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"NATO's ongoing commitment to the indefinite retention of nuclear weapons violates both moral and legal responsibility and threatens global security," says the World Council of Churches (WCC) in a November 14 letter to the foreign ministers of non-nuclear states belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Signed by WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) director Peter Weiderud, the letter refers to a 1997 International Court of Justice decision that, in accordance with Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), "there exists an obligation to... bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament". Thus, the WCC argues, "Complete nuclear disarmament is an urgent moral imperative" as well as "a legal obligation".
The WCC urges the ministers - who are to meet next week (21-22 November) at a NATO summit meeting in Prague - to set NATO "on a course of irreversible nuclear disarmament in accordance with the requirements of the NPT". More specifically, it urges them to
- reaffirm NATO's commitment to early progress toward the global elimination of nuclear weapons;
- commit the Alliance to reduce the alert status of nuclear weapons possessed by member states and pursue effective arrangements for the rapid de-alerting of nuclear weapons possessed by all states;
- renounce the first-use of nuclear weapons by any Alliance member under any circumstances and commit it to pursue equivalent commitments from other nuclear states;
- take immediate steps to remove nuclear weapons from the territories of non-nuclear-weapon states and return them to the territory of the country owning them.
The WCC is particularly concerned by a NATO assertion that nuclear weapons are "essential" to Alliance security and that its nuclear weapon states intend to retain their nuclear arsenals "for the foreseeable future". The letter also refers specifically to US positions on nuclear weapons, and expresses WCC concern regarding indications that "US nuclear forces will continue to provide assurance to security partners, particularly in the presence of known or suspected threats of nuclear, biological or chemical attacks or in the event of surprising military developments".
"There is no circumstance," the WCC letter underlines, "in which the use of nuclear weapons could be conceived of as contributing to human security or carrying out the purposes of a loving God." Pointing out that "The prospect of such weapons spreading to additional states or to non-state actors only adds to our collective peril," it reminds the NATO leaders of their "grave responsibility to lead the world toward the rapid and early elimination of nuclear weapons and to support effective multilateral mechanisms to permanently prevent their reemergence and spread".