The International Peace Bureau (IPB) participated in the Action Days and the Summit of the Future held in New York from September 20 to 23. During this pivotal event, we engaged in various activities and organized two significant events, one of which was an official offsite side event featured on the Action Days calendar.
Our official offsite side event “Reversing the Doomsday Clock: Nuclear Disarmament and the Need for a Fourth Special Session on Disarmament” aimed to advocate for a nuclear-weapon-free world and stronger disarmament commitments, calling for the convening of a Fourth Special Session on Disarmament (SSOD-IV). It took place in the beautiful and warmly welcoming Church of the Covenant on the afternoon of Saturday, September 21.
The event was co-sponsored by the Republic of Kiribati, International Peace Bureau (IPB), SCRAP Weapons (SOAS University of London), Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), Parliament of the World’s Religions, Agora Mexico and was supported by many other partners like Reverse the Trend (RTT), Justice for All, Agora Mexico, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung NY (RLSNY), the Episcopal Church, NGO Committee on Human Rights to the UN, NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace, and Security, and Committee of Religious NGOs to the UN.
This gathering aimed to unite diverse stakeholders, including member states, civil society representatives, and experts in disarmament, to address the urgent need for a Fourth Special Session on Disarmament (SSOD-IV). As the UN Secretary-General stated, the Summit of the Future and its accompanying Pact for the Future offer a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” for member states and multistakeholders to come together and drive substantial global action.
Peter Becker, a renowned German lawyer and tireless advocate for peace and disarmament, passed away in 2024. Best known for his anti-nuclear work, the International Peace Bureau awarded him the 2011 Sean MacBride Peace Prize.
Becker’s legal career spanned over four decades, during which he became a leading authority in administrative and energy law. He successfully represented over a thousand students in numerous cases. He played a key role in energy law after German reunification, helping establish Becker Büttner Held (BBH), Germany’s top energy law firm.
In his peace work, Becker challenged the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in Germany, representing cases aimed at stopping nuclear activities in Büchel and Ramstein. Though the cases were dismissed, his efforts sparked significant public awareness.
Peter Becker’s legacy as a peace advocate and legal pioneer will continue to inspire.
Peace and climate movements are taking action together in the first Global Week of Action for Peace and Climate Justice to highlight the connections between their causes.
The week runs from 21-28 September, with more than 50 events planned across five continents, in countries including Australia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Germany, Malawi, Mexico, India, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the USA, as well as many online.
The week of action aims to raise awareness of the links between war, militarism, and climate injustice, such as the following:
The world’s wealthiest countries have repeatedly failed to provide $100bn in promised climate finance to help countries adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate breakdown. Meanwhile, in 2023 global military spending increased for the ninth year running to $2443bn.
Experts estimate that the world’s militaries are responsible for 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. If the world’s militaries were a country, they would have the fourth largest carbon footprint: higher than that of Russia. But militaries are excluded from current climate agreements, so face no accountability for their pollution.
The week also aims to build bridges between peace and climate justice movements, and to build momentum behind the demand to ‘divest from war – invest in climate justice!’
In New York City, there will be events to coincide with the UN Summit of the Future. The Japan-based international NGO Peace Boat will carry out workshops and actions in Tokyo and in the Atlantic Ocean as part of its global voyage for peace. In Mexico, students will create a list of demands directed to the Mexican Congress, asking them to divest funds from the armed forces and reinvest them in environmental public policies. In the UK, vigils will be held in London, Taunton and Bath.
You can sign the call and find the original call in Spanish here.
This September 21, we join in and commemorate the International Day of Peace, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1981.
On this day, which holds great significance for humanity, we call on the governments of our continent:
To put an end to the arms race and military spending. Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Ecuador are the countries with the highest military spending in Latin America. We need money for life— to build schools, hospitals, and meet other urgent needs, not for death.
To end police violence, which continues in many of our countries where there is no real oversight of police actions, impunity prevails, and there are no genuine efforts to ensure police training and actions are in accordance with respect for human rights.
To stop military exercises with the U.S. Southern Command, as well as military and police training for Latin American troops at the School of the Americas, now renamed WHINSEC, or at any other U.S. military academy where violence and war are still promoted as ways to resolve conflicts.
