Thirty-four countries, plus the Holy See, signed on to the Joint Statement on the humanitarian dimension of nuclear disarmament delivered on 22 October by Ambassador Benno Laggner of Switzerland at the First Committee of the UN General Assembly.
Among the eight European signatories are three members of NATO: Denmark, Iceland, and Norway. Other signatories are from Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, Central Asia and the Pacific. The Joint Statement follows on to the similar statement made by 16 countries (including Denmark and Norway from NATO) at the 2012 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee (PrepCom).
The key point in the statement concerns the “immense humanitarian consequences” of nuclear explosions. This issue will be further discussed at a conference in Oslo organised by the Norwegian Government in March 2013. The statement also observes that “the utility of these weapons of mass destruction in confronting traditional security challenges has been rightly questioned” and that “nuclear weapons are useless in addressing current challenges such as poverty, health, climate change, terrorism or transnational crime”.
The statement further says that “all rules of international humanitarian law apply fully to nuclear weapons, notably the rules of distinction, proportionality and precaution as well as the prohibition on causing superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering and the prohibition against causing widespread, severe and long-term damage to the environment”. It then quotes the position set forth in the November 2011 resolution of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, namely that it is “difficult to envisage how any use of nuclear weapons could be compatible with the rules of law”.
It remains to be seen whether the involvement of three NATO Member States in highlighting the catastrophic humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons will stimulate any further rethink on ‘nuclear sharing’ arrangements within the Alliance. Efforts to reduce the salience of these weapons within NATO doctrine let alone outlaw them have stalled.
"Narrow, state-centric national security perspectives continue to dominate wider human security concerns. Without more NATO member states joining this type of initiative progressive change in nuclear weapons policy remains unlikely", said NATO Watch Director Ian Davis.