploughshares disarmament actions have taken place. Trident Ploughshares is an example of a small citizens' group taking action to further global security because the people within the conventional structures are unwilling or unable to act in a globally responsible manner.
Nuclear Weapons.
Nuclear weapons are the ultimate expression of irresponsible, immoral, short-sighted, self-illusory, narrow, nationalistic, power-dominated, thinking. Global security cannot in my opinion be secured by threatening mass destruction but only by setting up co-operative and peaceful structures of conflict resolution at all levels of society.
Killing babies is wrong. Threatening mass destruction is wrong. Deploying nuclear weapons and depending on a policy of nuclear deterrence is not just wrong, it is criminal. By continuing to rely upon terroristic weapons of such magnitude we encourage violence at a very deep level, corrupting the very basis of our humanity and the fabric of social justice. We undermine the possibility of honest and just international relations and subvert the very possibility of a peaceful world.
These last fifty-odd years of nuclear brinkmanship have been catastrophic for the world - spreading radioactivity around the globe, eating up resources, undermining the United Nations vision of world peace, preventing the building of a more equitable and sustainable global society. Instead, we have seen power continue to accrue to some nations at the expense of others and have seen international institutions structured to continue the exploitation of the majority of peoples and lands for the benefit of a minority of rich and powerful groupings.
I personally see the nuclear deterrence issue as symptomatic of our failure to evolve towards a truly humane world and until we manage to abolish all weapons of mass destruction I fear we will be stuck in the immaturity of the "might is right" philosophy of crude power politics. I also see the issue of respect for international humanitarian law as pivotal in our attempts to build a strong global culture of peace and a world community that will eventually prohibit warfare.
Trident Ploughshares.
Trident Ploughshares is one of the latest in a long and honourable line of citizen's initiatives to try to rid the world of nuclear weapons. At a low point in the history of the UK peace movement, it aimed to revitalise our energies and focus attention on the possibilities of finally getting rid of nuclear weapons. The window of opportunity opened by the ending of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact would not be open forever - indeed we can see it closing rapidly at the present time. We aimed to help apply the citizen pressure necessary to persuade our governments to engage in total and complete nuclear disarmament, instead of merely talking about it.
Ever since nuclear weapons were first used, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 54 years ago, the majority of nations have been trying to ban them - but with little success so far, because of the abuse of power by the nuclear weapons states. The very first resolution passed by the United Nations outlawed nuclear weapons but the USA continued their research, testing and deployment and the nuclear arms race has never stopped.
We still remain under the ever-present danger of nuclear catastrophe by accident while our planet has been subjugated to the health and environmental consequences of the nuclear chain - from mining, production, and testing, to the deployment and threat to use, and then the scrapping of old systems. Dr. Rosalie Bertell calculates that at least 13 million people have died or been injured as a result of this complex chain.
From the awareness of the '80's when the Cold War was at its height and fear drove millions of people around the world onto the streets to protest, many people now, have forgotten the danger that nuclear weapons still pose; forget that accidents are still happening that are contaminating our seas and land; forget that we need to continue protesting about nuclear weapons; and more importantly do not recognise that we, the people, actually have the power to initiate nuclear disarmament ourselves, if our leaders refuse to do it for us.
I have been surprised at how few people in Britain know that at least 5 submarines with their nuclear reactors and hundreds of nuclear missiles are corroding on various sea beds around the world, slowly releasing fissile material that takes thousands of years to decay away to safe levels.
Few remember the ongoing tragedy of the Marshallese Islanders who continue to give birth to jelly-fish babies and whose lands will remain contaminated and uninhabitable for thousands of years.
Few think about the decomissioned old and rusting nuclear subs - there are at least 11 in the UK alone, with radioactive waste we haven't a clue how to dispose of safely.
And many in my country, I do not know about here in Japan, are unaware of the research going on for the next generation of nuclear weapons which will probably be placed in space, breaking the Outer Space Treaty, as well as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and further undermining mankind's attempts to foster international peace.