To close and withdraw all U.S. and NATO military bases in Latin America, including U.S. military bases imposed in Guantánamo, Cuba; Soto Cano in Honduras; the bases in Colombia; NAMRU-6 in Peru; in the Malvinas Islands, controlled by the United Kingdom in Argentina; and others. Out of Latin America! Return home, we want peace.
To demand that the U.S., NATO, and all countries end the arms race and war. It is time for the U.S. and NATO, in particular, to end the wars and stop sending weapons to Israel, Ukraine, and other places. It is time for them to act responsibly and make efforts to achieve peace negotiations between Palestine and Israel, and between Russia and Ukraine.
Finally, we call on our governments to lead efforts to advance global disarmament, diplomacy, respect for the self-determination of peoples, the end of unilateral sanctions, and to work toward building a world of peace, solidarity, and social justice.
Let the guns fall silent, end all wars, we want peace!
Read the heartwarming speech by Olga Karatch, Our House during the Martin Luther King anniversary in Berlin on September 13.
In her speech, Olga shared the real stories of struggle and solidarity among human rights activists, political prisoners, conscientious objectors, and their families in Belarus.
Today, more than ever, we need to support Belarusian and Russian conscientious objectors—men who refuse to take up arms and support Vladimir Putin in his war against Ukraine. This is the simplest thing we can do—to help our men avoid fighting in this war. This means fewer Ukrainian casualties and a quicker end to the war. Because even with the most modern technology, Putin and Lukashenko cannot fight if they don’t have soldiers. Let’s work together to ensure they don’t have soldiers.
A new joint publication by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the International Peace Bureau (IPB) and the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) is designed to provide parliamentarians around the world with a toolkit for prioritizing human security and common security as opposed to militarized state security.
With every passing month, our world becomes more violent and dangerous. After a decline in the 1990s and early 2000s, the number of conflicts around the world has been growing – and no region has been left untouched. These conflicts often involve multiple parties and are increasingly fuelled by transnational criminal activity. Some have been going on for decades and some remain unaddressed by the international community. Their cost is immense, however, and it is usually civilians who pay the heaviest price.
The future hardly looks encouraging. Disinformation, social media and artificial intelligence (AI) are spreading hate, division and mistrust. AI-powered weapons are making it easier than ever to kill, while cyberattacks on critical infrastructure are also taking their toll. Meanwhile, nuclear disarmament has come to a grinding halt and global tensions are distracting our leaders from the urgent – and sometimes existential – challenges that face us: climate change, pandemics, hunger and much, much more. We need multilateral collaboration to address and fix these challenges. But conflicts take us in the opposite direction.
Two alternative approaches offer new possibilities to get us all back on track. The first is human security, which is about engaging with and representing people, and implies contextualized and tailored legislation rooted in several dimensions relating to the well-being of the individual. The second is common security, which takes the principles of human security to a larger scale and enshrines the idea that dialogue, multilateralism and collaboration are key to any attempt to solve a problem.
This article was first published in Economic&Political Weekly (Vol. 59, Issue No. 30, 27 Jul, 2024), then IDN-InDepthNews, and is being republished with the author‘s permission.
NEW DELHI | 2 August 2024 (IDN) — The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of 32 Western countries has formally declared its security interests to be global, despite its title and founding mandate as a transatlantic security alliance. The 75th anniversary summit held in Washington (10 July) conceptualised its security as a “360-degree approach”, indispensable and essential. The reason to extend its operations are because the threats to NATO are “global and interconnected”. (1) It is the instrument for the “rules-based order” which NATO demarcates from international law. NATO signals that it will operationalise its strategic reach globally anywhere any time and will likely be intolerant and indifferent to the security needs of those outside this exclusive club.
26.08.24 – Ukraine – Mauro Carlo Zanella | Pressenza International Press Agency
Changing the Narratives of War: An article based on Yurii Sheliazenko’s interview to read.
People should not be defined by wars they waged, wage or expect to wage. People must define their identity with collective imagination, knowledge, art, joy and happiness of togetherness and openness to embrace anyone and anything in this wonderful and good Universe. When we will walk in the light, not in the darkness, we will be brothers and sisters, equal and creative, not destructive. For that end, a great work of enlightenment must be done.
