December 2021 Newsletter
Dear Friend,

Global trends are very worrying, with potential for conflict apparent between the US and Russia and the US and China. The signs too are that the forthcoming US Nuclear Posture Review will essentially reaffirm the status quo of reliance on nuclear arms.

However, with the holiday season soon upon us, this newsletter mostly looks on the brighter side, highlighting New York City's recent major strengthening of its nuclear weapons free zone as well as activities of younger members of the LCNP team.

Best wishes for peaceful and happy holidays.
John Burroughs
Senior Analyst

P.S. Please do include LCNP in your end of year giving!
New York City Council Adopts Resolution
Calling for Divestment of Pension Funds
from Nuclear Arms Makers
Center: NYC Council Member Daniel Dromm, lead sponsor of NFZ legislation
Left: Seth Shelden, NYCAN member, ICAN UN Liaison, and LCNP Board member W
On December 9th, the New York City Council adopted a legislative package greatly strengthening the City's existing nuclear weapons free zone. In a major step, a resolution calls on the Comptroller to divest City pension funds from nuclear weapons manufacturers. It also joins New York City to the ICAN Cities Appeal and calls on the United States to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. A companion bill
establishes an advisory committee to further education and community participation relating to the zone.

NYCAN, the New York Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, was a moving force in this development. Seth Shelden, NYCAN member, ICAN UN Liaison, and LCNP Board member, played a key role. John Burroughs, then LCNP Executive Director, was among more than 100 people who testified at a January 28, 2020 City Council hearing on the proposed legislation. More about this achievement and its history is available here.
LCNP at World Peace Congress:
Nuclear Abolition Must Exist Side-by-Side
with Other Human Rights Movements
On October 16, LCNP intern Hannah Kohn, a student at CUNY Law, spoke in a workshop of the International Peace Bureau's World Peace Congress. She began by explaining how the UN Human Rights Committee found reliance on nuclear weapons to be incompatible with the right to life set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. But she went much further, saying in part:

The disproportionate impact on indigenous peoples highlights a truth about nuclear weapons: the weapons are a part of a larger world order which privilege a few powerful actors by wreaking violence on everyone else, and threaten us all with the deprivation of life.

It is part of a patriarchal order, which associates the possession and use of deadly weapons with masculine power. It is part of a racist order, disproportionately testing and using weapons on people of color. It is part of a colonial order, patronizingly framing non-nuclear states as unable to handle the power of weapons, while upholding an oppressive security apparatus in the name of “keeping everyone else safe.” It is part of a hyper-capitalist order which is destroying our planet, our water, and our air while spending billions of dollars enriching private corporations instead of providing people with the things they actually need to live.

As a consequence, nuclear abolition must exist side-by-side with other human rights movements, including feminism, anti-racism, anti-colonialism, anti-poverty and climate protection.

Her full remarks can be found here.

Reverse the Trend Presents at
Washington, DC, High School
Reverse the Trend: Save Our People, Save Our Planet visited Gonzaga College High School in Washington, DC, on November 3. Presenters were LCNP's Danielle Samler (center in photo), Christian Ciobanu of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (second from left), and Dr. April Brown (third from left) and Benetick Maddison (second from right) of the Marshallese Educational Initiative. LCNP, NAPF, and MEI are partners of Reverse the Trend. Danielle and Christian talked about the humanitarian disarmament field and youth activism. April and Benetick talked about the history of US nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands and current issues relating to the testing. We hope this will be one of many future educational events aimed at teaching youth about the Marshall Islands experience with nuclear weapons and about nuclear weapons and climate change generally.
Peter Weiss and Judy Weiss:
Ban the Use of Drones as Weapons
Peter Weiss, LCNP President Emeritus, and Judy Weiss, President of Samuel Rubin Foundation, have called for banning the use of drones as weapons. In an October 15 article in Foreign Policy in Focus, they cite instances of drone attacks on civilians misidentified as "terrorists", most recently as the US withdrew from Afghanistan, and more generally the large numbers of civilians killed or injured in such attacks. They contend that "no attempt to reduce the deaths of American soldiers should also cause more parents, children, farmers, or other civilians to die." They conclude that drones used as weapons should be added to those weapons, including cluster bombs and landmines, already banned under international law because they are grossly inhumane or fail to distinguish between military and civilian targets. The article can be found here.
Recommended:
  • Interview with John Burroughs, LCNP Senior Analyst, Project Save the World podcast, "Laws Against the Bomb," hosted by Metta Spencer, October 7, 2021
  • In an October 19 Nation article, To Avoid Armageddon, Don't Modernize Missiles - Eliminate Them, Daniel Ellsberg and Norman Solomon call the US land-based nuclear missile force is a "world ending accident waiting to happen."
  • UN Headquarters in New York has been under scrutiny for its 20-month long denial of access to NGOs, as explained in Thalif Deen's November 8 piece for Inter Press Service.