Commission Report Launched in Tokyo: Towards a Nuclear Weapon Free World

Tokyo, Japan 15 December 2009

The Report of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, “Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers”, was presented today in Tokyo to the Prime Ministers of Australia and Japan, their excellencies Kevin Rudd and Yukio Hatoyama, by the Commission Co-Chairs, former foreign ministers Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi, at a ceremony at the Japanese Prime Minister’s residence.

The full text of the report is available online at www.icnnd.org.

The 230-page report, the most comprehensive of its kind yet produced, is the unanimous product of an independent global panel of fifteen commissioners, supported by a high-level international advisory board and worldwide network of research centres, who together brought an unprecedented level of technical and policy expertise, and strategic and political experience, to their year-long deliberations and consultations.

Its detailed analysis, sharply focused policy recommendations, and short, medium and long term practical agendas, address the whole range of issues relating to nuclear non-proliferation, disarmament and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy with which policymakers are presently wrestling in the context of the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review Conference and beyond.

With new U.S. and Russian leadership seriously committed to nuclear disarmament action, there is a new opportunity - the first since the immediate post-World War II and post-Cold War years - to halt, and reverse, the problem of nuclear weapons once and for all. The report describes, not just rhetorically but in the detail that policymakers need, how that opportunity can and should be seized.

The starting point of the report is that the nuclear status quo is not an option. Nuclear weapons are only ones ever invented that have the capacity to wholly destroy life on this planet, and present arsenals could do so many times over. It defies credibility that, so long as any such weapons exist, they will not one day be used, by accident, miscalculation or design. The problem of nuclear weapons is at least equal to climate change in terms of gravity - and much more immediate in its potential impact.

The report evaluates in detail, making it clear that they defy complacency, the threats and risks associated with the failure to persuade existing nuclear-armed states to relinquish their weapons, to prevent new states acquiring them, to stop terrorist actors gaining access to them, and to properly manage a rapid expansion in civil nuclear energy.

Among the more significant of the report’s 76 recommendations are:

A list of Commissioners, and a note on how the Commission consulted in every relevant region of the world in constructing its report, follows.
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For further information please contact: ICNND Japanese Secretariat: Shigeru Umetsu (Mobile: 090 4753 8585) (Japanese); ICNND Australian Secretariat: Leona Landers +61 2 6261 2812 (Mobile: +61 2 421 488457) (English)]; Australian Embassy Tokyo: Nancy Gordon +81 3 5232 4081 (Mobile: 090 8443 7601); Ms Noriko Honda +81 3 5232 4107 (Mobile: 090 9202 4009) (English and Japanese)

MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION

Gareth Evans (Australia) (Co-chair)
Professor Evans was Australia’s Resources and Energy Minister (1984-87) and Foreign Minister (1988-96). He initiated the Canberra Commission (1996) and was a member of the UN High-level Panel (2004), Blix Commission (2006) and Zedillo Commission on the IAEA (2008). He was President (2000-09) and is now President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group, and is currently an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Yoriko Kawaguchi (Japan) (Co-chair)
Ms Kawaguchi has been a Member of the House of Councillors for the Liberal Democratic Party since 2005. She was Special Adviser to the Prime Minister, responsible for foreign affairs (2004-05), Minister for Foreign Affairs (2002-04) and Minister for the Environment (2000-02). Previously she was a Managing Director of Suntory Ltd, a senior official at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Minister at the Embassy of Japan to the United States, and an economist at the World Bank.

Turki Al Faisal (Saudi Arabia)
HRH Prince Turki was Director General of Intelligence from 1977 to 2001, and Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland from 2002 to 2005, and to the United States from 2005 to 2007. He is currently Chairman of the Board of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic studies in Riyadh.

Alexei Arbatov (Russia)
Dr Arbatov was a member of the Russian Duma and Deputy Chairman of the Duma Defence Committee from 1994 to 2003. He is currently a Scholar-in-Residence and Chair of the Non-proliferation Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Gro Harlem Brundtland (Norway)
Dr Brundtland was Prime Minister of Norway for ten years between 1981 and 1996. She chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) and was Director General of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003. She is currently the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Change.

Frene Noshir Ginwala (South Africa)
Dr Ginwala was Speaker of South Africa’s National Assembly from 1994 to 2004. She was Chancellor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal from 2004 until June 2009.

François Heisbourg (France)
Mr Heisbourg is Chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, and Special Adviser at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, and was a member of the French Presidential Commission that produced the 2008 Defence and National Security White Paper.

Jehangir Karamat (Pakistan)
General Karamat was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Chief of Army Staff between 1996 and 1998 and Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States from 2004 to 2006. He is
currently Director of the Spearhead Research Institute.

Brajesh Mishra (India)
Mr Mishra was India’s Ambassador in Geneva, Jakarta and then New York from 1973 to 1981, and National Security Adviser and Principal Secretary to former Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee from 1998 to 2004.

Klaus Naumann (Germany)
General Naumann was Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1996 to 1999 and Chief of the Defence Staff in Germany from 1991 to 1996. He was a Member of the Panel on UN Peace Operations (2000) and the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001).

William Perry (United States)
Dr Perry was the U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1997. He is currently a Professor at Stanford University in the School of Engineering and the Institute for International Studies.

Wang Yingfan (China)
Ambassador Wang was China’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2000 to 2003, and Vice-Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress from 2003 to 2008.

Shirley Williams (United Kingdom)
Baroness Williams was Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party in the House of Lords from 2001 to 2004. She is currently Professor Emeritus of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and an adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown on nuclear proliferation issues.

