Nice Treaty

Some reasons for Irish people to vote "NO".
(The Treaty was rejected by the Irish electorate on June 7th. However, a slightly amended version of the treaty will probably be presented within 6 months or so, and the reasons summarised below are likely to still be valid.)

Neutrality

See also National Platform

John Rogers' Article (Rogers is a former Attorney General)

Sample "It is not my purpose to suggest that the consequences of the Treaty of Nice are apocalyptic. But it is clear that the capacity of an Irish citizen to influence decisions which will intimately affect his/her life will be significantly reduced by the impact of the Treaty of Nice........

"I wish to see the Community being enlarged but I don't think that the Irish electorate should be blackmailed into voting for this treaty on the basis that to do otherwise is to offend and disappoint those states expecting accession.....

"Without reforms...citizens will rightly become more and more cynical about their relevance to the democratic process in the enlarged Union and will become disillusioned and non-participant."

Fergus Finlay's article
(Finlay was an important advisor in the last coalition government)

Sample "As a supporter of the EU, I am saying no to the Nice Treaty...

"...most offensive of all, and I’ve heard it from left and right, is that we owe it to Europe. We’ve got so much from Europe that really we have no right to stand in the way of Nice.

"They never told us that when we joined, did they? They never told us that a day would come when we would be so beholden that we couldn’t possibly disagree with anything proposed by our elders and betters.

"...with every new treaty, we are moving a little further and further away from the ideal and the vision.

"Nice is essentially about making a big machine work....

"THE EU Commission is supposed to be there to serve the people of Europe, the Parliament to represent us and the Council of Ministers to take final policy decisions on our behalf. All of these streamlining changes move all these bodies further away from us.

"The bottom line is that Europe after Nice will be less democratic, and less equal, than it was before. Essentially, the only interest served will be a bureaucratic one. Nobody is telling us that, and it ain’t good enough. In fact it’s downright dangerous."

(NOTE Various people HAVE been telling us this for years. It's good that Finlay and Rogers have belatedly woken up.)

Neutrality

Even if Irish neutrality were totally unaffected by the Nice Treaty, which one may legitimately doubt, there is still a overwhelming case, outlined below, to vote "NO".

The following is adapted from letters to the Irish Referendum Commission and to the Irish media re the Treaty of Nice. No response to date.

If the Real IRA, or the UVF, or Timothy MacVeigh, or any group or individual, bombs, or threatens to bomb, one or ten or twenty civilians, they are rightly recognised and denounced as terrorists. The US has rightly declared the real IRA a foreign terrorist organisation.

But in an insane reversal of all normal logic, when the scale is upped a hundred thousandfold, to involve the indiscriminate massacre of hundreds of thousands or even millions of innocent men, women, children and babies, when even ourselves and all those we know and love might be included in the butchery, when the possibility is of civilisation being destroyed, or the extinction of all human life, or even all life on the planet, political establishments seem to go deaf, dumb and blind.

Even when the anti-nuclear case receives belated legal backing from no less a body than the International Court of Justice, or from a former Strategic Command General (see below), instead of celebration that reason is finally beginning to prevail, instead of a determination to seize the moment and strengthen the law further, the reaction is one of silence, or mumbles and "Yes, but's....".

The Twenty-third Amendment to the Constitution enables Ireland to ratify the entirely laudable Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. This, according to the government website, "provides for the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court, in relationship with the United Nations system, with jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community, namely genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression".

So far, so good. However, in 1996 the International Court of Justice in an advisory opinion, declared that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law". No thanks to successsive Irish governments, who could have asked for such a ruling 15 or 20 years ago, the Court essentially vindicated common sense and the long-standing claims of anti-nuclear activists, and the day is drawing nearer when all weapons of mass destruction are declared illegal under all circumstances.

With breath-taking cynicism or ignorance, the Irish government is asking its citizens to approve the Nice Treaty along with the International Criminal Court Amendment. The Nice Treaty and its annexes speak of Nato this, WEU that, Rapid Reaction Forces, the usual worthy if meaningless blather about non-proliferation and disarmament, but not a peep about the now legally established fact that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law". Zero. Zip. Nada. Mustn't have happened. There isn't an elephant in the living room.