The International People’s Tribunal on the Responsibility of the U.S.A. for the 1945 Atomic Bombings and for Ensuring Redress (Apology) to the Korean Victims
On August 6, 2024, The International People’s Tribunal on the Responsibility of the U.S.A. for the 1945 Atomic Bombings and for Ensuring Redress to the Korean Victims announced the members of the Legal Review Team which will be leading a Tribunal seeking the following:
1. A legal decision as to whether the 1945 atomic bombings by the U.S. violated international law.
2. A legal decision that the current threat to use and the use of nuclear weapons are in violation of international law.
3. An official apology from the U.S. to the Korean victims for the atomic bombings of 1945.
A detailed Legal Review Paper is attached to this Press Release.
During the 1930s, approximately 1.2 million Koreans were forcibly removed by the Japanese from their homeland, and many were brought to the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to work for the Japanese. The U.S. knowingly dropped the world’s first atomic bombs on these two civilian cities on August 6 and August 9, 1945, claiming over 700,000 victims in total, 70,000 of which were Korean nationals.
This International People’s Tribunal has established a powerful legal team with law professors and trial attorneys from around the world to present the evidence, argue the law, and hold the relevant parties accountable. A panel of international judges will deliberate on the evidence and render a verdict.
Presenting this evidence and establishing these precedent-setting legal rulings will have a positive influence on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the bringing of a lasting peace to that area and to a world without nuclear weapons.
The Tribunal Legal Team consists of the following members:
· Daniel Rietiker, Adjunct Professor of International Law and Human Rights at Lausanne University, Switzerland; Co-President of IALANA
· Toshinori Yamada, Professor at Meiji University Law School, Japan
· Okubo Kenichi, President of Japan Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, Japan
· Manfred Mohr, Professor of International Law and Co-chair of International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons, Germany
· Monique Cormier, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Monash University, Australia
· Anna Hood, Associate Professor of the Auckland Faculty of Law, New Zealand
· John Kierulf, Former Diplomat of the Denmark Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Tribunal also announced that the official Co-Chairs of the International People’s Tribunal are the Honorable Former Bishop Kang Uil (Peter) from the Catholic Diocese of Jeju; and the former Mayor of Hiroshima, the Honorable Hiraoka Takashi. Both individuals were in attendance in June 2024 in Hiroshima during the second forum to establish the Tribunal. Their long work in this field, their legacy and voice, provide a deep moral authority to the Tribunal.
The Tribunal will spend the next two years assembling evidence, witness testimony, and forming its legal arguments. The Tribunal will hold its oral proceedings in New York City in 2026, a year which will mark the convening of the Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Review Conference of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
SPARK (Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea), a peace NGO based in South Korea, and Brad Wolf, lawyer and former prosecutor serve as co-coordinators.
The following organizations have endorsed this Tribunal and are serving as partner organizations: Environmentalists Against War, World BEYOND War, Peace Action, International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, International Peace Bureau, International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Japan Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, Korean American Peace Fund, Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, Peace Action New York State, STOP the War Coalition Philippines, The International League of Peoples’ Struggle, Veterans for Peace, The United Methodist Church,
We are SPARK, a peace organization based in South Korea. Collaborating with Korean atomic bomb victims, we are currently undertaking a project to organize the International People’s Tribunal on 1945 US Atomic Bombings (scheduled in 2026). We are reaching out to request your organization’s participation as a partner.
The International People’s Tribunal is a significant endeavor to hold the United States accountable for the dropping of atomic bombs. To ensure the success of the A-Bomb Tribunal, collaboration from various organizations is essential. Any non-governmental organization is eligible to become a partner organization for the International People’s Tribunal. No joining fee or annual subscription is required, although financial and other relevant contributions are welcome. PartnersEnvironmentalists Against War, World BEYOND War, Peace Action, International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, International Peace Bureau, International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Japan Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, Korean American Peace Fund, Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, Peace Action New York State, STOP the War Coalition Philippines, The International League of Peoples’ Struggle, Veterans for Peace, The United Methodist Church – To be added
SPARK(Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea) is a grassroots movement organization established in 1994, during a time of heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula, following the spirit of the Korean peace movement. SPARK, which leads the A-Bomb Tribunal alongside Korean atomic bomb victims, is committed to five core values: sovereignty, peace, reunification, denuclearization, and disarmament.
August 4, 2024, Japan – The participants of the 2024 World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs concluded the event by adopting a declaration at the Closing Session. As next year marks the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings, the Hibakusha, who survived and have fought for the abolition of nuclear weapons, are calling on both A-bomb survivors and the younger generation to turn the tide toward a peaceful and just world without nuclear weapons.
