Disarmament Diplomacy

Opinion & Analysis

People's Disarmament

By Angie Zelter

Over 30 years ago, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force with express intent of bringing about a nuclear-weapon-free world. The UK, US and Soviet Union, the Treaty's depositary states, assumed the responsibility of negotiating in good faith the complete elimination of their nuclear arsenals; in 1992, France and China joined the Treaty, pledging to honour the same commitment. In 1996, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) strengthened this legal obligation.¹ On May 20, 2000, all NPT member states, including the UK, agreed to a Programme of Action on Nuclear Disarmament which committed them to an 'unequivocal undertaking ... to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals ...'²

Despite these agreements and assurances by the nuclear-weapon states, in the UK today research is continuing into the successors to the Trident nuclear weapons system, the government appears prepared to back the US in its Star Wars and National Missile Defence systems both politically and by allowing the development of military sites in Britain, and a policy of nuclear 'deterrence' is strictly adhered to and championed. Given this shameful situation, many people in Britain, as in other countries, have realised that if they want nuclear disarmament then they, the people, have to take on the responsibility themselves. This is why Trident Ploughshares - a coalition of anti-nuclear citizen groups - are attempting to dismantle the UK's nuclear weapon system, calling its activities 'People's Disarmament'.

To take just one, highly controversial, example of People's Disarmament, let us examine the Loch Goil Trial. On June 8, 1999, three Trident Ploughshares activists - or 'Pledgers' - boarded the floating research laboratory Maytime moored in Loch Goil, Scotland, threw equipment worth several hundred thousand pounds into the loch, smashed the model submarine controls and cut electricity supplies. The lab is vital to the deployment of the UK's nuclear weapons as it researches, tests and maintains the ability of Trident submarines to remain undetected underwater whilst on patrol. From the outset of the case, the women involved openly admitted that they had purposely destroyed the equipment. Their defence was that they were engaged in crime prevention through the disarmament of illegal weapons of mass destruction. No evidence was called by the prosecution to rebut this argument as it wanted the trial to be seen as a simple case of vandalism or, at the worst, of politically motivated criminal damage.

The women had thoroughly prepared themselves, however, and, with the help of five eminent expert witnesses, presented a detailed and well-researched defence based on international law. After a four week trial at Greenock Sheriff's Court, Sheriff Margaret Gimblett allowed that the Trident Ploughshares view is a reasonable one and arguable in a court of law. She also ruled that there was no criminal intent in the defendants' action because it was based on a sincere belief that they were acting against a continuing criminal conspiracy to contravene international humanitarian law. She acquitted them.

The acquittal, on October 21, 1999, caused such a political and legal furore that it led to the Lord Advocate asking the Scottish High Court to examine some of the legal issues around Trident in an attempt to prevent other judges from following Sheriff Gimblett's precedent in the future. This rare procedure, called a Lord Advocate's Reference (LAR), was eventually heard in October and November 2000.³ The nine days in the High Court in Edinburgh involved detailed submissions on the specifics of Trident and international law⁴ - something the state and the courts would really rather have avoided. This was also the first time an ordinary citizen had addressed the Law Lords directly in a LAR - Angie Zelter refusing to be legally represented - and she was able to make sure that the criminality of Trident and the necessity for People's Disarmament was put clearly in ordinary language.

The Opinion of the High Court was released on March 30, 2001. It was appalling. The Scottish legal system had been presented with an historic opportunity to back the rule of law and to show its independence from the executive. Instead - as explored in detail by Charles Moxley in this edition of Disarmament Diplomacy - the Court chose to back state-terrorism posing as self-defence. Trident Ploughshares regard the LAR Opinion as a perverse opinion against the people's interests. Their justified anger and disappointment at the Scottish legal system backing threats to commit mass murder has turned into an even fiercer determination to continue with People's Disarmament. Within a few days, they staged the first-ever banner drop in the new Scottish Parliament, demanding a fully informed public debate on Trident. A few days after that, hundreds were back for a demonstration at Trident's home base - Faslane, on the River Clyde - where they re-committed themselves to further disarmament actions and started dismantling the fence. There were 16 further arrests.

The basic case of Trident Ploughshares is finding increasing support among the Scottish population. A recent poll⁵ showed that 51% of those questioned in Scotland supported the blockade of Faslane on February 12, 2001. On May 23, the Church of Scotland debated Trident and re-affirmed "the sustained opposition of the Church to the possession, deployment and threatened use of nuclear weapons, call once more on HM Government to abandon the Trident Programme now, and encourage all those who, on conscientious grounds, seek to express their personal opposition to Trident through peaceful and non-violent means"⁶. When asked to vote on amending this resolution by adding the word 'lawful' into the last phrase, the delegates refused, showing their appreciation of the validity of 'breaking the law' to oppose Trident.