Wiryono Sastrohandoyo (Indonesia)
Ambassador Wiryono was Director General of Political Affairs in Indonesia’s Department of Foreign Affairs from 1990-1993. He has served as Indonesia’s Ambassador to Australia, France and Austria, as Permanent Representative to the UN in Vienna and on the Board of Governors for the IAEA.

Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico)
Dr Zedillo was President of Mexico from 1994 to 2000. He is currently Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, and Professor at Yale University in international economics and politics.

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HOW THE COMMISSION WORKED

Origins and Mandate. The International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation was initially proposed by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd following his visit in July 2008 to the Hiroshima peace memorial, and launched in New York in September 2008 by him and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda as a joint initiative of the Australian and Japanese Governments.

The Commission’s stated aim was to reinvigorate, at a high political level, global debate on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, in the context both of the forthcoming 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, and beyond. It was designed to build upon, and take further in a sharply practical and action-oriented way, the work of distinguished earlier commissions and panels, notably the 1996 Canberra Commission, the 1999 Tokyo Forum, the 2004 UN High Level Panel, the 2006 Blix Commission, and the 2008 Zedillo Commission on the future of the IAEA.

Although initiated by two governments, and primarily funded by the government of Australia, the Commission is a completely independent body, with its members appointed in their personal capacity rather than as representatives of their respective countries.

Commissioners and Advisory Board. The Australian and Japanese prime ministers jointly invited to head the Commission as its Co-chairs former Foreign Ministers Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi. They were joined as Commissioners by thirteen eminent and outstanding individuals from around the world, including former heads of state and ministers, military strategists and disarmament experts, all uniquely placed to bring fresh and imaginative vision to the undertaking.

The Commission has been greatly assisted in its work by an Advisory Board of 27 distinguished experts from around the globe whose members were consulted individually and, in many cases, participated in one or more Commission meetings: Nobuyasu Abe (Japan), Shlomo Ben-Ami (Israel),Hans Blix (Sweden), Lakhdar Brahimi (Algeria), John Carlson (Australia), Nabil Fahmy (Egypt), Louise Fréchette (Canada), Lawrence Freedman (UK), Roberto García Moritán (Argentina), Han Sung-Joo (South Korea), Prasad Kariyawasam (Sri Lanka), Henry Kissinger (United States), Shunsuke Kondo, Anne Lauvergeon (France), Martine Letts (Australia), Patricia Lewis (Ireland), Andrea Margelletti (Italy), Sam Nunn (United States), Robert O’Neill (Australia), George Perkovich (United States), V.R. Raghavan (India), George Robertson (United Kingdom), Michel

Rocard (France), Adam Daniel Rotfeld (Poland), Yukio Satoh (Japan), George Shultz (U.S.), and Hans van den Broek (Netherlands).

Research Support and Administration. The Commission appointed nine Associated Research Centres to lead the effort in their respective countries or regions: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Washington D.C. and Moscow) Centre for International Governance and Innovation (Waterloo, Canada) Delhi Policy Group (New Delhi), Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (San Jose, Costa Rica), Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (Paris), Japan Institute of International Affairs (Tokyo), King’s College, London, Lowy Institute for International Policy (Sydney) and Tsinghua University (Beijing). From these Research Centres and other consultants worldwide over 50 pieces of new research were commissioned, most available on www.icnnd.org. Research Coordinator for the Commission was former Australian ambassador Ken Berry.

The work of the Commission was supported by a small Secretariat operating from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra, headed by Commission Secretary Ian Biggs and a parallel unit in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo, headed by Toshio Sano.

Consultations. Four major regional consultation meetings were held, attended by a total of 89 regional participants --from government, universities and research institutes, and where appropriate the nuclear energy sector - from 25 countries: in Latin America (Santiago, 2-3 May 2009), North East Asia (Beijing, 22-23 May 2009), the Middle East (Cairo, 29-30 September 2009) and South Asia (New Delhi, 3-4 October 2009). A day-long round-table with representatives of the world’s nuclear power industry from six continents was held in association with the Commission’s meeting in Moscow on 22 June 2009. Regular dialogue with civil society was sustained through the Commission’s two NGO advisers, Akira Kawasaki of Peace Boat and Tilmann Ruff of ICAN, and meetings in Washington DC and Hiroshima, including with atomic bomb victims (hibakusha). The Co-chairs and other Commissioners also had many individual consultations and briefings in key capitals, and with, inter alia, the UN in New York and Geneva, and the IAEA and CTBTO in Vienna.

Commission Meetings and Report. The Commission’s first meeting in Sydney (19-21 October 2008) considered its mandate, work plan, and general approach, focusing on the value that it could add to previous and current work by others. Its second and third meetings in Washington DC (13-15 February 2009), and Moscow (19-21 June 2009) agreed on a detailed structure for its report and systematically discussed all relevant policy issues. Drafts of different sections of the report were then commissioned from a range of experts, including from among the Commissioners, Advisory Board and Secretariat members. A draft prepared by the Co-chairs themselves on the basis of those inputs was reviewed in detail, and a final text unanimously agreed, by the fourth Commission meeting in Hiroshima on 17-20 October 2009. The Commission will continue in existence until at least mid-2010, to enable follow-up advocacy on its report, and a review, after the 2010 NPT Review Conference, of the state of play and appropriate next step.

Contact details

Address:
ICNND Secretariat, R G Casey Building, John McEwen Crescent, Barton ACT 0221, Australia - Tel: +61 2 6261 1111 - Fax: +61 2 6261 1003 - Email: icnnd@dfat.gov.au

Tokyo Office:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kasumigaseki 2-2-1 Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8919 Japan