The petition notes that the past 20 years have only witnessed an exacerbation of tensions and heightened war-mongering, both os which have lent a disconcerting instability to the entire region.
 
The petition draws attention to the fact that while military and weapons’ expenses in both the countries have increased exponentially, making both India and Pakistan some of the largest importers of weapons in a global landscape, armed conflicts and violence by both state and non-state actors in the two countries has reached “savage heights.” It said that this situation is ironical especially since both the countries have significantly fallen down on human development indices such as poverty, hunger, education, health, safety of women and children, minority rights, and social and legal justice.
 
It highlights the grave issue of nuclear exchange between both the countries saying that any such exchange would annihilate the entire region and will have an irreversible climate change impact. Such an exchange will also have catastrophic global consequences.

It said that millions of people residing in these countries had no say in the inhuman escalation, though they will be at the receiving end if such an “exchange” takes place. In fact, South Asia, which is also the world’s most populous region, is the only region which has two nuclear-armed neighbours with a history of active conflicts, unending border skirmishes and wars.

The petition also draws attention to the growing problem of emergence of religious extremism in the past few years, “the emergence of religious extremism and war-loving populist nationalism, particularly during election seasons, in both countries, has made the situation more dangerous than ever. It was in the wake of such dangerous rhetoric and abiding conflicts that South Asia appeared in the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin Atomic Scientists that has now inched closest ever to midnight.”

It added that even amid such rising tensions, India and Pakistan chose to remain outside the ambit of the historic Nuclear Ban Treaty, adopted by the UN last year.

The petition made an appeal for peace, saying, “We urge leaders of both countries to negotiate disarmament and peace in all seriousness, sign the international Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and introduce immediate risk-reduction measures, including dialogues both, at the level of government and civil society. For even a semblance of peace in the region, it is imperative that the jingoism and hate-mongering within politics and mainstream media be stopped with immediate effect. 20 years is long enough to learn from the futile nuclear insanity and bluster that both countries have hitherto engaged in!”

Currently, the petition has more than hundred signatories from across the world.

The post DiaNuke calls for Indian and Pakistan to Disarm now! appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Two out of three categories of weapons of mass destruction – biological and chemical weapons – as well as landmines and cluster munitions already have strict conventions that largely ban them. The starting point for these conventions was the humanitarian impact; these weapons are so devastating that they should never be used.

But strictly speaking, the use of nuclear weapons – arguably the most destructive of them all – is currently not necessarily prohibited under international law. And countries that do not possess nuclear weapons, together with NGOs, have wanted to have them banned for a long time.

The human cost

The international community witnessed the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons as early as 1945 with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the destruction wrought on these cities by what are by today’s standards very basic nuclear bombs did not lead to their prohibition.
 

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which came into force in 1970 and was indefinitely extended in 1995, merely prohibits the spread of such weapons. But Article IV of the document does call for parties to the agreement to negotiate “a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control”.

Unfortunately, the dynamics of the Cold War meant that nuclear weapons remained a part of international politics and national security. Only since the end of the Cold War have questions about the use of nuclear weapons and their devastating consequences started to be seriously contemplated.

In 1996, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion on the threat or use of nuclear weapons. This stated that it “would generally be contrary” to “the principles and rules of humanitarian law”.

And in 1997, a group of concerned lawyers, scientists, physicians, former diplomats, academics and activists drafted a model Nuclear Weapons Convention. Initiated by international NGOs, such as the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), the model was ultimately submitted to the UN General Assembly by Costa Rica that same year.

It was revised in 2007 to include key developments since 1997 and was again submitted by Costa Rica and Malaysia to the UN General Assembly that year. It was then circulated as an official document in 2008.
 

In 2010, the president of the International Commission of the Red Cross highlighted the importance of humanitarian considerations in his statement about nuclear weapons in Geneva. And, at the NPT Review Conference the same year, governments officially expressed in the final document their “deep concern at the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons”.

