Friday 26 September marked the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. On this day we launched our campaign against Britain’s reckless nuclear expansion, starting with a legal opinion we have secured showing that the government’s expansion of its nuclear weapons capability is in clear breach of international law.
The new legal opinion, finds that Britain’s purchase of 12 F-35A nuclear-capable fighter jets is in violation of its commitments under Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This article states: that, ‘[e]ach of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.’
In their joint opinion, international law experts Professor Christine Chinkin and Dr Louise Arimatsu, argue: “[t]he decision of the UK to purchase F-35a fighter jets rather than any other model is precisely because the aircraft can ‘deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons’ and thereby enable the RAF to reacquire ‘a nuclear role for the first time since 1998.’ Reinstating a nuclear role for the RAF represents a reversal of the UK’s long-term commitment to nuclear disarmament, including under the NPT.”
This expansion is, in the words of the Starmer government the ‘biggest strengthening of the UK’s nuclear posture in a generation’.
This is yet another breach of the NPT by a British government. Back in 2005 a legal opinion found that replacing Trident would put Britain in material breach of the NPT. Many view Britain’s decision in 2021 to increase in its nuclear warheads by 40% also in breach. There are also serious concerns that the Aukus Treaty – which facilitates nuclear-sharing between the US, Britain and Australia – also breaches the NPT. Ensuring that Australia will become the first non-nuclear weapons state to be able to deploy nuclear-powered submarines will certainly constitute nuclear proliferation.
So why is it so important to expose Britain’s breach of the NPT?
It is not just CND that have been questioning the legal basis of this nuclear expansion. MPs and peers have been doing the same. Britain’s breach of its international disarmament obligations undermine the case for global nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation. In fact, it is contributing to a growing threat of nuclear weapons being used again in war, and of other countries securing nuclear weapons.
The British F35A fighter jets will be part of a NATO mission. NATO, the most powerful nuclear-armed alliance in the world, has a first-use nuclear strike policy. This means it is an aggressive, not a defensive alliance. These dual-capability jets can launch B61-12 nuclear bombs, which have been designed by the US specifically to be used in war. Given the worsening crisis in Ukraine, the British government should be doing everything possible to reduce the nuclear threat, not accelerate it. That means abiding by its commitment to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, not breaching it.
The legal opinion is also very important in drawing attention to Britain’s nuclear hypocrisy, and the impact this is having on driving nuclear tensions. As both Arimatsu and Chinkin state in their final reflections ‘we consider the hypocrisy that allows it [the British government] to pursue its own modernised nuclear policy while asserting the unsuitability of other states to pursue theirs to be indicative of double standards and a defense policy lacking in morality.’
The day CND published this legal opinion exposing the British government’s clear breach of its disarmament obligations, the UK ambassador Barbara Woodward, was at the UN arguing that “Iran is defying the global non-proliferation regime” and voted to ensure sanctions are reinstated on that country.
This was despite the fact that Iran – after US and Israeli illegal bombing of its nuclear facilities –had reached an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that inspectors could return to conduct on-site inspections of its facilities. Sanctions may well now undermine this agreement.
Britain’s Strategic Defence Review reasserts that British nuclear weapons should be used to stop other countries’ nuclear proliferation. It specifically refers to the right of Britain – as part of NATO – to launch a nuclear attack against a non-nuclear weapons state that is a signatory to the NPT that is in ‘material breach of those non-proliferation obligations’. In this current situation, how will Iran interpret such nuclear threats?
It is clear that Britain’s nuclear hypocrisy and its dangerous expansion have nothing to do with making the British population – or the world – safer. So long as nuclear weapons states like Britain continue to re-arm and threaten to use their nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states, the threat of nuclear proliferation and of nuclear weapons being used again in war will increase.
It is therefore vital that all those who want a peaceful, nuclear-free future, get involved in CND’s campaign to reverse the government’s nuclear expansion.