Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
11/14/2014
The United States will attend December’s Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, which will highlight the far-reaching, catastrophic effects that nuclear explosions could cause, the State Department announced late last week. The State Department statement underscored U.S. efforts to work toward the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons, but rejected the notion of negotiating disarmament at the forum, which is scheduled to run Dec. 8-9. “The United States is committed to seeking the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” the statement says. “As we have said previously, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is the focus of our efforts on disarmament, as well as on nonproliferation and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. However, this conference is not the appropriate venue for disarmament negotiations or pre-negotiation discussions and the United States will not engage in efforts of that kind in Vienna.”
Arms Control Advocates Welcome U.S. Attendance
The Arms Control Association (ACA) on Nov. 7 released a statement “welcoming” the U.S. announcement to join 150 other countries at the Humanitarian Impact Conference. “The announcement shows that President Obama and the United States remain deeply committed to the goal of reducing, and eventually eliminating the dangers posed by nuclear weapons,” the group said.
The announcement comes about a week after a group of arms control advocates co-authored a letter sent to top Obama Administration officials calling for U.S. participation in the conference; and more than two weeks after a U.S. representative to the United Nations cautioned against moving nuclear weapons into humanitarian law circles. The State Department’s announcement acknowledges the importance of the humanitarian discussion, and the opportunity for the United States to emphasize steps taken toward complete disarmament. “Following a careful review of the agenda, as well as discussions with the conference host Austria, the United States concluded there were real prospects for constructive engagement with conference participants. The United States fully understands the serious consequences of nuclear weapons use and gives the highest priority to avoiding their use,” the State Department announcement says. “We look forward to presenting the U.S. perspective at the Vienna Conference. This event will be a useful opportunity to highlight the significant progress the United States has made and the resources it devotes to create conditions under which nuclear weapons are never again used.”
Conference to ‘Evaluate and Discuss,’ Not Meant as ‘Starting Point for Negotiations’
According to Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball, Austrian government assurances that the conference was not aimed at addressing disarmament could have factored into the United States’ late decision to attend. “The government of Austria has made it clear that this is not a negotiating forum; it’s not a starting point for negotiations,” Kimball told NS&D Monitor. “It is a conference to evaluate and discuss and assess the effects of nuclear weapons use, of nuclear weapons production, of nuclear testing, and that’s what it’s about.”
According to the conference agenda, the Humanitarian Impacts Conference will include programs addressing the health impacts of nuclear explosions, the history of nuclear testing, risk drivers for “deliberate or inadvertent” nuclear weapons use, scenarios of nuclear detonations, international humanitarian law and general debate on the topics presented. Kimball said the ACA and other disarmament-advocating organizations reinforced to the U.S. government that the forum was not established to carve out a novel disarmament mechanism, and that the organizations tried to convey to the U.S. government that not attending would be a lost opportunity to engage with other countries about nuclear-weapon use prevention. “The United States also would have unnecessarily alienated a number of countries by not attending,” Kimball said.
ACA’s Nov. 7 statement also urged all nuclear-weapon states to attend the conference. “It would appear to be arrogant, and if the other four P5 nuclear-armed countries don’t show up, that will be interpreted as an arrogant snub. There’s every reason for the UK, France, China and Russia to attend this conference. Some may, some won’t.”
