A less perilous world:

A less perilous world:

Context:

The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Introduction:

• This year’s Peace prize to ICAN (International campaign to Abolish Weapons) comes    at a time when the threat posed by nuclear weapons has been all too evident in the global crisis triggered by North Korea’s nuclear programme.
• The prize was awarded “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons”
• Award comes as tensions increase between the US and North Korea
• In July, 122 nations backed a UN treaty designed to ban and eventually eliminate all nuclear weapons following heavy lobbying by ICAN.

What is the rationale behind giving this year’s award?

• The award will be seen as a rebuke to the US and other eight countries that possess nuclear weapons which boycotted the negotiations leading to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
• The Nobel announcement comes against a backdrop of heightened tensions in east Asia between the  US and North Korea over  Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.
• It also comes two years after world powers sealed a breakthrough nuclear deal with Iran.

What can be the harmful threat of Nuclear Weapons?

“Nuclear weapons pose a constant threat to humanity and all life on earth.”

• Nuclear weapons are fundamentally different from conventional weapons because of the vast amounts of explosive energy they can release and the kinds of effects they produce, such as high temperatures and radiation.
• The prompt effects of a nuclear explosion and fallout are well known through data gathered from the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan.
• A special feature of a nuclear explosion is the emission of nuclear radiation, which may be separated into initial radiation and residual radiation. Initial radiation, also known as prompt radiation, consists of gamma rays and neutrons  and  produced within a minute of the detonation
• Gamma rays and neutrons can produce harmful effects in living organisms, a hazard that persists over considerable distances because of their ability to penetrate most structures.
• Residual radiation and fallout
  Residual radiation is defined as radiation emitted more than one minute after the detonation. If the fission explosion is an airburst, the residual radiation will come mainly from the weapon debris. If the explosion is on or near the surface, the soil, water, and other materials in the vicinity will be sucked upward by the rising cloud, causing early (local) and delayed (worldwide) fallout..

What is ICAN?

• Launched in 2007, ICAN is described as a global civil society coalition and is based in the offices of the World Council of Churches in Geneva.
• It comprises 468 partner organisations in 101 countries.
• ICAN is funded by private donations as well as the EU and countries including Norway, Switzerland, Germany and the Vatican.
• ICAN is a coalition of civil society groups and governments campaigning for total disarmament.
• It helped achieve the UN treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons, which exposes the dangerous narcissism of the permanent members of the UN Security Council.
• ICAN, coalition of more than 450 civil society groups around the world that is justly credited with spreading an awareness of the dire humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons and of making the heroic effort to generate grassroots pressure sufficient to allow for the adoption of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons by 122 UN member (also known as the ‘BAN Treaty’).
• The treaty was officially signed by 53 governments of UN member states this September and will come into force when 50 instruments of ratifications have been deposited at UN Headquarters, which suggests its legal status will soon be realized as signature is almost always followed by ratification.

Global steps to ban nuclear weapons:

• Recently,the world’s first legally-binding treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons opened for signature at United Nations Headquarters in New York.
• The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is the product of increasing concerns worldwide amidst rising tensions between U.S. And North Korea.
• Failure of NPT, CTBT (1996) on the name of maintaining deterrence against opponent (MAD-Mutually agreed deterrence principle) cannot got more support from numerous countries.
• It is clear that these weapons of mass destruction reach are not confined to a geographical boundary or country itself.
• The approval of ban over use of nuclear weapon is a landmark or paradigm shift in the direction of disarmament.

1. it prohibits or ban in totality production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons even underground explosions in all circumstances
2. It also ensures strong provisions to protect victims of extreme radiation and contamination of environment
3. It complements international ban on all categories of weapons of mass destruction following the prohibition of biological and chemical arms.

The core provision of the BAN Treaty:

The core provision of the BAN Treaty sets forth an unconditional legal prohibition of the weaponry that is notable for its comprehensiveness:

1-   The prohibition extends to “the developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, possessing, stockpiling and deploying nuclear weapons, transferring or receiving them from others, using or threatening to use them, or allowing any stationing or deployment of nuclear weapons on national territories of signatories, and assisting, encouraging, or inducing any of these prohibited acts.”

Some loopholes:

• Effectiveness of treaty jeopardized due to reluctance of nuclear capable states.
• Absence of impartial checks mechanism, countries can continue clandestine nuclear Weapon
• Absence of weapons at last resort for some rogue nations or nation offended first, this treaty.
• Although nuclear capable states still defiant and showing resistance ,which will jeopardize its effectiveness ,but they must come on board to make a safer world

Opponents of De-Nuclearization:

• Standing in opposition to the BAN Treaty are all of the present nuclear weapons states, led by the United States.
• All five permanent members (P-5) of the UN Security Council and their allies refused to join in this legal prohibition of nuclear weapons.

India’s position:

• India, holds up its commitment to a nuclear weapons free world, but says there must be “universal, non-discriminatory and verifiable nuclear disarmament”.
• It stayed away from the treaty citing the Conference of Disarmament as the right forum to negotiate a “step-by-step process” to achieve a nuclear weapons free world.