Good Nuclear Disarmament Practice

In recent years, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND) and the World Future Council (WFC) have collaborated successfully to inform and engage parliaments and parliamentarians on the issue of nuclear disarmament.

This has included:

• The adoption, in April 2009, of an IPU consensus Resolution entitled Advancing nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and securing the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: The role of parliaments - http://www.ipu.org/conf-e/120/120-1.htm.
   
• Workshops and sessions at various IPU Assemblies exploring how parliamentarians can further nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament objectives.
   
• The production of a unique Parliamentary Handbook on Supporting Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament in 2012. The Handbook is currently available in English, French, Spanish and Russian and has been made available to all parliaments in the world. Parliamentarians in several countries have been using the Handbook in pursuing nuclear disarmament initiatives.
   
• The 2013 Future Policy Award on disarmament, a joint initiative by the WFC, the IPU and the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs. The winning policies reveal a wide range of policy solutions to disarmament challenges, with an emphasis on nuclear disarmament: Gold Award to the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, a Silver Award to the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Arms Control and Disarmament Act, as well as an Honourable Mention to Mongolia’s Law on its nuclear weapon-free status.
   
• A landmark resolution, entitled Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: The contribution of parliaments, adopted by the IPU in March 2014 at its 130th Assembly - http://www.ipu.org/conf-e/130/Res-1.htm. The resolution inter alia calls on parliaments to “work with their governments on eliminating the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines” and to “use all available tools including committees to monitor national implementation of disarmament commitments, including by scrutinizing legislation, budgets and progress reports.”

The workshop will offer parliamentarians the opportunity to consider the prospect and particulars of adopting national nuclear prohibition legislation, based on the models provided by countries such as Austria, Mongolia, New Zealand and Philippines. In turn, parliamentarians from countries that have rejected nuclear deterrence will highlight the feasibility of achieving security without nuclear weapons.

The workshop will also offer parliamentarians from countries that rely on nuclear weapons a chance to examine the roles subscribed to the weapons and evaluate the validity of these roles in order to either reject such roles, promote approaches to phasing out such roles, and/or offer viable alternatives based on cooperative security.

The workshop’s agenda will thus cover:

• Nuclear prohibition legislation – its feasibility, form and function.
• Nuclear divestment legislation as a way to bring public expenditure in line with international obligations and strengthen the nuclear prohibition norm.
• The role of nuclear deterrence in security doctrines and possibilities to phase out reliance on deterrence in favour of cooperative security mechanisms.
• The role of parliamentarians in supporting multilateral nuclear disarmament efforts and initiatives.

The workshop will also examine a possible parliamentary contribution to the forthcoming International Conference on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons, scheduled to take place in Vienna on 8-9 December 2014.

Download the Concept Note and Registration Form from IPU website