States, international organisations and civil society convened conferences in 2013 and 2014 that focused on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons.

But although the “Humanitarian Pledge” issued in 2014 emphasised that nuclear weapons are simply too dangerous for us to permit their existence, none of the countries that possess nuclear weapons endorsed the idea. Neither did US allies protected under the country’s nuclear umbrella.

Opposing positions

In 2016, three sessions of the UN’s Open-ended Working Group taking forward nuclear disarmament negotiations were held for a total of 15 days. These led to more than 100 countries supporting the start of negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons.

That, in turn, resulted in a UN General Assembly resolution advising states to pursue multilateral negotiations towards banning nuclear weapons in the next year. Not surprisingly, none of the countries that have nuclear weapons participated in any of the meetings. All of them will presumably not be attending the latest round of talks either.

Meanwhile, two opposing positions became apparent among countries that do not possess nuclear weapons, adding another divide to the existing gap between states that possess nuclear weapons and those that do not.

The first group of countries are those that want a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons based on the common understanding that the humanitarian consequences of their use cannot be ignored. Several members of this grouping have called for the creation of a nuclear weapons convention, while others have called for a stand-alone prohibition or a so-called “ban treaty”.

The second group consists of countries that depend on extended nuclear deterrence. They are calling for “progressive approach” that seeks non-legal and legal measures as “building blocks” towards a nuclear ban. These include reducing the risks of accidental and unauthorised use of nuclear weapons and bringing into force the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

According to their plan, only after a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons becomes a reality would a ban treaty be actually feasible to pursue.
 

While the first group emphasises the importance of negotiating a ban treaty, nuclear-armed states and those that fall under their umbrella are seeking to slow the process. And the gap between these two attitudes is the critical challenge for the process.
 

Non-state actors

Alongside state-to-state negotiations, civil society has also been playing crucial roles on the road to negotiations. The importance of civil society groups and NGOs is recognised in Article 71 of the UN Charter.

Civil society has been active in the moves towards prohibiting nuclear weapons with strong support by grassroots movements such as the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a coalition of prominent and active NGOs.

In the end, governments will make the decisions on the actual wording, demands and breadth of any ban treaty. They will also decide whether to sign and ratify it. But pressure from civil society will contribute the atmosphere for moving forward.

No one in the world can argue against the idea of a world without nuclear weapons or the total elimination of nuclear weapons. And it is not just legal provisions and measures that are important. The norms and atmosphere created by the establishment of a ban treaty, or at least efforts towards concluding one, will be a vital part of the mix.

The humanitarian consequences of using nuclear weapons play a central part in the international nuclear disarmament initiative now starting. It goes beyond traditional strategic thinking about nuclear policy and appeals to the core of mankind. After all, a single nuclear detonation may set off a chain of events that could become the harbinger for the end of the world as we know it. Clearly, none of us wants to see that.

Wakana Mukai, Assistant Professor at the Security Studies Unit of the Policy Alternative Research Institute, University of Tokyo

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Anti-nuclear demonstration in front of the Japanese Diet, June 22, 2012. Matthias Lambrecht/Flickr, CC BY-NC

In late 2016 the government estimated total costs from the nuclear accident at about 22 trillion yen, or about US$188 billion – approximately twice as high as its previous estimate. The government is developing a plan under which consumers and citizens will bear some of those costs through higher electric rates, taxes or both.

The Japanese public has lost faith in nuclear safety regulation, and a majority favors phasing out nuclear power. However, Japan’s current energy policy assumes nuclear power will play a role. To move forward, Japan needs to find a new way of making decisions about its energy future.
 

Uncertainty over nuclear power

When the earthquake and tsunami struck in 2011, Japan had 54 operating nuclear reactors which produced about one-third of its electricity supply. After the meltdowns at Fukushima, Japanese utilities shut down their 50 intact reactors one by one. In 2012 then-Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s government announced that it would try to phase out all nuclear power by 2040, after existing plants reached the end of their 40-year licensed operating lives.