At a time when human rights are discussed on a daily basis, few care to point out that the threat to use nuclear weapons undermines the whole international legal order and makes a mockery of the hard-won international gains for children's rights, land rights, environmental protection and sustainable living.
Trident Ploughshares aimed to engage in citizen's disarmament in order to put these issues back at the top of the agenda and to encourage everyone to make one final push for global nuclear disarmament.
To some extent we are succeeding.
Let me tell you a little about the Trident Ploughshares disarmament action I was recently involved in. We were an international group of three women - from Denmark, England and Scotland. Ulla, Ellen and Angie.
[Show OHT No. M1] -
here we are practising climbing and working together
[Show OHT No. M2] -
the three of us walking with our tools for a photo for our press liaison
After planning our action, preparing our statements and learning how to start a dodgy boat engine, we set off across Loch Goil one Summer's evening in a leaky second-hand inflatable boat, as we could not afford better equipment.
[Show OHT No. M3] -
this was taken by our press liaison from the shore on the evening of our action and shows us in our boat nearing the floating barge
We safely reached the floating laboratory barge that researches ways to make the Trident submarine fleet invisible to acoustic, radar and sonar detectors. We climbed through a window and took all the research equipment we could find and threw it into the deep loch waters. We completely cleaned out the laboratory - throwing overboard all the computers, faxes, telephones, books, discs, tools, anything moveable and then we cut into a wire cage protecting the model submarine and winch controls and cut through all the complex electrical wiring and controls on the model submarine used in simulating tests. The cost of the equipment loss was originally estimated at a couple of hundred thousand pounds worth of equipment.
After spending 4 months on remand in a Scottish prison we spent a further month in court arguing our case. Ulla and Ellen instructed two lawyers and I defended myself, which is a right citizens have under both Scottish and English law.
Because we had caused substantial damage we had to appear in a Sheriff and Jury Court. At the lower levels, in the District or Magistrates courts, one is judged by a magistrate, who are often not lawyers and have little legal knowledge and therefore the Court Clerks have a great deal of power. At this level of the judicial system there is little chance of anything other than the conventional, official, view being considered - it is very conservative. And thus, the fact that the nuclear deterrence policy is an official policy which has been supported by the establishment for decades, means that our actions are looked upon as wanton criminal damage done for the purposes of seeking political publicity.
The further up the Judicial system you go the more likely you are to get better justice, although in 'political' cases (and ours was viewed as such by many) this is still rare. For all cases involving damage worth over ￡5,000 one has to be judged by a Jury. In Scotland there is a Jury of 15 randomly picked citizens and they can make a majority decision. The Jury's role is to judge the truth of the facts of the case. The Judge (or Sheriff in Scotland) decides the law to be applied.
We argued, as do all Trident Ploughshares Pledgers, that our acts were not criminal but were acts of disarmament that were intended to stop ongoing criminal activity under well-recognised principles of international law. We had a fair-minded female Sheriff and were allowed our expert witnesses. One of our witnesses was a Judge from Germany, Ulf Panzer, who was able to encourage the Sheriff's independence of mind by explaining how 20 judges and prosecutors in Germany in the '80s had themselves taken part in a blockade to protest against the illegality of siting nuclear weapons in Germany. I am sure this gave her the strength and solidarity needed to admit that official policies are not necessarily lawful. We also brought as witnesses a well-known international lawyer from the USA called Professor Francis Boyle, who was able to give forceful testimony about the criminality of British deployment of Trident; Professor Paul Rogers who gave expert testimony on the configuration of the Trident system and the effects of 100 kiloton warheads and likelihood of accidents; Prof. Jack Boag, a radiologist, who gave useful information on the concept of the imminence of nuclear catastrophe; and Rebecca Johnson, who as Director of the Acronym Institute, monitors the Conference on Disarmament and was able to give details of how the Non-Proliferation Treaty is being broken and the way other countries perceive British Trident as a threat.
It may be useful for you to see the Trident submarines now and to understand what kinds of nuclear weapons Britain actually has.