Scarcely a day now goes by without some discussion in the Scottish press as to how and why Trident should be removed from the country. This unprecedented interest is due partly to the political space that has been opened up by the new Scottish Parliament. The fact that 'defence' is an issue 'reserved' to Westminster is not holding the Scots back. All the UK's nuclear forces are based at Faslane, just a few miles away from Glasgow. It is there, that the four Trident submarines (Vanguard, Vigilant, Victorious and Vengeance) are based, each capable of being equipped with 48 100-kiloton warheads - that is, 192 independently-targetable nuclear bombs, each 8 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. The considered, open, accountable and non-violent disarmament actions of the Trident Ploughshares Pledgers have provided the public with a steady stream of actions upon which to keep the debate and protest focussed. Trident Ploughshares have sent out a clear message that in their opinion the use of even one of these warheads would be criminal, self-evidently incompatible with international humanitarian law. And when any envisaged use of force is unlawful, then any stated readiness to use such force is also a prohibited threat. The UK Trident system is deployed under a policy of 'stated readiness to use' - that is what a 'credible minimum deterrence' means.⁷

It is useful to recall the brief history of Trident Ploughshares, in order to understand the basis upon which the Scottish population are mobilising so effectively. In March 1998, the campaign issued a direct challenge to Prime Minister Tony Blair⁸ to implement international law by disarming all British nuclear weapons; otherwise, they declared, their members would do it. The campaign then organised people to make a personal pledge to disarm the nuclear weapon system and a commitment to continue with this task until the government takes over the work and fulfils its promise of complete nuclear disarmament.

The Trident Ploughshares activists have chosen various kinds of disarmament actions including blockades, fence-cutting, swimming onto the submarines and destroying equipment, dismantling a research lab, disabling military vehicles, painting War Crime Warnings on military equipment, and handing out leaflets to military base workers urging them to 'Refuse to be a War Criminal'. The majority of the disarmament actions have caused minimal damage and maximum court-clogging disruption. There have also been at least nine attempts at substantial disarmament damage in the last 18 months, with three groups managing to complete their actions causing hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage and delaying the operation of Trident-related equipment. The last two of these actions saw two campaigners cut through security fencing and disarm one of the nuclear convoy vehicles held at Wittering (November 2000), and another (April 2001) swim through the high security military berth at Faslane, up to two Trident submarines and paint 'Useless' on the side of Vanguard. We call all of this damage 'disarmament' and 'nuclear crime prevention'.

The majority of disarmament actions, however, involve people taking part in blockades and fence cutting at Faslane. The most recent blockade in February involved over a thousand people. There were 385 arrests, including those of three Parliamentarians, over 30 Scottish Church Ministers and a respected senior Scottish criminal lawyer.⁹ They were all arrested for 'breach of the peace'. This kind of involvement, along with that of well-known authors, actors, and many hundreds of individuals, shows a wide spectrum of support which prevents the campaign from being easily marginalised, has engendered a fierce political debate about the legality and morality of nuclear weapons in Scotland, and is overwhelming the court system.

Each trial is important because it confronts the state and the legal system where they are most vulnerable - on a major law and order issue. This is why the campaign is creating such significant political and legal waves. Traditionally the law has been used against the 'people' rather than the 'state' - predominantly against the poor and disadvantaged. Yet now, the people are using the law to openly challenge the fundamental basis and legitimacy of a major aspect of the role of the Armed Forces, one of the pillars of state power.

Such a challenge has, of course, been mounted time and time again over the last 55 years of anti-nuclear campaigning. Nuclear weapons have always been illegal; as far back as the 1960s, the Shimoda case in Tokyo¹⁰ showed that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were war crimes. However, few citizens' campaigns have used the law in such a clear, pointed and consistent manner as Trident Ploughshares, which has based its whole strategy on using international law to de-legitimise nuclear weapons and legitimise their own protest. They have done this in a highly public and confrontational manner, consistently emphasising moral arguments and the crucial linkages between morality and law.

The core of the argument is very straightforward: nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction and thus cannot be used with any precision or any pretence at righting any wrong. Their use would constitute mass murder on a catastrophic scale with the potential for escalation to the use of thousands of nuclear weapons, a disaster with the potential to end all life on earth. Law is based upon morality and is respected in so far, and only in so far, as it conforms to common human morality. Governments, soldiers and armed forces gain their legitimacy and power from the law and thus the law is of immense importance to them. The only thing that distinguishes a soldier from a common murderer is that he has been given legal permission to do certain kinds of killing on behalf of society. This legalised killing is carefully controlled by laws - the most important of which are international humanitarian laws outlawing indiscriminate mass murder.

Trident Ploughshares' dedication to peaceful acts of practical disarmament is based on this corpus of international law and the basic human right to life. People from many different nations have come together as 'global citizens' (currently, 181 individuals, from 15 countries, have Pledged to Prevent Nuclear Crime) and begin the task of peacefully dismantling the nuclear system.

Having citizens from other countries joining in the disarmament work, appearing in the courts and spending time in UK prisons, has been much harder for the authorities to deal with. The government and the Courts like to pretend that British nuclear weapons are purely a British affair - a position obviously untenable when foreigners appear in court to explain why they, as 'global citizens', feel threatened by Britain and why they have pledged to peacefully disarm British Trident.