Now, however, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office at the end of 2012, says that Japan “cannot do without” nuclear power. Three reactors have started back up under new standards issued by Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority, which was created in 2012 to regulate nuclear safety. One was shut down again due to legal challenges by citizens groups. Another 21 restart applications are under review.
 

In April 2014 the government released its first post-Fukushima strategic energy plan, which called for keeping some nuclear plants as baseload power sources – stations that run consistently around the clock. The plan did not rule out building new nuclear plants. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), which is responsible for national energy policy, published a long-term plan in 2015 which suggested that nuclear power should produce 20 to 22 percent of Japan’s electricity by 2030.

Meanwhile, thanks mainly to strong energy conservation efforts and increased energy efficiency, total electricity demand has been falling since 2011. There has been no power shortage even without nuclear power plants. The price of electricity rose by more than 20 percent in 2012 and 2013, but then stabilized and even declined slightly as consumers reduced fossil fuel use.
 

Japan’s Basic Energy Law requires the government to release a strategic energy plan every three years, so debate over the new plan is expected to start sometime this year.
 

Public mistrust

The most serious challenge that policymakers and the nuclear industry face in Japan is a loss of public trust, which remains low six years after the meltdowns. In a 2015 poll by the pro-nuclear Japan Atomic Energy Relations Organization, 47.9 percent of respondents said that nuclear energy should be abolished gradually and 14.8 percent said that it should be abolished immediately. Only 10.1 percent said that the use of nuclear energy should be maintained, and a mere 1.7 percent said that it should be increased.

Another survey by the newspaper Asahi Shimbun in 2016 was even more negative. Fifty-seven percent of the public opposed restarting existing nuclear power plants even if they satisfied new regulatory standards, and 73 percent supported a phaseout of nuclear power, with 14 percent advocating an immediate shutdown of all nuclear plants.
 

Who should pay to clean up Fukushima?

METI’s 22 trillion yen estimate for total damages from the Fukushima meltdowns is equivalent to about one-fifth of Japan’s annual general accounting budget. About 40 percent of this sum will cover decommissioning the crippled nuclear reactors. Compensation expenses account for another 40 percent, and the remainder will pay for decontaminating affected areas for residents.
 

Under a special financing scheme enacted after the Fukushima disaster, Tepco, the utility responsible for the accident, is expected to pay cleanup costs, aided by favorable government-backed financing. However, with cost estimates rising, the government has proposed to have Tepco bear roughly 70 percent of the cost, with other electricity companies contributing about 20 percent and the government – that is, taxpayers – paying about 10 percent.

This decision has generated criticism both from experts and consumers. In a December 2016 poll by the business newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun, one-third of respondents (the largest group) said that Tepco should bear all costs and no additional charges should be added to electricity rates. Without greater transparency and accountability, the government will have trouble convincing the public to share in cleanup costs.
 

Other nuclear burdens: Spent fuel and separated plutonium

Japanese nuclear operators and governments also must find safe and secure ways to manage growing stockpiles of irradiated nuclear fuel and weapon-usable separated plutonium.

At the end of 2016 Japan had 14,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel stored at nuclear power plants, filling about 70 percent of its onsite storage capacity. Government policy calls for reprocessing spent fuel to recover its plutonium and uranium content. But the fuel storage pool at Rokkasho, Japan’s only commercial reprocessing plant, is nearly full, and a planned interim storage facility at Mutsu has not started up yet.

The best option would be to move spent fuel to dry cask storage, which withstood the earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Dry cask storage is widely used in many countries, but Japan currently has it at only a few nuclear sites. In my view, increasing this capacity and finding a candidate site for final disposal of spent fuel are urgent priorities.

Japan also has nearly 48 tons of separated plutonium, of which 10.8 tons are stored in Japan and 37.1 tons are in France and the United Kingdom. Just one ton of separated plutonium is enough material to make more than 1,200 crude nuclear weapons.

