The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a broad, inclusive campaign, focused on mobilising civil society around the world to support the specific objective of prohibiting and eliminating nuclear weapons.
On 1 September 2023, the Honourable Melissa Parke, a former United Nations legal expert and Australian government minister was appointed Executive Director of ICAN. Melissa spoke to the Law Society about her priorities for ICAN and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
You have had an international career as a human rights lawyer and advocate for the United Nations, a federal politician, Director of the world’s biggest NGO and a Member of Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen. What has driven your human rights focus and what have been the wins and challenges of your leadership journey in this space to date?
The notion of justice and protecting the vulnerable from the abuse of the powerful or the careless banality of bureaucracy. I have been motivated to action by witnessing/learning about injustice, whether in relation to people, animals or the environment. It’s about respect and dignity rather than wins. I’ve wanted to ensure the voices of those traditionally marginalised or sidelined are heard and given meaningful attention.
Indigenous peoples of the world have always understood, and this has now been confirmed by quantum physics, that everything is connected – people, animals and all of nature. We can’t hurt other living beings or the environment without in some way hurting ourselves. This is the ultimate truth and motivation underlying my work.
Your work in nuclear issues dates back to the 1990s in Western Australia. Tell us more about your earlier engagement with nuclear weapons and what impact this had on you?
I first got involved in nuclear issues when I joined the campaign against Pangea Resources’ proposal to establish an international nuclear waste dump in WA in the late 1990s. Thankfully, that proposal didn’t proceed due to public opposition, but every now and then it is suggested anew, and it’s still a bad idea.
I recently read a book by Joshua Frank called Atomic Days regarding the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington State, where the US has been depositing much of its high-level radioactive waste from nuclear weapons for decades. There are some 56 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste stored in 177 underground steel containers that were meant to be only temporary until they found a permanent solution. The containers are starting to leak nuclear waste into the neighbouring Columbia River. Many of Hanford’s employees and local residents are experiencing serious health impacts from radiation exposure. The clean-up bill for the site stands at US$677 billion so far, and they still haven’t found a solution to store nuclear waste safely for the required 250,000 years. Hanford has been described by the US Environmental Protection Agency as the most toxic place in America and as possibly the most contaminated site on Earth.
Under the Precautionary Principle, it is the height of irresponsibility for any nation to be generating high-level radioactive nuclear waste when there is no permanent storage solution, even for low-level nuclear waste.
I was horrified to learn about the British nuclear weapons testing that took place in SA and WA in the 1950s and early ‘60s. The primary victims of those tests were Aboriginal Australians along with veterans, and they and their children continue to suffer the health consequences. The lack of consultation and care for those affected at the time of the testing and over the decades since has been appalling. It is the same for victims of nuclear weapons use and testing in the Pacific and other parts of the world.
As an MP, I was inspired by the example of former Whitlam Government Minister Tom Uren. Tom had been a prisoner of war in Japan during WWII and witnessed the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki. When he came home to Australia, he became a lifelong campaigner for peace and nuclear disarmament. He said: “The struggle against nuclear weapons is the most important struggle for the human race.”
Fear of nuclear annihilation was top of mind when I was growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but it dropped off the public radar when the Cold War ended. Unfortunately, the dangers have not gone away but indeed have increased with the breakdown of arms control agreements, renewed nuclear threats and nuclear sharing, and a new nuclear arms race underway. It is important people understand that nuclear weapons are an existential threat in the same way climate change and biodiversity loss are existential threats, except that while climate change and biodiversity loss are eroding our chances every day, nuclear weapons can end them in an instant. We need to tackle these threats simultaneously.
As the Executive Director for ICAN what are your priorities for the organisation?
I have identified three main priorities. First, it is critical that ICAN continues to work with our more than 670 partner organisations around the world, governments, cities, parliamentarians, academics, scientists and civil society to build universal support for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which is the only shining light in what is otherwise a dark and dangerous time for the planet. This treaty is complementary to older treaties including the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; indeed, it builds upon them. The TPNW comprehensively prohibits the production, development, testing, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons or assisting in these actions, and it contains a disarmament verification mechanism, which is absent from the NPT. The second meeting of states parties to the TPNW which just occurred in NY showed that the TPNW is the only place where disarmament action is happening, and where communities affected by nuclear weapons use and testing, and countries from the Global South, can have a say in this issue that is of concern to all countries and peoples.
