Thakur, Ramesh: The nuclear refuseniks: how the recent nuclear vote put Australia on the wrong side of history

Thakur, Ramesh

The nuclear refuseniks: how the recent nuclear vote put Australia, Japan, and South Korea on the wrong side of history, geography, and humanity‘, Policy Forum, 4 November 2016 updated

Update 16 November 2016: more on this subject in The Conversation; from Tilman Ruff.

An analysis of the recent United Nations vote calling for negotiations on a ‘legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination’. The next step is to be two meetings in New York next year.

This [says Professor Thakur] is the most significant multilateral development on nuclear arms control since the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1995 and the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996. It aims to fulfil the dream of a world freed at last of the existence of nuclear weapons that constitute an existential threat to humanity.

The vote in favour of the resolution was 123-38 with 16 abstentions.

Australia, Japan and South Korea voted [against the resolution] in solidarity with their US nuclear protector and against the overwhelming global tide of opinion and also against the dominant sentiment of their Asian and Pacific neighbours. They have therefore placed themselves on the wrong side of history, geography and humanity.

Professor Thakur dismisses arguments against the resolution as delaying tactics and ‘sophistry’.

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