Many countries have expressed concerns about Japan’s plans to store plutonium and use it in nuclear fuel. Some, such as China, worry that Japan could use the material to quickly produce nuclear weapons.

Now, when Japan has only two reactors operating and its future nuclear capacity is uncertain, there is less rationale than ever to continue separating plutonium. Maintaining this policy could increase security concerns and regional tensions, and might spur a “plutonium race” in the region.

As a close observer of Japanese nuclear policy decisions from both inside and outside of the government, I know that change in this sector does not happen quickly. But in my view, the Abe government should consider fundamental shifts in nuclear energy policy to recover public trust. Staying on the current path may undermine Japan’s economic and political security. The top priority should be to initiate a national debate and a comprehensive assessment of Japan’s nuclear policy.

Tatsujiro Suzuki, Professor and Director, Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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The Agni-V Missile in a dress rehearsal for the Republic Day Parade in January 2013. After a terrorist attack on an army garrison in the Kashmir town of Uri claimed the lives of 18 Indian soldiers, as the Indian Army considers armed options, and a member of Parliament of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party urges a nuclear attack, projections made by researchers from three US universities in 2007 are a reminder of the costs of nuclear war.
 
As the Indian Army considers armed options, and a member of Parliament (MP) of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) urges a nuclear attack and the Pakistan defence minister threatens to “annihilate” India in return, these projections, made by researchers from three US universities in 2007, are a reminder of the costs of nuclear war.
 

Visualisation by nucleardarkness.org based on study by researchers from Rutgers University, University of Colorado-Boulder and University of California, Los Angeles
 
BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy said, on 23 September, 2016, that if 100 million Indians died in a Pakistani nuclear attack, India’s retaliation would wipe out Pakistan.
 
But the real costs would be higher and not just in India and Pakistan, where the first 21 million people–half the death toll of World War II–would perish within the first week from blast effects, burns and acute radiation, according to the 2007 study by researchers from Rutgers University, University of Colorado-Boulder and University of California, Los Angeles, all in the USA.
 
This death toll would be 2,221 times the number of civilians and security forces killed by terrorists in India over nine years to 2015, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of South Asia Terrorism Portal data.
 
Another two billion people worldwide would face risks of severe starvation due to the climatic effects of the nuclear-weapon use in the subcontinent, according to this 2013 assessment by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, a global federation of physicians.
 
Pakistan has an estimated 110 to 130 nuclear warheads as of 2015–an increase from an estimated 90 to 110 warheads in 2011–according to this report from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a global disarmament advocacy. India is estimated to have 110 to 120 nuclear warheads.
 
Talk of war began after a terrorist attack on an army garrison in the Kashmir town of Uri claimed the lives of 18 Indian soldiers. The Indian Army said the attack was carried out by four terrorists from the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) group, based in Pakistan.
 
Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja M Asif responded to threats from India by saying, “If Pakistan’s security is threatened, we will not hesitate in using tactical (nuclear) weapons.”
 
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons capability has previously deterred India from responding to previous attacks.
 
“At the end of the day, India has to ensure that the options it exercises–particularly the military ones–do not leave it worse off than before in terms of casualties and costs,” wrote analyst Manoj Joshi in The Wire.
 
It does not really matter if India has fewer nuclear weapons than Pakistan, IndiaSpend reported in April, 2015, primarily because of the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction”, or MAD, as it is commonly known (See this IndiaSpend report for more about India’s nuclear weapons program).
 
66% Pakistan’s nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles
 
As many as 66% Pakistani nuclear warheads are mounted on 86 land-based ballistic missiles, according to Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists data estimates.
 
Pakistan’s Hatf (named after the sword of Prophet Muhammad) series of ballistic missiles has been developed–and is still under development–keeping India in mind.
 