[Show OHT No. T1-3] -
one transparency explains in words the British Nuclear Arsenal and two others show pictures of the Trident submarine and its base at Faslane
We three, of course, had our own testimony to give. I gave a lengthy submission on international law from the witness box, over 3 days, as well as presenting much other information. The basis of our testimony was contained within the Tri-Denting It Handbook, which I had written myself, at the beginning of the campaign, as a background document for all Pledgers to be able to use for themselves and in court. I have copies available with me but it can also be downloaded from our web-site. It contains a more detailed context and background for our action.
We three had also written a specific Joint Statement explaining our intentions in disarming Maytime, the floating laboratory, and explaining why we considered it a vital part of the whole criminal Trident system. The document is too long to read out but I have copies for anyone interested. In it we explained very clearly that 'Our actions are based primarily on the legal and ethical premise that the UK's Trident nuclear weapon system is a system preparing for the mass murder of innocent civilians over untold generations and we believe that the Trident system is ethically unjustifiable as well as being unlawful in international law'.
To the delight of the hundreds of people who had supported us throughout our imprisonment, we were acquitted.
Let me read you a few headlines from the Scottish newspapers of 22nd October last year:
'A Sheriff made legal history and caused a political storm after ruling that the Government's deployment of nuclear weapons was illegal under international law ... It is the first time a country's law courts have declared its nuclear defence system illegal and the political fall-out from Sheriff Gimblett's decision will be felt by other nuclear powers.' [The Herald - 22/10/99]
'Bombshell hits fortress UK ... Sheriff Bans the Bomb - Anti-nuke women were upholding the law.' [Scottish Mirror - 22/10/99]
'Outcry as Sheriff rules nuclear weapons illegal.' [The Scotsman - 22/10/99]
'How four middle-aged ladies sank UK defence.' [Daily Record - 22/10/99]
A week later the story was still running in the Scottish papers and on the 29th it was reported, 'Trident case set to test Holyrood' and then explained how the case is being used as 'a constitutional battering ram by the SNP over which Parliament, Holyrood or Westminster, has legal jurisdiction over the Trident nuclear missiles stored on the Clyde.' [Sunday Herald - 29/10/99]
The SNP is an abbreviation for the Scottish Nationalist Party.
The Herald goes on to say, 'The SNP hopes to prove that it is Scots Law, and by implication the Scottish Parliament and not Westminster, that has the jurisdiction. ... The move is one of the far-reaching implications of the decision by Sheriff Margaret Gimblett which has shaken the military and political establishments on both sides of the Atlantic.' [Sunday Herald - 29/10/99]
The furore continues, with resolutions and notices in the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and at Westminster supporting our acquittal. In view of all the controversy the Government have been forced to institute a very rare legal process in Scotland called a Lord Advocate's Referral. This is because our acquittal cannot be appealed as there are no obvious grounds for appeal. Such Referrals have only ever been instituted 7 times before. The process is an inquisitorial one whereby certain questions are put to the High Court of Justiciary by the Lord Advocate for them to discuss with us and our legal team, in order to clarify the law. The validity of citizens acting to prevent international crime in Scotland as well as the content of international law will come under scrutiny. I believe that if the peace movement can continue to build on this success there is a possibility that nuclear weapons will be removed from Scotland and thus from the UK as a whole.
It is up to all of us. And this includes Japanese citizens and groups too. Our campaign is intentionally international in character and as you may know was launched in several different towns around the world, in May 1998, including Hiroshima. This is not purely a UK issue but effects the whole planet. Britain is probably the nuclear weapons state most easily able to disarm its nuclear weapons. Having citizens from other countries joining in the disarmament actions and then appearing in court to explain why they feel threatened by British nuclear weapons is much harder for the courts and for our Government to deal with. They like to pretend that it is purely a British affair but cannot bury their head in the sand as easily when foreigners are in court explaining why they feel threatened and need to peacefully disarm British nuclear weapons.
