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Press Releases & Updates 2010
10th May 2011
TP 10 May Blockaders Letter to Faslane Commander
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Commander HMNB Clyde 10 May 2011
Dear Commodore Hockley,
We are writing to call on you to cease the deployment of Trident, with its 48 nuclear warheads each ten times the destructive force of the Hiroshima bomb, as it is in violation of international law and constitutes a Crime Against Humanity. The deployment of Trident in carrying out the government’s policy of “deterrence” entails the threat and preparedness to use it and is illegal as its use would inevitably violate international humanitarian law through the indiscriminate killing of civilians, the infliction of unnecessary suffering, the inevitable destruction of the environment of the country of any enemy as well as that of neutral countries through radioactive fallout and consequently prolonged suffering and many thousands of deaths of future generations through birth defects and cancers.
The 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice held that the threat and use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to international law. Judge Bedjaoui, President of the Court has stated that the use of a nuclear weapon system such as Trident, with 100 kt warheads would be illegal because “the use of even a single such warhead in any circumstance ...would inevitably violate the prohibitions on the infliction of unnecessary suffering and indiscriminate harm as well as the rule of proportionality including with respect to the environment. ...such a system deployed and ready for action would be unlawful.” (Trident and International Law: Scotland Obligations. p.92) And, according to the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ it is unlawful to threaten to do that which it is unlawful to actually do.
We must remind you that the Nuremberg Principles, as adopted by the International Law Commission of the United Nations in 1950, hold individuals who are complicit in carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity personally responsible for those crimes, even if ordered to do so by a Superior Officer, unless they take affirmative action to prevent those crimes. Furthermore the ICJ held that international law does apply in times of peace. And in any case, we are not in a time of peace as the UK is currently at war in Afghanistan, a war in which the UK’s ally the US regularly strikes at Taliban forces inside Pakistan, a nuclear armed state.
A dastardly double standard is evident at this time, when the UK is engaged in the use of force against Libya for the purpose of protecting civilians even as it deploys a weapon system the use of which would inevitably kill civilians in large numbers. That duplicity diminishes international law, the fundamental purpose of which is the protection of civilians.
Along with others we have kept vigil on Wednesdays from 4-5pm at the North Gate of Faslane for three years now. We have raised these concerns numerous times with MOD Police, only to be told that we are entitled to protest and to our opinion. But these are not personal opinions. It is the opinion of the International Court of Justice, to which you and all those you command are accountable. We continue to hope that you will see that the deployment of Trident undermines the law and that you will, in keeping with your obligations under the Nuremberg Principles take action to prevent its ongoing deployment. We seek a response to this request for you to cease these violations of the law.
Yours in peace,
Janet Fenton
Brian Larkin
Barbara Dowling
Mary Milington
Last updated: 31st May 2011
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