Environment and Security (Global Issues Project)
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Welcome to Canadian Pugwash Group
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A Nuclear-Free Arctic – WHY NOW?
By ADELE BUCKLEY
[Peace Magazine Jan-Mar 2012, pg. 16-18]
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There is a renewed international recognition of nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZs) as an element of non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. The Arctic could be added to the existing seven nuclear-weapon-free zones, covering 116 countries. The outcome of the 2010 Review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) includes an agreement to move forward on long-awaited discussions for a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone; that concept is better known than the proposed Arctic NWFZ. Both were included in NPT documents from 2010. |
Climate change has created a “new” Arctic. With access blocked by ice and snow for much of the year, economic activity has been limited. Now, environmental protection is ever more important in the face of opening of new sea lanes for transportation, new resource exploration on sea and land, and exploitation of fisheries. Aboriginal communities must make continuous adjustments for survival, as they handle changes in their resources, which they derive from the fauna and flora of land and sea. Although it has diminished, obsolete Cold-War-type military activity still exists:- regularly scheduled military exercises and nuclear-armed submarines patrolling under the ice. The opportunity to recognize that there must be a natural evolution to a nuclear-free Arctic exists, but we must implore the international community to begin to act now[1] while the window is open.
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Read more: A Nuclear-Free Arctic – WHY NOW?
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embassymag.ca November 9, 2011
By Paul Meyer
In multilateral diplomacy, as with other forms of international relations, states frequently are inclined to defer dealing with problems, rather than undertake the heavy lifting that is often required to resolve them.
This seems particularly to be the case in the field of multilateral arms control and disarmament—the subject matter of the United Nations General Assembly's First Committee, which has just wrapped up its annual session in New York.
Read [doc] |
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SETSUKO THURLOW, United Nations General Assembly First Committee October 26, 2011
Dear Members of the First Committee and guests,
I am privileged to have this opportunity to share with you a small part of my experience of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
On August 6, 1945, as a 13 year-old grade 8 student in the Student Mobilization Program I was with about 30 other girls working at the Army headquarters as a decoding assistant. The building was 1.8 km from the hypo-centre. At 8:15 a.m., the moment I saw a brilliant bluish-white flash outside the window, I remember having the sensation of floating in the air. As I regained consciousness in the silence and the darkness, I found myself pinned by the ruins of the collapsed building. I could not move, and I knew I was faced with death.
Read address [pdf]. |
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Remarks by Paul Meyer at UNGA First Committee Event, October 18, 2011 New York
It is a pleasure to be once again at the First Committee and see many friends and colleagues, although it is accompanied by a less pleasant sentiment of déjà vu and disquiet that the blockage at the CD still continues five years later. Even the most casual observer of the multilateral disarmament scene will be struck by the lack of results in the achievement of new international agreements.
Read the remarks [pdf] |
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The just-launched Nuclear Abolition Forum (NAF), October 21, 2011, has the inaugural issue of its journal on its website www.abolitionforum.org. The forum encourages a wide cross-spectrum of dialogue through the website " Canadian Pugwash members serving as consultants to NAF:- Douglas Roche, Ernie Regehr, Erika Simpson, Murray Thomson, Adele Buckley, Walter Dorn. |
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Paul Meyer – Presentation for UNGA First Committee, New York, October 13, 2011
It is good to return briefly to this locale in the bowels of the UN to speak to a subject which deserves more attention. The Space Security 2011 publication provides an excellent overview of the developments taking place that are relevant to outer space security. Its description of the ever increasing number of participants in outer space and the wide array of services which are provided via space-based assets, reminds us of the heavy dependence all humanity now has on the continued peaceful use of outer space. If this benign environment was ever to become a battleground for destructive military operations, the disruption of global space activity would be immense. Even the mere threat of this occurring would have detrimental consequences for international security and prosperity.
Read presentation [pdf]. |
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By Paul Meyer | 19 September 2011
History repeats itself, the saying goes, first as tragedy and then as farce. This characterization could readily be applied to the international community's efforts to negotiate a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. A longstanding objective of the international community, the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) has, tragically, never been the subject of even preliminary negotiations, as the nuclear powers that allegedly support it avoid taking any effective action on the treaty while, farcically, bemoaning its absence.
The FMCT has been held hostage for years by its assigned guardian: the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. This 65-nation body -- which operates under the auspices of and with funding from the United Nations -- is, in principle, the sole multilateral forum for the negotiation of arms control and disarmament agreements. The negotiation of a fissile material production ban has featured on its agenda for decades, and an agreed mandate for those negotiations has existed since 1995.
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Read more: Free the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty: Functionality over forum
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