Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 68, December 2002 - January 2003

News Review

Carter, Butler Condemn Nuclear-Weapon State Double Standards

Speaking on CNN on November 16, former American President Jimmy Carter criticised the attitude of the nuclear-weapon states in general, and the United States in particular, towards issues of non-proliferation and disarmament. According to Carter, due to receive this year's Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on December 10: "One of the things that the United States has not done is try to comply with and enforce international efforts targeted to prohibit the arsenals of biological weapons that we ourselves have...[or to] enforce the agreement to eliminate chemical weapons, and the same way with nuclear weapons. ... The major powers need to set an example... Quite often the big countries that are responsible for the peace of the world set a very poor example for those who might hunger for the esteem or the power or the threats that they can develop from nuclear weapons themselves... I don't have any doubt that it's that kind of atmosphere that has led to the nuclearisation, you might say, of India and Pakistan..."

The same critique was expressed in sharper terms in late September by Richard Butler, former Australian Ambassador to the UN, Executive Chair of the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) from 1997-99, and Chair of the 1996 Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Delivering the Templeton Lecture at the University of Sydney on September 19, Butler dwelt on what the called the "axiom of proliferation", which "asserts that as long as any state possesses nuclear weapons others will seek to acquire them." "The basic reason for this," he argued, "is that justice, which most human beings interpret essentially as fairness, is demonstrably a concept of the deepest importance to people all over the world. Relating this to the axiom of proliferation, it is manifestly the case that the attempts over the years of those who own nuclear weapons to assert that their security justifies having those nuclear weapons while the security of others does not, has been an abject failure." The lecture continued:

"I have worked on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty all my adult life, that is, since its inception [in 1968]. I have discussed the efforts to restrain the spread of nuclear weapons in the four corners of this globe - from Beijing to Bombay, from Moscow to Baghdad. The problem of nuclear weapon have and have nots is the central, perennial one. Amongst my toughest moments in Baghdad were when the Iraqis demanded that I explain why they should be hounded for their weapons of mass destruction when, just down the road, Israel was not, even though it was known to possess some 200 nuclear weapons. I confess, too, that I flinch when I hear American, British, and French fulminations against weapons of mass destruction, ignoring the fact that they are the proud owners of massive quantities of those weapons, unapologetically insisting that they are essential for their national security, and will remain so."

Butler concluded: "The principle I would derive from this is that manifest unfairness, double standards, no matter what power would appear at a given moment to support them, produces a situation that is deeply, inherently, unstable. This is because human beings will not swallow such unfairness. This principle is as certain as the basic laws of physics itself."

Speaking during a seminar at the University on September 21, Butler lamented: "My attempts to have the Americans enter into discussions about double standards have been an abject failure - even with highly educated and engaged people. I sometimes felt I was speaking to them in Martian, so deep is their inability to understand. What Americans totally fail to understand is that their weapons of mass destruction are just as much a problem as are those of Iraq. ... I fear as a consequence of September 11 we are going to see double standards take a whole new flight..."

Reports: 'Science, Weapons, Politics - the Ethics, the Hard Choices', The Templeton Lecture 2002, University of Sydney (http://www.usyd.edu.au), September 19; 'American ideas fuelled by Hollywood' - Butler, University of Sydney Newsletter, September 27; Butler accuses US of nuclear hypocrisy, Sydney Morning Herald, October 3; Ex-US President Jimmy Carter slams 'arrogant' US foreign policy, Agence France Presse, November 16.

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© 2002 The Acronym Institute.