Nuclear weapons and climate change policies challenged in the UN Human Rights Council

Posted: 7th April 2023

Canada, Germany and Russia up for Review

Nuclear weapons policies and actions of Russia have been challenged in the United Nations Human Rights Council this week as being in violation of international law, especially human rights law.

The challenges have been made in a report submitted yesterday to the Human Rights Council by the World Future Council (co-founder of UNFOLD ZERO), in cooperation with other civil society organizations, as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the obligations of Russia under international human rights law including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Despite being suspended from the Human Rights Council in response to their invasion of Ukraine, the Council review of Russia’s human rights obligations will proceed along with reviews of 13 other countries (Azerbaijan Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cuba, Djibouti, Germany, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu and Uzbekistan).

World Future Council and the other project partners also submitted reports to the Human Rights Council challenging nuclear weapons and climate policies of Germany and Canada. The submissions come just one week after the UN General Assembly decided to take the critical issue of climate change to the International Court of Justice.

Nuclear weapons policies

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko watch a test launch of a nuclear capable missile by video-conference from the Kremlin situation room in February 2022. On March 25, 2023, Russia announced an agreement to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus. Russia has made a number of specific nuclear threats to the USA and NATO countries over the past year in conjunction with their invasion of Ukraine. (12 of these threat announcements/actions are noted in the submission on Russia).

However, the submissions note that the nuclear weapons policies of all three states(Russia, Canada and Germany) are in violation of the Right to Life (Article 6 of the ICCPR) as interpreted by the UN Human Rights Committee in General Comment 36, and that they are also in violation of international humanitarian law (IHL) and laws of peace and security (most notably UN Charter Article 2) as affirmed by the International Court of Justice in 1996.

The submissions make a number of recommendations of policy actions that Russia, Canada and Germany could take to implement their obligations under international law, including:

• Joining with other G20 countries to consolidate the G20 Bali Leaders declaration - that ‘the threat or use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible”- through a joint UN Security Council and/or UN General Assembly resolution;
• Adopting no-first-use policies;
• Cancelling nuclear sharing arrangements i.e. USA’s nuclear sharing arrangements with NATO countries including Germany, and Russia’s recently announced nuclear sharing arrangement with Belarus;
• Ending public investments in the nuclear weapons industry;
• Engaging in multilateral negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention or package of agreements for the global prohibition and phased elimination of nuclear weapons;
• Advancing a commitment by all nuclear armed and allied states to achieve the global elimination of nuclear weapons no later than 2045, the 100th anniversary of the United Nations (a key call from the global Appeal for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World).

 

Nuclear testing

The submission on Russia also highlights the severe trans-generational impact of the Soviet nuclear tests in Kazakhstan on the health of populations in the East and North-East regions of Kazakhstan. It calls on Russia to “initiate a joint review, with Kazakhstan and impacted communities, of the trans-generational health, environmental and economic impacts of the USSR nuclear tests in Kazakhstan, and develop a fair compensation plan for those impacted.”

(For personal stories on the impact of nuclear tests in Kazakhstan see the ATOM Project andNuclear Collateral Damage: Conversations with Survivors and Experts). Berik Syzdykov, playing the piano in his apartment in Semypalatinsk, Kazakhstan. Berik was born deformed and without eyes due to radiation exposure from Soviet nuclear testing. 

Climate change policies

The world is on fire. Governments are not doing enough to prevent us from sliding into a climate collapse which threatens the survival of global ecosystems and civilization as we know it.

The Canada and German submissions to the Human Rights Council note that these two countries contribute disproportionately excessive amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere and are not doing enough to reverse this. Canada contributes five times the per capita amount of carbon emissions compared with the global average. Germany contributes twice the per capita amount compared with the global average. And the global average is heading the planet headlong into disaster!

The submissions call on Canada and Germany to:

• Participate in the proceedings of the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the obligations of States in respect of climate change and prepare to implement the decision that will be rendered by the Court.
• Join the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance and implement the Alliance commitment to end new concessions, licensing or leasing rounds for oil and gas production and exploration and to set a Paris-aligned date for ending oil and gas production and exploration on the territory over which they have jurisdiction.
• Support the negotiation and adoption of a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty;
• Support the UN Secretary-General’s proposal for re-purposing the UN Trusteeship Council to provide global governance for the global commons – including the atmosphere – in order to better facilitate global implementation of obligations to protect the climate. This proposal could be discussed and adopted at the UN Summit of the Future

Organizations co-sponsoring the Submissions

• Russia: Aotearoa Lawyers for Peace, Basel Peace Office, World Future Council and Youth Fusion
• Germany: Aotearoa Lawyers for Peace, Basel Peace Office, World Future Council and Youth Fusion
• Canada: Aotearoa Lawyers for Peace, Basel Peace Office, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, ClimateFast, Religions for Peace Canada, Rideau Institute, Science for Peace, World Federalist Movement Canada, World Future Council and Youth Fusion

Yours sincerely
UNFOLD ZERO