A major attack by Pakistan’s nuclear-tipped medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) would likely target India’s four major metropolitan cities–New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai (depending on where the missile is fired from), according to Sameer Patil, fellow, national security, ethnic conflict and terrorism at Gateway House, a think tank in Mumbai.
 
The MRBMs would also target “the major commands of the Indian Army”, Patil told IndiaSpend.
 
Nearly half (40) of Pakistan’s ballistic missile warheads could be mated to Ghauri (named after 12th-century Afghan king Shahbuddin Ghauri, also known as Muhammad of Ghauri) MRBMs. The missile has a claimed range of 1,300 km and can target Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Bhopal and Lucknow, according to this 2006 report on Pakistan’s ballistic missile programme by the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru.
 
Pakistan has an estimated eight warheads which could be mated to the Shaheen (Falcon) II. This MRBM has a range of 2,500 km and can target most major Indian cities, including Kolkata on the east coast.
 

Source: Pakistani Nuclear Forces, 2015; Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
 
An estimated 16 warheads could be fired atop the short-range Ghaznavi (named after the 11th-century Afghan invader Mahmud Ghazni) ballistic missile. With a range of 270 km to 350 km, it can target Ludhiana, Ahmedabad and the outer perimeter of Delhi.
 
Pakistan has an estimated 16 nuclear-tipped Shaheen1 (falcon), short-range ballistic missiles (IRBM), having a 750 km range which can reach Ludhiana, Delhi, Jaipur and Ahmedabad.
 
Pakistan has an estimated six 60-km range Nasr missiles, which could be mated to nuclear weapons. These tactical nuclear missiles could target “advancing battle formations of the Indian Army”, according to Patil. These missiles could be what Asif referred to.
 
Pakistan also has eight nuclear-tipped 350-km Babur cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.
 
An estimated 36 nuclear warheads, accounting for 28% of Pakistan’s total, can be delivered using aircraft. US-made F-16 A/B aircraft can deliver 24 nuclear bombs while the French-made Mirage III/V can deliver 12.
 
India’s triad: Submarine, missile and aircraft
 
India has deployed 56 Prithvi (earth) and Agni (fire) series of surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, which carry 53% of India’s 106 estimated warheads, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
 
This doesn’t take into account the estimated 12 warheads for the K-15 Sagarika submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), which India has possibly produced for the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine INS Arihant.
 
Once commissioned, Arihant would give India a strategic nuclear triad and second strike capability, as this July 2015 IndiaSpend report notes.
 
“Given the smaller geographical size of Pakistan,” said Patil, India would likely target “Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi and the Pakistani Army Armed Corps headquarters at Nowshera”.
 
However, he cautioned: “The fallout of the nuclear attacks on Lahore and Karachi, for instance, would not just be restricted to the Pakistani territory, and depending on the wind directions, can affect both Indian and Afghan border territories.”
 

Source: Indian Nuclear Forces, 2015; Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
 
The 250 km-range Prithvi SRBM acts as a delivery system for 24 of India’s warheads. These are capable of hitting major Pakistani cities, such as Lahore, Sialkot, the capital Islamabad, and Rawalpindi, according to this May 2015 IndiaSpend analysis.
 
India has 20 nuclear-tipped Agni I SRBM and eight Agni II intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), with ranges of 700 km and 2,000 km, respectively. These are capable of covering almost all Pakistani cities, including Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Peshawar, Karachi, Quetta and Gwadar.
 
Agni III, IV and V, with their longer ranges, might be able to reach all of Pakistan, but it can be safely said that they are directed more towards China.
 
India also possesses an estimated two ship-launched 350-km range Dhanush SRBM, which could be fitted with nuclear warheads.
 
India’s aircraft can deliver an estimated 45% of 106 warheads. The Indian Air Force’s Jaguar fighter bombers can deliver about 16 nuclear warheads, while the French-built Mirage-2000 fleet can deliver 32.
 
(Sethi is a Mumbai-based freelance writer and defence analyst.)

Article was first published on India Spend

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