Photo: Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer presenting the parliamentary appeal ‘Turn Back the Doomsday Clock’ to the NPT Prep Com at the United Nations in Geneva, July 23, 2024.
Legislators and civil society organizations are using the opportunities of key international events in the latter part of 2024 to elevate calls for cuts in nuclear weapon budgets, an end to investments in the nuclear arms race, and a shift of these resources to better address planetary emergencies including an climate change, threats to biodiversity and an increase in the number and intensity of armed conflicts.
Actions utilizing these opportunities include parliamentary and civil society appeals to the two-week long meeting of States Parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at the United Nations in Geneva (2024 NPT Prep Com) from July 22-August 2, and the UN Summit of the Future from September 22-23.
On July 23, Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer presented a parliamentary appeal ‘Turn Back the Doomsday Clock’ to a plenary session of the NPT Prep Com with nine concrete proposals directed to both the NPT Prep Com and the UN Summit of the Future. One of the proposals calls on governments “cut nuclear weapons budgets and public investments in the nuclear weapons industry, and to re-purpose these resources to instead support public health, peace, climate stabilization and sustainable development.”
More than 80 parliamentarians from 35 legislatures endorsed the appeal, including members of foreign affairs and defence committees; parliamentary delegates to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, NATO Parliamentary Assembly and OSCE Parliamentary Assembly; former Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Disarmament; and others.
A similar appeal from faith-based organizations and leaders, entitled Pursuing Peace, Security and Nuclear Disarmament through our Common Humanity, was also presented at the NPT plenary session on July 23 by Ayleen Roy, a member of the Transnational working group on faith and values based perspectives. The appeal, which was endorsed by more than 80 faith-based organizations and an additional 180 faith and values based leaders and individuals, highlights principles common to all the world’s major religious and faith-based traditions that are relevant to peace, security and nuclear weapons.
Citing the faith-based principle of social responsibility, the appeal notes that “The €90 billion equivalent spent each year on nuclear weapons development, production and deployment is draining resources (human and financial) that are required to eliminate world poverty and achieve the SDGs” and encourages “States to acknowledge their social responsibility by ending investments in nuclear weapons and re-purposing these investments to address basic human needs.”
And in preparation for the UN Summit of the Future, civil society organizations from around the world, cooperating through the facilitation of the Coalition for the UN We Need, have released a Peoples Pact for the Future with a number of recommendations to the Summit of the Future, one of which calls for a commitment to be made at the Summit “to channel domestic and other funds currently utilized for weapons—including nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction—to peaceful use such as environmental protection, sustainable development, peacemaking, rehabilitation, restorative justice, reparations, and building a culture of peace.”
Member organizations of Move the Nuclear Weapons Money were amongst the leaders of these initiatives.
Parliamentarians are also taking actions in their own legislatures to cut nuclear weapons budgets, but these are mostly actions that have not yet received sufficient support to be adopted.
On June 24, for example, US Senator Ed Markey who serves as Co-President of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (PNND) and as Co-chair of the bicameral Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group (NWAC), organized a joint letter from NWAC members to the Secretary of Defense, challenging the US Sentinel Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) replacement program on both financial and policy grounds. The legislators wrote to “remind the DoD that the American people have not granted them a blank check to pursue wasteful, unnecessary programs. As a varied group, our positions on the overall nuclear posture may vary, but we all share a common commitment to preventing government waste, avoiding dangerous nuclear escalation, and promoting peace.”
There are growing calls amongst security experts and civil society organizations for a retirement of all ICBMs in order to cut the bloated nuclear weapons budget and reduce the risks of nuclear war. See, for example, Slash the Pentagon Budget in Half & Abolish ICBMs: Dan Ellsberg on How to Avoid Nuclear Armageddon.
Senator Markey has given voice in the US Congress to these calls in a number of ways including in the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditure (SANE) Act and the Invest in Cures Before Missiles (ICBM) Act that he has introduced, and in direct challenges to nuclear weapons budget items during the Defence Budget Authorization process. See Senator Markey: Shift funds from the military to climate action. And end the nuclear threat!
However, Markey and the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group are opposed by a powerful nuclear arms industry lobby and the many legislators whom they support in congress, including members of the the bi-partisan Missile Defence Caucus. See Meet the Senate nuke caucus, busting the budget and making the world less safe. The efforts of Senator Markey and his colleagues are unlikely to succeed in deep cuts to the US nuclear weapons budget unless there is a stronger groundswell of Americans pushing their elected representatives to support their legislative initiatives.
Over in the UK, the possibilities for cutting the nuclear weapons budget do not appear to have improved with the election of a Labour government. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has affirmed that his government is committed to a triple lock for nuclear deterrence, which includes maintaining Britain’s continuous at-sea deterrent (CASD) “24 hours a day, 365 days a year”; building four new nuclear submarines; and delivering “all the needed upgrades” for existing and new submarines in the future. However, there could be dissention to this from some Labour MPs and from the increased number of Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons. (See Reality check: is Keir Starmer’s triple lock on nuclear weapons anything new?)