Addressing Verification and Dismantlement of Nuclear Weapons and Victim Assistance: Bridging Policy and Practice
Friday, May 8 | Permanent Mission of Malaysia
During the second week of the Eleventh Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Malaysia, the Philippines, and Kiribati hosted a side event with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) and its youth initiative Reverse The Trend (RTT). The Friday, 8 May event on verification, nuclear dismantlement, and victim assistance was held at the Mission of Malaysia, and it was filled by both diplomats and civil society representatives.
The event included opening remarks by Ambassador Enrique A. Manalo, Permanent Representative of the Philippines to the UN (Co-Chair of the TPNW Working Group on Verification and Dismantlement); Sofian Akmal Bin Abd Karim, Deputy Permanent Representative at the Permanent Mission of Malaysia to the UN (Co-Chair of the TPNW Working Group on Verification and Dismantlement); and Zhangeldy Syrymbet, Deputy Director General for Europe at the Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Co-Chair of the TPNW Working Group on Victim Assistance and Environmental Remediation). Annie Jacobsen, author of Nuclear War: A Scenario, delivered keynote remarks which were followed by a panel of experts. The panel was moderated by Christian Ciobanu, Policy and Advocacy Director of NAPF, and included Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes, President of NAPF; Professor Peter Kuznick, Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University; and Andrey Baklitskiy, Senior Researcher at the the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR)’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme. A youth representative from NAPF-RTT, Lilliana Fan, delivered closing remarks.
For the full event report, please see below.
The following report is authored by Mohammed Alkurashi, youth delegate of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and its youth initiative, Reverse the Trend.
Ambassador Manalo of the Philippines opened the floor by acknowledging the growing strain on arms control frameworks and the increase in nuclear rhetoric. On verification and dismantlement, the ambassador remarked that efforts toward these goals must account for victim assistance and the humanitarian impacts of nuclear disarmament. He also reaffirmed the Philippines’ commitment to the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone, and cited the role of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as a complementary tool to wider nuclear disarmament architecture. He further affirmed the positive role of Articles 6 and 7 of the TPNW in explicitly addressing victim assistance and environmental remediation.
Sofian Abd Karim of Malaysia echoed Ambassador Manalo’s remarks and further emphasized the tangible benefits of achieving a world free from nuclear weapons. On the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, Abd Karim iterated the importance of maintaining focus on the humanitarian framework of nuclear disarmament in the upcoming TPNW Review Conference, which will take place at the end of this year.
The final opening remarks were delivered by Zhangeldy Syrymbet of Kazakhstan, and his statement emphasized the importance of the upcoming international meeting on victim assistance and environmental remediation, which will be held later this year. He recalled efforts and resolutions meant to implement and monitor progress on the Vienna Action Plan from the TPNW’s First Meeting of States Parties.
Annie Jacobsen delivered a harrowing account of the timeline of a potential nuclear war. She shared findings from interviews conducted with Pentagon and Strategic Command officials in the United States, who reportedly declared that “the world could end in the next couple of hours,” more specifically at 72 minutes. Jacobsen’s book is based on a hypothetical scenario where one nuclear missile is sent towards the United States, and she argues that a limited nuclear war could never be fought or won. She highlighted how US nuclear weapons have just enough fuel to respond to a potential attack from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by flying over Russia, and that in itself could and likely would warrant a Russian response—forcing the world into a nuclear winter. Jacobsen makes it clear that in the US case, a nuclear war does not start once the President is presented with the menu of targets to respond to an attack, as the technology to track a nuclear launch exists and is able to identify an incoming missile within seconds. She argues that that is when nuclear war starts, at launch.
After Jacobsen’s speech, a panel of experts discussed the role of scientific engagements and bilateral agreements in nuclear disarmament. Dr. Hughes focused her comments on The Night After. She recounted the book’s use of scientific excerpts alongside collections of paintings and poetry to humanize “the science” and advance nuclear disarmament. On scientific engagements, Dr. Hughes remarked that technologies initially developed in the 1960s to detect seismic signals and earthquakes incidentally detected underground nuclear tests. At the time, such discoveries built momentum for treaties like the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) and its successor treaty the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). Dr. Hughes ended her remarks by sharing that had scientific engagements been made earlier and had the TPNW been adopted earlier, perhaps the NPT would have pushed states to better honor their disarmament commitments, especially the nuclear-armed states and those that fall under their “nuclear umbrella”. Dr. Hughes also discussed the importance of the provisions on victim assistance and environmental remediation as well as the roles of the two Co-Chairs of the TPNW working group on this subject, Kazakhstan and Kiribati.
Professor Peter Kuznick recalled the state of world politics when the NPT was adopted, and declared that contemporary societies seem to have forgotten the devastation of World War II. He made several powerful anecdotes to show that cooperation between the East and West is still possible even in times of crises, referencing the Cuban missile crisis and negotiations that lead to the first bilateral nuclear arms control agreement between the US and Russia.
Andrey Baklitskiy shared a more technical statement on progress towards a robust nuclear verification regime. He shared that, according to the latest Group of Governmental Experts report on nuclear disarmament verification, most states define verification as the technical and procedural measures taken by national governments to ensure that they are in compliance with nuclear disarmament commitments. He added that verification should be viewed as a confidence-building measure. He added that an incremental approach towards verification and disarmament would likely help induce the necessary political transformation to fulfill long-term nuclear disarmament goals. He further discussed the significance of the working group on verification and dismantlement.
Closing the event, Lilliana Fan delivered a youth perspective on nuclear disarmament where she highlighted the intergenerational harms of nuclear weapons use and the humanitarian imperative advanced by treaties such as the TPNW. Her statement included sharp observations about the implications of emerging technologies in nuclear arms control, emphasizing outer space and cyber space as areas requiring more cooperation. She also included data on the chronic underrepresentation of women in nuclear disarmament, despite research showing that women and girls are disproportionately affected by ionizing radiation.