Second, it is also critical that we broaden engagement on the issue of nuclear weapons beyond the usual disarmament and security silos. Nuclear weapons can destroy everyone and everything we love, so we all have a stake in their existence and we all have the right to have a say about them. Nuclear weapons must become a normal part of every discussion about the environment, health, development and human rights. They are a cross-cutting issue.
It is vital the connections between nuclear weapons and the environment are understood and highlighted, that nuclear weapons development and testing damage the environment and increase carbon emissions, that climate crisis-driven resource insecurity and conflict increases the risk of nuclear war, that extreme weather events and rising sea levels increase the risk of radioactive contamination from nuclear weapons activities, that climate disruption leading to nuclear winter potentially puts all life on earth at risk, and that while every species will be harmed in a nuclear war, only one species can stop it.
Nuclear weapons violate every human right, including the right to life and the right to health. In August 2023, more than 150 medical journals around the world, including the Medical Journal of Australia and The Lancet, issued a joint call for urgent action to eliminate nuclear weapons as a public health issue. They noted the 2022 Nature Food study, which concluded that even a limited nuclear war using less than 10 per cent of the world’s nuclear arsenals, would kill 120 million people outright and put more than 2 billion people at risk of starvation from the resultant climate disruption, known as ‘nuclear winter’. A major nuclear war would put at least 5.5 billion people at risk. As the International Committee of the Red Cross repeatedly stresses, there is no possible health or emergency response to a nuclear war, since hospitals, roads and communications infrastructure would be destroyed and health and emergency workers would be deceased or incapacitated.
Nuclear armed states spent US$83 billion last year ‘modernising’ their nuclear arsenals, weapons they say they will never use, as they are just for ‘deterrence’. This spending comes at the cost of investment in genuine human security, including disarmament, development, diplomacy, health, housing and environmental protection. Getting rid of the existential threat of nuclear weapons would free up enormous sums to help resolve the other existential environmental threats.
Third, it is important that ICAN work to highlight the dangerousness of the theory of nuclear deterrence which underpins nuclear weapons possession. Nuclear armed states and their allies, including Australia, rely on the theory of nuclear deterrence for their and the planet’s ‘stability’, while at the same time agreeing that nuclear weapons are so dangerous they must be eliminated (just not now). Of course, the theory of deterrence is just that – a theory that relies on 100 per cent rationality and predictability of all actors, including one’s enemies, 100 per cent of the time. That’s a pretty big assumption upon which to base the future of the planet. Meanwhile, the theory of deterrence cannot deter accidents, miscalculations, unhinged leaders, terrorist groups, cyber-attacks or simple mistakes. There have been more than 60 nuclear near misses over the decades that could have ended the world. It is actually sheer dumb luck, rather than good management, that we are all still here.
Importantly, the second meeting of state parties to the TPNW in NY called out the dangerous theory of deterrence in its closing statement.
How important is the TPNW and what are the trends in countries which have signed up to it so far – and those which are yet to do so, including Australia?
It was great that Australia and some other countries that are not yet parties to the TPNW attended as Observers at the second meeting of states parties. However, it is important they now go further and sign the treaty. The AUKUS deal only makes this more important, to reassure Australians and our region that the deal does not diminish Australia’s sovereignty and that nuclear-powered submarines are not a precursor to Australia hosting or acquiring nuclear weapons. The countries in NATO and those in other military alliances with the US, including Australia, Japan and South Korea, which have all so far failed to sign the TPNW, are presently relying upon the theory of nuclear deterrence in their defence policies and doctrines. It is my belief it is only a matter of time before deterrence theory is discredited.
Do you think people understand the impact of the use of nuclear weapons? Is there enough being done globally to promote and educate on this issue?
More can and must be done to promote and educate the global public (who will then put pressure on their governments) on this issue. Ultimately, it is a matter of resourcing.
ICAN is a small NGO, albeit with many partners around the world, which started in Australia in 2007. Just 10 years later, in 2017, it won the Nobel Peace Prize for its work highlighting the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and for its efforts in getting the TPNW adopted at the UN. However, there is still so much more to be done. Donations are most welcome!
What do you say to those who would like to become involved with human rights work?
Follow your passions and never give up on your dreams. Everyone has the power to make a difference and the responsibility to try, in your own way.