Of the current EU membership, Britain and France are nuclear powers in their own right, while Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Holland, Belgium, Denmark and Luxemburg are members of the nuclear armed NATO. To my knowledge, while other aspects of Nice and the future of the EU were gone over with a fine-tooth comb, none of these states has questioned or modified, never mind renounced, their stance on nuclear weapons. To quote George Delf in his 1985 book, "Humanising Hell", "Robbery is the subject of minute legal attention, while the fate of life on earth is left to men and women who admit their power contest is mad".

At Nuremberg, the Nazis were tried for crimes against peace (planning, preparing for, or participating in acts of aggressive warfare), war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Mass murder has now been modernised and millions can be more conveniently incinerated at the touch of a nuclear button. The continued possession of nuclear weapons by an elite of states only teaches every small-time international bully that might is right, and that they too are perfectly entitled to their own "deterrent". With the coming development of genetically engineered/nanotechnology/robotic (GNR) weapons, and as memories of World War 2 fade, the small window of opportunity granted by the end of the cold war is closing. We survived the cold war by a fluke, and may not survive another.

One message of the Nuremberg Trials is "that individuals are responsible for what they do, and will be held accountable for committing serious crimes under international law". The Nice Treaty binds us to closer cooperation on foreign and security policy with 11 pro-nuclear countries. Such countries are apparently willing to slaughter, or allow the slaughter of, millions of innocent people. The Irish Government, obliged to uphold international law, should barely be talking to such countries (Would the Irish Government be comfortable with closer security cooperation with Sinn Fein? With the IRA?), never mind further harmonising foreign and security policy with them, until they acknowledge nuclear weapons are criminal, and start to obey the law

Yours sincerely,

"I came away....deeply troubled by....the burden of building and maintaining nuclear arsenals; the increasingly tangled web of policy and strategy as the number of weapons and delivery systems multiply; the staggering costs; the relentless pressure of advancing technology; the grotesquely destructive war plans; the daily operational risks; and the constant prospect of a crisis that would hold the fate of entire societies at risk."

Who wrote this in 1996? Some hairy leftover from the '60's? Try General Lee Butler, a former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command.

General Butler explained that "Over the last 27 years of my military career, I was embroiled in every aspect of American nuclear policy making and force structuring from the highest councils of government on nuclear command centers; from the arms control arena to cramped bomber cockpits and the confines of ballistic missile silos and submarines.... ..As an advisor to the President on the employment of nuclear weapons, I have anguished over the imponderable complexities, the profound moral dilemmas, and the mind-numbing compression of decision-making under the threat of nuclear attack.

"Ultimately, as I examined the course of this journey, as the lessons of decades of intimate involvement took greater hold on my intellect, I came to a set of deeply unsettling judgements. That from the earliest days of the nuclear era, the risks and consequences of nuclear war have never been properly weighed by those who brandished it. That the stakes of nuclear war engage not just the survival of the antagonists, but the fate of mankind. That the likely consequences of nuclear war have no politically, militarily or morally acceptable justification. And therefore, that the threat to use nuclear weapons is indefensible.

"(First)...despite all of the evidence, we have yet to fully grasp the monstrous effects of these weapons, that the consequences of their use defy reason, transcending time and space, poisoning the earth and deforming its inhabitants. Second, a deepening dismay at the prolongation of Cold War policies and practices in a world where our security interests have been utterly transformed. Third, that foremost among these policies, deterrence reigns unchallenged, with its embedded assumption of hostility and associated preference for forces on high states of alert. Fourth, an acute unease over renewed assertions of the utility of nuclear weapons, especially as regards response to chemical or biological attack. Fifth, grave doubt that the present highly discriminatory regime of nuclear and non-nuclear states can long endure absent a credible commitment by the nuclear powers to eliminate their arsenals. And finally, the horrific prospect of a world seething with enmities, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, and hostage to maniacal leaders strongly disposed toward their use.