One of the reasons that the Greenock acquittal of Trident Ploughshares activists is causing such a debate within Britain is because the law has traditionally been used against people rather than the state. Yet now, the people (the Trident Ploughshares Pledgers) have turned this around and have openly challenged the whole legal basis, and thus legitimacy, of the Armed Forces. This was one of the aims of the Trident Ploughshares campaign.
Such a challenge has, of course, been mounted time and time again over the last 55 years of anti-nuclear campaigning but never as pointedly and consistently. Trident Ploughshares has based its whole campaign on international law and has used it to de-legitimise nuclear weapons and legitimise their own actions and they have done it in a highly public and confrontational manner so it cannot be ignored. And they have kept the moral arguments to the fore as well by emphasising the links between morality and law. The Courts have now begun to assert their independence and to ensure that the law is heard impartially - in other words to at least be willing to hear arguments against official Government defence policies, rather than assuming official government policies are beyond the reach of the law. The historic Opinion by the ICJ at The Hague in 1996 gave us all great heart and Trident Ploughshares uses this ICJ Advisory Opinion as a strong legal foundation. The whole campaign can be seen as a way to implement this Opinion and to pressurise our Governments to uphold international law.
Our argument is very straightforward. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction and thus cannot be used with any precision or any pretence at righting any wrong. It is basically mass murder on a catastrophic scale with the potential for escalation to the use of thousands of nuclear weapons, which could put an end to all life on earth. Law is based upon morality and is respected in so far, and only in so far, as it conforms to common human morality. Governments, Soldiers and Armed Forces gain their legitimacy and power from the law and thus the law is of immense importance to them. The only thing that distinguishes a soldier from a common murderer is that he has been given legal permission to do certain kinds of killing on behalf of society. His legalised killing is carefully controlled by laws - the most important of which are international humanitarian laws. Our acquittal at Greenock, cleared us of criminal intent and at the same time clearly pointed out the criminal intent of the British nuclear forces.
Let me read a few passages from Sheriff Gimblett's summing up. She said, 'in the absence of any expert contradicting the evidence, I have to conclude that the three accused, ... were justified in thinking that Great Britain in their use ... and deployment of Trident ... at times of great unrest, coupled with a first-strike policy and in the absence of any indication from any government official then or now that such use fell into any strict category suggested in the International Court of Justice opinion, the threat or use of Trident could be construed as a threat, has indeed been construed by others as a threat and as such is an infringement of customary international law. The three took the view if Trident is illegal, given the horrendous nature of nuclear weapons, they had the obligation in terms of international law to do whatever little they could to stop the deployment and use of nuclear weapons in situations which could be construed as a threat.'
She then directed the jury to acquit us saying, "I have heard nothing which would make it seem to me that the accused acted with ... criminal intent".
These words vindicated our campaign entirely. At last we had found a Judge who saw beyond the damage to property that we openly admitted to and who recognised we had a humane and justifiable reason for doing it, who put life before property, put morality fairly and squarely back into the law courts where it belongs in any just and fair legal system.
Since Trident Ploughshares began in August 1998 - there have been over four hundred arrests, mainly at the disarmament camps, held every three months, at Coulport and Faslane in Scotland. There have been over 50 trials completed and 730 days have been spent in prison, not including the days in police custody. We now have 159 'global citizens' from 13 different countries who have Pledged to Prevent Nuclear Crime and have taken part in a two-day workshop on nonviolence. The Pledge is based upon our right, under international law, to take nonviolent, accountable, and safe actions to disarm the British Trident nuclear weapons system.
I will not read out our Pledge but it is in the Handbook. We make sure all our plans, motivations and organisational structures are open to the public and to the government and military. We send updated lists of all Pledgers to the Government every three months, along with our continued requests for dialogue and negotiation. We have even suggested that they should arrest us all if they think we are conspiring to commit crimes but that in our opinion it is the Government and Military who should be arrested for grave breaches of international humanitarian law.