Process is an important component of protest: Trident Ploughshares make sure that their plans, motivations and organisational structures are open to the public, the government and military. They have a freely-accessible website which contains all their materials. They work in this safe, open and accountable manner because they want their methods for opposing Trident to be consistent with their vision of what they would like to see in its place. They see their methods and activity as part of a process of serious and far-reaching conflict resolution. They do not want to have to do this work but hope to eventually persuade their state to do it for them. Therefore, they keep the state fully briefed and keep open to dialogue and negotiation. In the longer term, they see their method of disarmament as being an experiment in forming sustainable networks of 'non-violent resistance to oppression' and hope that these will eventually replace military force all over the globe.

Of course, the UK government and its institutions do not see it this way. Since Trident Ploughshares began its actions in August 1998, there have been over 1,280 arrests, mainly at the blockades and disarmament camps at Coulport and Faslane. Over 115 trials have been completed, and over 1,240 days have been spent in prison, not including days spent in police custody. The vast bulk of the fines so far imposed remain unpaid as a matter of principle.

This practical people's disarmament campaign has led to some spectacular actions that are challenging the whole legal system. To take just one example: in February 1999, two women swam into the docks at Barrow, where the Trident submarines were built and are serviced, climbed aboard Vengeance and dismantled testing equipment on the conning tower. This action delayed, by several months, the departure of Vengeance to the US to collect its missiles. The case has been before a jury two times - the women were acquitted on one charge while the jury was hung on the other, which will now go to a third re-trial this autumn. To date, Trident Ploughshares have won three out of four jury trials¹¹, a much higher acquittal rate than at the lower levels, showing that ordinary people sitting as a jury have a much clearer sense of right and wrong than judges.

The people who are engaged in practical nuclear disarmament are bringing a breath of fresh air into antiquated domestic legal systems, bluntly naming nuclear weapons as terroristic murder machines. No legal system is worthy of respect if it refuses to outlaw state-blackmail and mass destruction. The district court at Helensburgh, the court where the vast majority of Trident Ploughshares cases are heard, is the scene of an inspiring historical people's confrontation with the evil of a nuclear-weapon state as 'global citizens' attempt to reclaim their power and transform it into processes capable of enhancing fundamental human morality.

People's Disarmament is only just getting into its stride and will continue to attempt to reclaim the law for the people. A further two-week disarmament camp is planned at Coulport and Faslane for August this year and another mass blockade has been called for October 22.

Notes and References

1. Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, International Court of Justice, General List No. 95, July 8th 1996, para 105(2F).

2. Final Document issued by 2000 NPT Review Conference, May 20th 2000, p.19.

3. Lord Advocate's Reference No. 1, 2000.

4. LAR submissions and Court Records, in Legal Section of TP website - http://www.tridentploughshares.org.

5. Poll of 977 adults on nuclear weapons issues conducted between February 22 and March 4 2001 by NFO System Three on behalf of Scottish CND. Only 24% of those questioned in the poll were opposed to the action.

6. Report of the Committee on Church and Nation made to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, May 23, 2001.

7. 'Putting Nuclear Weapons on Trial', Angie Zelter, Disarmament Diplomacy No. 42 (December 1999), p.3.

8. Open Letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair, March 18, 1998 - published in 3rd Edition of 'Tri-Denting It' Handbook (2001).

9. The three parliamentarians arrested were George Galloway, a Labour Member of Parliament (MP), Tommy Sheridan, a Scottish Socialist Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP), and Dr. Caroline Lucas, a Green Member of the European Parliament (MEP). The Advocate was Ian Hamilton Q.C. The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for 2000/2001 was The Very Rev Andrew MacLellan.

10. Ryuichi Shimoda et al vs. The State, Tokyo, December 1963. This landmark case is the only case ever brought by victims of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was brought against Japan, rather than the US, because Japan had waived all its claims and any claims of its nationals against the Allied Powers and any of their nationals for any actions taken because of the war, as part of the Japanese Peace Treaty. This meant that the victims of the atomic bombings had to take proceedings against their own government. This case showed that the bombings were illegal acts in violation of international law and, although the plaintiffs lost the case due to complex arguments denying individuals rights to claim compensation in such circumstances, nevertheless the legal case against nuclear weapons was established. On page 242, for instance, it is admitted that the 'act of dropping such a cruel bomb is contrary to the fundamental principles of the laws of war that unnecessary pain not be given.'

11. Acquittals at Greenock Sheriff Court, October 1999; Manchester Crown Court, September 2000; Manchester Crown Court, January 2001. Conviction at Chelmsford Crown Court, May 2001.

Angie Zelter, anti-nuclear campaigner and writer, is author of 'Trident on Trial', published by Luath Press Ltd, 543/2 Castlehill, The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, EH1 2ND, Scotland at £9.99.