World Court Project UK
The Public Conscience in Action
Trident Ploughshares requests immediate compliance with international law
To: Prime Minister, Gordon Brown MP, 10 Downing St, London, SW1A 2AA
From: Trident Ploughshares, c/o 65 Sinclair St, Helensburgh, G84 8TG, Scotland. 21/4/09
From: Trident Ploughshares, c/o 65 Sinclair St, Helensburgh, G84 8TG, Scotland. 21/4/09
Dear Gordon Brown,
Ref. : Trident Ploughshares requests immediate compliance with international law It is now eleven years since Trident Ploughshares’ first Open Letter of 18th March 1998 to the UK Government. In that letter we asked for serious nuclear disarmament measures to be taken to comply with the promises the UK
Government made under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But we hope that the time is now ripe for you, during your tenure as Prime Minster, to finally comply with the NPT by cancelling the renewal of Trident and decommissioning the Trident fleet within the next few years.
As we have not written to you for some time, let us remind you that Trident Ploughshares is a campaign to disarm the UK Trident nuclear weapons system in a non-violent, open, peaceful and fully accountable manner. We, along with thousands who support our actions by joining in our blockades and resistance work, have been engaged in many different acts of nonviolent civil resistance to the UK nuclear weapons system and over these last 11 years around 2451 have been arrested for trying to uphold international law. These have led to more than 540 trials. On two occasions we have engaged in disarmament activities that have cost the Government hundreds of thousands of pounds. These actions, both in 1999, were the destruction of the testing equipment on the conning tower of Vengeance at Barrow, and the destruction of the research equipment of the floating laboratory on Maytime in Loch Goil. On these occasions we not only took out a vital link of the illegal nuclear weapons system in an entirely accountable and peaceful manner but also argued our international law defences to juries and judges who have found us not guilty.
Our beliefs are firmly rooted in universal legal principles. Speaking in Edinburgh in February this year, former vice-president of the International Court of Justice, Judge Christopher Weeramantry, reminded us that “Every citizen has an obligation to use his or her influence to prevent crimes against humanity.” He went on to say that “... anti-nuclear civil resistance is the right of every citizen of this planet, for the nuclear threat, attacking as it does every core concept of human rights, calls for urgent and universal action for its prevention.” This is what we have been engaged in over the last 11 years. But we need you, as Prime Minister, also to act in good faith and fulfil the UK’s promise to the world community to disarm UK nuclear weapons.
At the heart of the demands for further action by all states, including the UK, towards the global abolition of nuclear weapons, is the Good Faith Obligation. In May last year Judge Mohammed Bedjaoui, President of the International Court of Justice when it gave its historic 1996 Advisory Opinion on nuclear weapons, told an audience in Geneva that “Good Faith is a fundamental principle of international law, without which all international law would collapse”, and reminded us that the Opinion, building on Article VI of the NPT requires each state to “pursue in good faith negotiations on effective measures ... relating to nuclear disarmament.”
Essentially, “Good Faith” means negotiating sincerely and flexibly to achieve the desired result - global nuclear disarmament. The International Court of Justice pronounced that the obligation is not just to talk about global nuclear disarmament. It is to make it happen. Good Faith means that this objective should be pursued consistently with real political will. The conclusion should be reached within a reasonable time and the parties must avoid policies which contradict the very purpose of the negotiations.
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