"...as true weapons of mass destruction, the case for their elimination is a thousand-fold stronger and more urgent than for deadly chemicals and viruses already widely declared immoral, illegitimate, subject to destruction and prohibited from any future production"
Full 1996 Speech

"By what authority do succeeding generations of leaders in the nuclear weapons states usurp the power to dictate the odds of continued life on our planet? Most urgently, why does such breathtaking audacity persist at a moment when we should stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestation? These are not questions to be left to historians. The answers matter to us now.

In 1998, at the State of the World Forum in San Francisco, General Butler made a ringing plea to abolish nuclear weapons. "We can do better," he said, "than condone a world in which nuclear weapons are enshrined as the ultimate arbiter of conflict. The price already paid is too dear, the risks run too great. The nuclear beast must be chained, its soul expunged, its lair laid waste. The task is daunting but we cannot shrink from it. The opportunity may not come again." Full 1998 Speech

EXTRACT FROM INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE WEBSITE

"It follows from the above-mentioned requirements that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law;

However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake;

The Court notes that in order correctly to apply to the present case the Charter law on the use of force and the law applicable in armed conflict, in particular humanitarian law, it is imperative for it to take account of the unique characteristics of nuclear weapons, and in particular their destructive capacity, their capacity to cause untold human suffering, and their ability to cause damage to generations to come.

The proportionality principle may thus not in itself exclude the use of nuclear weapons in self-defence in all circumstances. But at the same time, a use of force that is proportionate under the law of self-defence, must, in order to be lawful, also meet the requirements of the law applicable in armed conflict which comprise in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law. And the Court notes that the very nature of all nuclear weapons and the profound risks associated therewith are further considerations to be borne in mind by States believing they can exercise a nuclear response in self-defence in accordance with the requirements of proportionality.

In order to lessen or eliminate the risk of unlawful attack, States sometimes signal that they possess certain weapons to use in self-defence against any State violating their territorial integrity or political independence. Whether a signaled intention to use force if certain events occur is or is not a "threat" within Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter depends upon various factors. The notions of "threat" and "use" of force under Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter stand together in the sense that if the use of force itself in a given case is illegal - for whatever reason - the threat to use such force will likewise be illegal. In short, if it is to be lawful, the declared readiness of a State to use force must be a use of force that is in conformity with the Charter. For the rest, no State - whether or not it defended the policy of deterrence - suggested to the Court that it would be lawful to threaten to use force if the use of force contemplated would be illegal.

the Court then deals with the question whether recourse to nuclear weapons must be considered as illegal in the light of the principles and rules of international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflict and of the law of neutrality.

After sketching the historical development of the body of rules which originally were called "laws and customs of war" and later came to be termed "international humanitarian law", the Court observes that the cardinal principles contained in the texts constituting the fabric of humanitarian law are the following. The first is aimed at the protection of the civilian population and civilian objects and establishes the distinction between combatants and non-combatants; States must never make civilians the object of attack and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets. According to the second principle, it is prohibited to cause unnecessary suffering to combatants: it is accordingly prohibited to use weapons causing them such harm or uselessly aggravating their suffering. In application of that second principle, States do not have unlimited freedom of choice of means in the weapons they use.

The Court also refers to the Martens Clause, which was first included in the Hague Convention II with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 1899 and which has proved to be an effective means of addressing the rapid evolution of military technology. A modern version of that clause is to be found in Article 1, paragraph 2, of Additional Protocol I of 1977, which reads as follows:

"In cases not covered by this Protocol or by other international agreements, civilians and combatants remain under the protection and authority of the principles of international law derived from established custom, from the principles of humanity and from the dictates of public conscience."

The extensive codification of humanitarian law and the extent of the accession to the resultant treaties, as well as the fact that the denunciation clauses that existed in the codification instruments have never been used, have provided the international community with a corpus of treaty rules the great majority of which had already become customary and which reflected the most universally recognized humanitarian principles. These rules indicate the normal conduct and behaviour expected of States.

