THE Labour Government has dismissed an international treaty looking to ban nuclear weapons – claiming it cannot achieve that goal.
The statement comes after experts attending the UN summit on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in New York suggested that the UK Government was failing to uphold its commitments made in a separate international treaty.
The UK is signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which obliges states to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures” towards complete nuclear disarmament.
However, the Labour Government has flatly refused to engage with the third meeting of states parties to the TPNW, which is taking place this week.
Asked if this refusal meant the UK Government was failing to live up to its obligations under the NPT, Grethe Ostern – the editor of Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor editor – and Hans Kristensen – the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists – both said that it did.
Responding to the comments, which came at the launch of an authoritative new report on the status of every nuclear-armed nation’s weapon stockpiles, the UK Government dismissed the idea that the TPNW could achieve its goal.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We remain committed to our obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to pursue negotiations on effective measures relating to nuclear disarmament, and to achieving a world without nuclear weapons in a transparent, verifiable, and irreversible manner, with undiminished security for all, which is something we don’t think is achievable via the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”
Scottish CND co-vice chair Janet Fenton pointed in response to a 2021 legal opinion from leading international law experts Professor Christine Chinkin and Dr Louise Arimatsu.
The pair assessed whether the UK Government was in breach of the NPT at a time when Boris Johnson was talking about increasing the Trident nuclear stockpile.
They noted that both the International Court of Justice and its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice, had “on many occasions stated that good faith with respect to negotiations requires states ‘not only to enter into negotiations, but also to pursue them as far as possible, with a view to concluding agreements’.”