We do this because we want our methods for opposing Trident to be consistent with our vision of what we would like to see in its place. Our careful reliance upon nonviolence and open accountability have led to very good relations with the civil police, who are noting the embarrassment experienced by the military police as we regularly breach the Military high security areas, gain access to Military police boats to do citizens war crime inspections and swim onto supposedly secure nuclear submarines.
All Pledgers must be in affinity groups and agree to the safety and nonviolence groundrules but thereafter work as autonomously as they wish. They can chose their particular kind of disarmament action which have ranged from blockades, to fence-cutting, to swimming onto the submarines and destroying equipment, to dismantling a research lab, to painting War Crime Warnings on Military equipment and handing out leaflets to Military Base workers urging them to 'Refuse to be a War Criminal'. We encourage as much diverse and active disarmament work as possible as long as it is safe and peaceful.
[Show OHT No. A1-18] -
Swimmers and banner before an attempt to swim into Faslane base, views of the disarmament camps, and many views of diverse actions
Obviously, the more damage done the greater the possible penalty if found guilty - and most people are found guilty in the lower courts. The majority of the disarmament actions have caused minimal damage for maximum court-clogging disruption. There have also been at least six attempts at substantial disarmament damage in the last 18 months, with two groups managing to complete their actions causing thousands of pounds worth of damage and delaying the operation of the Trident related equipment. We call this damage - disarmament and nuclear crime prevention.
There are 37 Trident related sites scattered across the UK and there have been Trident Ploughshares actions at around 8 of them so far. But we have tended to concentrate on the major sites at Faslane (where the subs are based), at Barrow where they were being made, and at Aldermaston, where the warheads are manufactured and maintained.
[Show OHT No. B1] -
the two young women who swam onto 'Vengeance' and dismantled vital testing equipment on the conning tower. This was at Barrow.
There has been quite a difference in the way in which the English and Scottish judicial systems have chosen to deal with our international law enforcement actions. Generally, the Scottish courts have tried to ignore first offenders and some people have been arrested 4 or 5 times before being charged with minor offences of breach of the peace or vandalism. Whereas, in England, three groups so far have been charged with conspiracy to commit criminal damage when they have not managed to complete their disarmament action and have been caught en-route. Such conspiracy charges have enabled them to put our arguments before a jury but the Judges have not allowed expert witnesses, so there is a battle going on in the courts in the English system to even be allowed a fair trial.
With the European Convention on Human Rights getting more respect it is likely that experts will soon be allowed their full say, but meanwhile, juries can still hear what the activists say in their pre-prepared statements, Pledges and from the witness box. The first Bread not Bombs Ploughshares trial ended in a hung jury and they only narrowly missed a second hung jury. In England there are 12 randomly selected people in the Jury and 10 must agree a verdict or else it is considered to be a hung jury and the trial has to be repeated with a fresh jury. This process is usually only repeated two times before the case is dropped. Juries are much more able to see the whole truth and to realize the necessity for global citizens to engage in practical disarmament and nuclear crime prevention, than the Judges who think that 'the authorities' are the only ones who can engage in disarmament.
Our disarmament actions continue and we hope to build a stronger international network and welcome any of you who would like to join us. We also need individuals and organisations to sign our supporting petitions, copies of which I have with me.
Now that you have an idea of the global context within which Trident Ploughshares is set, the background to the campaign and the kinds of actions we engage in, I would now like to outline to you the legal arguments that formed the basis of the defence and why I believe it is now time to hold Britain and the other nuclear-weapon States (NWS) accountable for breaking these laws and undermining the international legal order. Although my focus is upon Britain's deployment of the Trident nuclear weapon system, please understand that most of the arguments are applicable to all countries that possess nuclear weapons.
[Show OHT No. L2] -
summary of breaches of international law
International Law and Nuclear Weapons.
