From Norm to Law
A Declaration of Public Conscience
UNFOLD ZERO 2023
(April 16, 2023) — The Declaration of Public Conscience was released last week in a follow-up to the 2022 G20 Bali Summit Leaders statement that “the threat or use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.” It calls on nuclear-armed and allied-states to implement this agreement by adopting policies and practices to never initiate nuclear war and to enshrine this as a legal obligation.
The Bali Statement
On November 17, 2022, the G20 Leaders meeting in Bali (including leaders or foreign ministers of China, France, India, Russia, UK and USA) surprised the world by agreeing that “The threat of use or use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible,” and including this agreement in the G20 Bali Leaders Statement.
This agreement arose from concerns on all sides about the potential for the Russia/Ukraine war to escalate into a nuclear war between Russia and the West. It indicates a possible breakthrough in consolidating a general norm against the use of nuclear weapons that is now accepted, at least on paper, by the main nuclear weapon states.
However, it is uncertain how solid is this norm, whether or not it will be re-affirmed in the upcoming G7 Summit in Hiroshima (May 19-21) and the G20 Summit in Delhi (September 9-10), and whether or not it will have any real impact on policies and practices of the nuclear-armed states, including nuclear-first-use options.
In order to consolidate the norm of non-use of nuclear weapons, and help shift this to accepted law, NoFirstUse Global invites you to endorse Nuclear Taboo: From Norm to Law – a Declaration of Public Conscience, and will use the endorsed Declaration in key advocacy
The Declaration of Public Conscience
This Declaration of Public Conscience (also available in French and Italian) calls on the United Nations, through decisions of its Security Council and General Assembly, to enshrine the inadmissibility of threat or use of nuclear weapons as a Dictate of International Law, and to require all member states to comply fully, by ensuring their security policies and practices rule-out the initiation of nuclear war including any first-use of nuclear weapons.
A Dictate of Public Conscience is an application of humanity and law to weapons systems, the use of which would violate the principles of international humanitarian law even if such weapons systems are not subject to a universal and comprehensive abolition treaty/agreement.
The concept is included in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, as proposed by Fedor Fedorovich (Friedrich) Martens, a Russian jurist and diplomat, and supported by Czar Nicholas II, the Leader of Russia who initiated the first Hague Peace Conference. It is commonly known as the Martens Clause
The Martens Clause
“Until a more complete code of the laws of war is issued, the High Contracting Parties think it right to declare that in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, populations and belligerents remain under the protection and empire of the principles of international law, as they result from the usages established between civilized nations, from the laws of humanity and the dictates of the public conscience.”
Drafted by Friedrich (Fedor Fedorovich) Martens pictured above, a Russian jurist and diplomat. Codified in the Hague Conventions 1899 and 1907.
Uses of the Dictates of Public Conscience
This concept of Dictates of Public Conscience was utilised in the 1996 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. Civil society campaigners presented to the Court over 4 million Declarations of Conscience condemning nuclear weapons. In its decision that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal, the Court referred to the dictates of public conscience.
Nuclear Taboo: From Norm to Law
A Declaration of Public Conscience
Organised by NoFirstUse Global
“We, the peoples of the United Nations, affirm the conclusion made in the G20 Bali Declaration (November 2022) by Leaders of the G20 countries — Presidents Joseph Biden (USA), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Turkey), Alberto Fernández (Argentina), Emmanuel Macron (France), Cyril Ramaphosa (South Africa), Joko Widodo (Indonesia), Xi Jingping (China), and Yoon Suk Yeol (South Korea); Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese (Australia), Fumio Kishida (Japan), Giorgia Meloni (Italy), Narendra Modi (India), Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (Saudi Arabia), Rishi Sunak (UK), and Justin Trudeau (Canada); Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Germany); Foreign Ministers Marcelo Ebrard (Mexico), Carlos França (Brazil), and Sergey Lavrov (Russian Federation); and EU Presidents Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen – that ‘The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.’
“We call on the United Nations, through decisions of its Security Council and General Assembly, to enshrine this stance as a dictate of international law and to require all member states to comply fully, in order to ensure their security policies and practices rule-out the initiation of nuclear war including any first-use of nuclear weapons.
“The advent of this qualitatively diminished role for nuclear weapons would enhance the prospects for establishing a nuclear-weapon-free world, and should be used with utmost determination to achieve that essential goal.”
ACTION: To endorse and sign on, click on this link.
NoFirstUse Global will use Nuclear Taboo: From Norm to Law Declaration of Public Conscience in advocacy to the G7 and G20 Summits as well as to the UN General Assembly and the UN Summit of the Future.