Turning to the applicability of the principles and rules of humanitarian law to a possible threat or use of nuclear weapons, the Court notes that nuclear weapons were invented after most of the principles and rules of humanitarian law applicable in armed conflict had already come into existence; the Conferences of 1949 and 1974-1977 left these weapons aside, and there is a qualitative as well as quantitative difference between nuclear weapons and all conventional arms. However, in the Court's view, it cannot be concluded from this that the established principles and rules of humanitarian law applicable in armed conflict did not apply to nuclear weapons. Such a conclusion would be incompatible with the intrinsically humanitarian character of the legal principles in question which permeates the entire law of armed conflict and applies to all forms of warfare and to all kinds of weapons, those of the past, those of the present and those of the future. In this respect it seems significant that the thesis that the rules of humanitarian law do not apply to the new weaponry, because of the newness of the latter, has not been advocated in the present proceedings."

SUMMARIES OF SUBMISSIONS BY VARIOUS COUNTRIES

Judge Bedjaoui, the president of the Court, said in his declaration upon releasing the Court's opinion, "I cannot sufficiently emphasize the fact that the Court's inability to go beyond this statement of the situation can in no manner be interpreted to mean that it is leaving the door ajar to recognition of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons."

Judge Bedjaoui went further to describe nuclear weapons as "blind" weapons that have a "destabilizing effect on humanitarian law, which regulates the discernment in the type of weapon used." He continued, "Nuclear weapons, the ultimate evil, destabilize humanitarian law which is the law of the lesser evil. The existence of nuclear weapons is therefore a challenge to the very existence of humanitarian law.... Atomic warfare and humanitarian law therefore appear to be mutually exclusive: the existence of the one automatically implies the non-existence of the other."

New Zealand:
Attorney General Paul East praised the citizen activists who had initiated the move to call on the court for an opinion. He then announced "The threat or use of nuclear weapons should no longer be permitted under international law." Thus New Zealand became the first - and still the only - Western nation to join with the majority of the world states in calling for a ban. He also used a phrase that cropped up several times during the hearings when he mentioned the principal of "inter-generational equity." Such a principal would be violated by the long term effects of radioactivity on future generations and on the global environment. He quoted James Madison who argued in 1792 that "Each generation should bear the burdens of its own wars."

Attorney East spent considerable time condemning the French tests. He then concluded by saying, "A declaration of illegality would serve as a powerful further step to the elimination of nuclear weapons. The court needs to play its part in helping set the scene for that to happen. The potential consequences of failure, for all humanity, are too great."

Australia:
Gareth Evans, Australia's Foreign Minister, took a much stronger anti-nuclear stand than had been expected, partly in response to growing Australian outrage at the French nuclear test in the Pacific. "Nuclear weapons are, by their nature, illegal under customary international law, by virtue of fundamental general principals of humanity," he said. He urged greatly hastened nuclear disarmament toward total abolition. Nevertheless, he urged the court to decline an opinion for fear it might disrupt existing disarmament agreements. However, he said, if the court does rule, it should declare use and threat to use nuclear weapons illegal.

Malaysia:
Ismail Razali, Malaysia's UN Ambassador, in one of the most eloquent and impassioned presentations warned that the world has been on the brink of nuclear war many times. War could erupt from accident, failure or error. Thus nuclear weapons continue to threaten all life on earth. Malaysia, he said, calls for a nuclear free world as a matter of critical urgency. The world looks to the Hague as its last hope. No distinction is possible between use and threat of use: Possession equals threat equals use. Arguments by the nuclear weapons states that nuclear weapons could be used surgically were absurd. He described as "a perversion of the right of self-defense" to argue its application in the use of nuclear weapons. There is no more important task facing the world than to ban the bomb. "A ban is the only hope," he said. One bomb could kill a million people. Nuclear winter could wipe out all life. He concluded, "Under the sword of Damocles, the world turns to the wisdom of the World Court as a beacon for a nuclear-free world."

Japan:
In a harrowing and wrenching presentation, Mayor Takashi Hiraoka of Hiroshima told the court greater disarmament efforts were needed to avoid another Hiroshima. Even 50 years later, Hiroshima survivors suffer from cancers, thyroids and genetic damage. Nuclear weapons are uniquely cruel and inhumane. Victims say the horror was indescribable. To stockpile such weapons violates international law.

