Unfold Zero Newsletter - Invitation to endorse Nuclear Taboo: From Norm to Law - a Declaration of Public Conscience

Posted: 18th April 2023

UNFOLD ZERO Newsletter

We extend an invitation from NoFirstUse Global for you to endorse Nuclear Taboo: From norm to law, a Declaration of Public Conscience. 

The Declaration was released last week in follow-up to the G20 Bali Summit Leaders statement that “the threat or use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.” It calls on nuclear armed and allied states to implement this agreement by adopting policies and practices to never initiate nuclear war, and to enshrine this as a legal obligation.
 Endorse “Nuclear Taboo: From Norm to Law”

The Bali Statement

On November 17, 2022, the G20 Leaders meeting in Bali (including leaders or foreign ministers of China, France, India, Russia, UK and USA) surprised the world by agreeing that “The threat of use or use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible,” and including this agreement in the G20 Bali Leaders Statement.

This agreement arose from concerns on all sides about the potential for the Russia/Ukraine war to escalate into a nuclear war between Russia and the West. It indicates a possible breakthrough in consolidating a general norm against the use of nuclear weapons that is now accepted, at least on paper, by the main nuclear weapon states.

However, it is uncertain how solid is this norm, whether or not it will be re-affirmed in the upcoming G7 Summit in Hiroshima (May 19-21) and the G20 Summit in Delhi (September 9-10), and whether or not it will have any real impact on policies and practices of the nuclear-armed states, including nuclear-first-use options.

In order to consolidate the norm of non-use of nuclear weapons, and help shift this to accepted law, NoFirstUse Global invites you to endorse Nuclear Taboo: From Norm to Law – a Declaration of Public Conscience, and will use the endorsed Declaration in key advocacy.

The Declaration of Public Conscience.

This Declaration of Public Conscience (also available in French and Italian) calls on the United Nations, through decisions of its Security Council and General Assembly, to enshrine the inadmissibility of threat or use of nuclear weapons as a Dictate of International Law, and to require all member states to comply fully, by ensuring their security policies and practices rule-out the initiation of nuclear war including any first-use of nuclear weapons.

A Dictate of Public Conscience is an application of humanity and law to weapons systems, the use of which would violate the principles of international humanitarian law even if such weapons systems are not subject to a universal and comprehensive abolition treaty/agreement.

The concept is included in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, as proposed by Fedor Fedorovich (Friedrich) Martens, a Russian jurist and diplomat, and supported by Czar Nicholas II, the Leader of Russia who initiated the first Hague Peace Conference. It is commonly known as the Martens Clause. 

Uses of the Dictates of Public Conscience

This concept of Dictates of Public Conscience was utilised in the 1996 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. Civil society campaigners presented to the Court over 4 million Declarations of Conscience condemning nuclear weapons. In its decision that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal, the Court referred to the dictates of public conscience.

NoFirstUse Global will use Nuclear Taboo: From Norm to Law Declaration of Public Conscience in advocacy to the G7 and G20 Summits as well as to the UN General Assembly and the UN Summit of the Future.Yours sincerely
UNFOLD ZERO