It is clear that nuclear weapons would generally breach all of the following international laws:
* Declaration of St. Petersburg, 1868 because unnecessary suffering would be caused and there would be no avoidance or minimising of incidental loss of civilian life;
* Hague Convention, 1907 because unnecessary suffering would be caused and there would be no guarantee of the inviolability of neutral nations;
* Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 because long-lasting radioactive contamination would interfere with innocent people's right to life and health;
* Geneva Conventions, 1949 because protection of the wounded, sick, the infirm, expectant mothers, civilian hospitals and health workers would not be ensured;
* The Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 1977 because there would be massive incidental losses of civilian lives and widespread, long-term and severe damage to the environment.
Serious violations of these treaties and declarations are defined as criminal acts under the Nuremberg Principles, 1946 in that Principle 6 defines crimes against the peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Specifically, Nuremberg Principle VI (a) defines Crimes against Peace as "Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of ... a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances ... Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned". Nuremberg Principle VI (b) defines War Crimes as "violations of the laws or customs of war" and Nuremberg Principle VI (c) defines Crimes against Humanity as "murder, extermination ... and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population ... when ... carried on in execution of, or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime".
In addition The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), 1968 is being violated now, in that Britain is not attempting to negotiate immediate and complete nuclear disarmament.
[Show OHT No. L3] -
the Cardinal Principles
Cardinal Principles.
There are two cardinal principles of international law:- "The first is aimed at the protection of the civilian population and civilian objects and establishes the distinction between combatants and non-combatants. States must never make civilians the object of attack and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets. According to the second principle, it is prohibited to cause unnecessary suffering to combatants: it is accordingly prohibited to use weapons causing them such harm or uselessly aggravating their suffering. In application of that second principle, States do not have unlimited freedom of choice of means in the weapons they use".
All these declarations, conventions and treaties form the core elements of modern customary international law binding on Britain because it has not persistently objected to being bound by them. In fact, Britain has consistently endorsed decisions by international tribunals in which their customary status was affirmed.
For example, Britain confirmed these as customary laws at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
In other words the international humanitarian principles used to assess the legality of nuclear weapons are well established in the international legal order. These customary laws are binding on all states at all times.
Conclusion.
The British Government has frequently been asked but has never explained to the ICJ or to the British public how it could possibly use its nuclear weapons legally. It has not even been able to outline one hypothetical example. The government has, in fact, been very careful to say that it could never foresee the precise circumstances and could therefore not determine the legality until the time came to use them. It is clear that the British Government has to date been unable and unwilling to open itself to independent legal scrutiny.
The form of words the government usually uses is: "the legality or otherwise of any specific use of any nuclear weapons ... can only be determined in the light of all the circumstances applying at the time such use is being considered. It is impossible to anticipate in advance with any confidence the exact circumstances which might arise, and to speculate on particular hypothetical cases would serve no purpose".
It is absurd to think that, if no such legal scrutiny and exercises had taken place before, any thorough legal scrutiny of an actual use of nuclear weapons could take place in the heat of a war of self-defence in which the very survival of Britain might be at stake. According to the ICJ this is the only circumstance in which nuclear weapons might justifiably be used. The fact that the British Government cannot identify a single hypothetical case that could be presented into the public domain for independent legal scrutiny suggests there are none.
Research for new and deadlier nuclear weapons continues with plans to place them in space. The non-proliferation regime is breaking down rapidly. The world faces formidable social and environmental crises that require co-operative non-violent conflict resolution. The hypocrisy of the NWS, who expect international law to be applied to others but not to themselves, has destabilised the global community for decades and deeply undermines the international legal order. It is time for the majority of law-abiding states to take the first step in implementing the ICJ Advisory Opinion by taking Britain to the International Court of Justice and putting its Trident nuclear weapons on trial. Rather than an Advisory Opinion we now need a ruling from the Court.
But meanwhile, as global citizens we do not need to sit around wringing our hands and complaining that our Government's are not acting in our interests or that of the global community. In any case we know that the law is often subverted by the powerful to serve their own interests alone. We have a responsibility and a right to take preventative action to prevent nuclear crime ourselves. I am involved in this with many others, through Trident Ploughshares, and I invite you to join us or to play your own unique part in the process of people's disarmament.
Thank-you.