Mayor Iccho Itoh of Nagasaki showed the court photographs of the survivors taken soon after the attack. It was, he said, "an unspeakable tragedy." He called for nuclear weapons to be declared illegal and for war itself to be abolished. In conclusion, he showed a photograph of almost unrecognizably burned children survivors of Nagasaki. "What have these children done to deserve this?" he asked. "Let all the leaders of the nuclear weapons nations look at these photographs and realize the nature of what happened in front of these children that day. Let the leaders hear the silent screams of these children." Two judges—from Britain and China—were seen to weep.

Samoan Islands:
United Nations Ambassador Nerono Slade asserted flatly "Nuclear weapons are bad for people and bad for the planet." The vast majority of nations want them banned, he said. He expressed "outrage" at continued French testing. International law had reached a point where such indiscriminately and massively destructive weapons should be outlawed.

San Marino:
Frederica Bigi of the San Marino Department of Foreign Affairs —the only woman to head a delegation to the hearings— said nuclear weapons were contrary to moral law. "If humankind is to endure," she said, "nuclear weapons must be banned." Threats could easily lead to use, she said. Both should be declared illegal. Even in a just war or for self-defense, nuclear weapons should be illegal. Use would cause radiation that would threaten present and future generations and permanently damage the environment. All nuclear weapons should be dismantled and the huge funds squandered on such weapons should be redirected to human needs.

Indonesia:
Soedarmanto Kardisman, U.N. Ambassador, warned that nuclear weapons have already brought the world close to extinction, and called for total abolition as a moral imperative. Nuclear weapons, he said, were "genocidal." Even preparing for nuclear war should be a crime. Radiation threatens all humanity. Deterrence means threat and should be declared illegal.

Iran:
Javid Zarif, the Deputy Foreign Minister, warned that nuclear weapons were "horrifying, uncontrollable and have harmful lethal effects even to future generations and to our whole environment" and are thus contrary to fundamental environmental and humanitarian law. He said a court opinion would serve as an instrument of "preventive diplomacy and reassert the rule of law in international affairs."

Mexico:
Sergio Gonzales Galvez, Mexican Minister for Foreign Affairs, described the case as a great challenge and a great opportunity for the World Court to assert its unique moral authority. "The use of nuclear weapons is the ultimate crime." Mexico, he said, opposed the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances.

Egypt:
Professor Georges Abi-Saab of the Egyptian delegation said it was entirely appropriate that the court should rule in the case. He quoted the author Arthur Koestler as saying, "For the first time in history, humanity controls the means of its own extinction." Abi-Saab described the "mass destruction with incalculable and lingering effects" of nuclear war. Most victims would be people from non nuclear states. He quoted a Swahili proverb, "When elephants fight, the grass suffers." He dismissed claims by nuclear weapons nations that nuclear weapons could be "clean, surgical and low yield" as "conjecture bordering on science fiction."

Qatar:
Najeeb Al-Nauimi, Minister for Justice, stressed that nuclear arms were unlike any other. Apart from massive death and destruction, apart from the release of deadly radiation, apart from damage to the ecology, nuclear weapons would cause an electromagnetic pulse that would disable all electronic communications systems which would include not only all radio, television, telephone and computer connections but communications for all health and rescue services.

The Philippines:
Merlin Magallona, Legal Agent for the Philippines, challenged claims by the nuclear states that they had a right as sovereign nations to use nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons, he stressed, differ from all other weapons and represent the greatest threat of global pollution ever known.

Marshall Islands:
Lijon Eknilang, a Marshall Islander who as a child witnessed the American nuclear bomb tests near her home, offered moving testimony to the horrifying effects of nuclear radiation on the island population. She described her own seven miscarriages and told of dozens of women who, after the tests gave birth to "jelly babies" with no bones and other massive deformities never known in the history of the region. She explained that her parents, sisters and brothers had all died of cancers and leukemias. "I have come here to plead with the court not to allow this to happen to any other community in the world," she said.

If you have any enquiries, complaints or suggestions please e-mail me at cjmurray@eircom.net