July 17, 2017
ASIA / PACIFIC
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 5
More than 120 nations adopt first treaty banning nuclear weapons
By Edith M. Lederer
The Associated Press
U
NITED NATIONS — More than
120 countries approved the
first-ever treaty to ban nuclear
weapons at a U.N. meeting boycotted by all
nuclear-armed nations.
To loud applause, Elayne Whyte Gomez,
president of the U.N. conference that has
been negotiating the legally binding
treaty, announced the results of the
“historic” vote — 122 nations in favor, the
Netherlands opposed, and Singapore
abstaining.
“We have managed to sow the first seeds
of a world free of nuclear weapons,” Whyte
Gomez said. “We (are) ... saying to our
children that, yes, it is possible to inherit a
world free from nuclear weapons.”
“The world has been waiting for this
legal norm for 70 years,” since atomic
bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in August 1945 at the end of
World War II, she said.
Setsuko Thurlow, who was a 13-year-old
student in Hiroshima when a U.S. nuclear
bomb destroyed the city, said survivors
“have worked all our lives to make sure
that no other human beings should ever
again be subjected to such an atrocity.”
None of the nine countries known or
believed to possess nuclear weapons — the
United States, Russia, Britain, China,
France, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and
Israel — is supporting the treaty. Many of
their allies also did not attend the meeting.
In a joint statement, the U.N. ambassa-
dors from the United States, Britain, and
France said their countries don’t intend to
ever become party to the treaty.
They said it “clearly disregards the
realities of the international security
environment” and “is incompatible with
the policy of nuclear deterrence, which has
been essential to keeping the peace in
Europe and North Asia for over 70 years.”
The treaty offers no solution to “the
grave threat posed by North Korea’s
nuclear program, nor does it address other
security challenges that make nuclear
deterrence necessary,” the three ambassa-
dors said.
A ban that doesn’t address these
concerns “cannot result in the elimination
of a single nuclear weapon and will not
enhance any country’s security,” they said.
“It will do the exact opposite by creating
even more divisions at a time when the
world needs to remain united in the face of
growing threats.”
The U.S., Britain, and France, along
with other nuclear powers, instead want to
strengthen the nearly half-century-old
Nuclear
Nonproliferation
Treaty,
considered the cornerstone of global
nonproliferation efforts.
That pact sought to prevent the spread
of atomic arms beyond the five original
weapons powers — the U.S., Russia,
Britain, France, and China. It requires
non-nuclear signatory nations to not
pursue atomic weapons in exchange for a
commitment by the five powers to move
toward nuclear disarmament and to
guarantee non-nuclear states’ access to
peaceful nuclear technology for producing
energy.
All NATO members boycotted the treaty
negotiations except for the Netherlands,
which has U.S. nuclear weapons on its
territory and was urged by its parliament
to send a delegation.
The Netherlands deputy U.N. Ambassa-
dor, Lise Gregoire-Van-Haaren, told
delegates her country couldn’t vote for a
treaty that went against its NATO
obligations, had inadequate verification
provisions, or that undermined the NPT —
and “this draft does not meet our criteria.”
Whyte Gomez, Costa Rica’s U.N.
ambassador in Geneva, said 129 nations
signed up to help draft the treaty, which
represents two-thirds of the 193 member
states.
The treaty will be opened for signatures
Political prisoner, Nobel laureate
Liu Xiaobo dies at age 61
By Christopher Bodeen, Gillian
Wong, and Han Guan Ng
The Associated Press
S
HENYANG, China — Imprisoned
for all the seven years since he was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu
Xiaobo never renounced the pursuit of
human rights in China, insisting on living
a life of “honesty, responsibility, and dig-
nity.” China’s most prominent political
prisoner died July 13 of liver cancer at age
61.
His death — at a hospital in the
country’s northeast, where he’d been
transferred after being diagnosed —
triggered an outpouring of dismay among
his friends and supporters, who lauded his
courage and determination.
“There are only two words to describe
how we feel right now: grief and fury,”
family friend and activist Wu Yangwei,
better known by his penname Ye Du, said
by phone. “The only way we can grieve for
Xiaobo and bring his soul some comfort is
to work even harder to try to keep his
influence alive.”
The 1989 pro-democracy protests cen-
tered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, by
Liu’s account, were the “major turning
point” of his life. Liu had been a visiting
DISSIDENT DIES. In this image taken from
July 24, 2008 video footage by AP Video, Liu Xiaobo
speaks during an interview at a park in Beijing, China.
Liu, China’s most prominent political prisoner, died
July 13 of liver cancer at age 61. (AP Video via AP)
scholar at Columbia University in New
York but returned early to China in May
1989 to join the movement that was
sweeping the country and which the
Communist Party regarded as a grave
challenge to its authority.
When the government sent troops and
tanks into Beijing to quash the protests on
the nights of June 3 and 4, Liu persuaded
Continued on page 13
in September and come into force when 50
countries have ratified it, she said, and its
language leaves the door open for nuclear
weapon states to become parties to the
agreement.
The treaty requires of all ratifying
countries “never under any circumstances
to develop, test, produce, manufacture,
otherwise acquire, possess, or stockpile
nuclear weapons or other nuclear
explosive devices.”
It also bans any transfer or use of
nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive
devices — and the threat to use such
weapons.
Iran, which signed an agreement with
six major powers in 2015 to rein in its
nuclear program, was among the countries
that voted for the treaty.
Other countries that voted in favor
include Sweden, Switzerland, Austria,
Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, Iraq, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and the
DISARMAMENT DIPLOMACY. Costa Rican
ambassador Elayne Whyte Gomez, standing, president
of the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Le-
gally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons,
reacts after a vote by the conference to adopt a legally
binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, hope-
fully leading to their total elimination, at United Nations
headquarters. More than 120 countries approved the
first-ever treaty banning nuclear weapons at a U.N.
meeting boycotted by all nuclear-armed nations.
(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Philippines.
Rebecca Johnson of the London-based
Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy,
who spent the past decade helping to
develop strategy for a treaty, called the
vote “the first step to prevent a handful of
militaries holding the world hostage with
their nuclear arsenals.”
“We will use (the ban) to stop further
nukes being made, used, or deployed,” she
said.
North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic
missile tests, including its July 4 launch,
have become a timely argument for
proponents and opponents of the treaty to
ban atomic weapons.
Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the
International Campaign to Abolish
Nuclear Weapons, said 15,000 nuclear
weapons around the world have not
deterred Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions
and a new approach is needed, starting
with prohibition as a first step.
U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley said on
March 27 when talks began on the treaty
that “there is nothing I want more for my
family than a world with no nuclear
weapons, but we have to be realistic.”
She asked whether anyone thought
North Korea would give up its nuclear
weapons, arguing that Pyongyang would
be “cheering” a nuclear ban treaty and
Americans and others would be at risk.