Marian Pallister, Justice & Peace vice chair and chair of Pax Christi Scotland, reflects on the ratification of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.
Late on October 24, the news broke that a 50th nation had ratified the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Those of us involved with organisations such as Justice and Peace Scotland and Pax Christi Scotland were poised to disseminate the news about this significant step in the campaign to create a nuclear free world - because with the 50th ratification, nuclear weapons became illegal.
According to the UN, the prohibitions triggered by this 50th ratification mean nations cannot ‘develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile, use or threaten to use nuclear weapons’.
There’s more, but I want to concentrate on this section of the Treaty, which obliges states ‘to provide adequate assistance to individuals affected by the use or testing of nuclear weapons, as well as to take necessary and appropriate measure of environmental remediation in areas under its jurisdiction or control contaminated as a result of activities related to the testing or use of nuclear weapons’.
There is an awareness of the devastation caused by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years ago - the lives lost, the subsequent illnesses caused radiation fall out. We are less conscious of the nuclear testing that took place in the South Pacific in the years after world War II, destroying lives and the environment.
But that’s why so many South Pacific countries have ratified the Treaty.
Gerry MacPherson was stationed on Christmas Island during his National Service. I knew Gerry towards the premature end of his life. He was a fascinating man who had campaigned since his Christmas Island experience for compensation for those affected by radiation from nuclear testing.
Those tests took place on Kirimati, or Christmas Island, in the late 1950s. Gerry was there shortly afterwards. Some of the lads enjoyed a beach party with locals, who’d caught fish for the occasion. Messing about, they ran a Geiger counter over someone who’d enjoyed the fish. The reading was alarmingly high. They learned that the whole environment was affected by radiation fall out.
Gerry came home with a badly damaged pituitary gland (which controls several other hormone glands, including the thyroid and adrenals, ovaries and testicles). He couldn’t prove the damage was caused by the radiation fall out that lingered (and still lingers) on the island, but he knew too many others who developed a range of cancers and other illnesses after their postings to the South Pacific. He joined a group seeking support from a government that denied knowledge of the possible after effects of exposure to radiation.
Mary, Gerry’s widow, says they always thought themselves lucky because unlike so many whose fertility was affected, they had a family. She says Gerry vowed he would give any compensation he received to the South Pacific islanders who had suffered so much - their health and economies shattered by those nuclear tests.
Of course, there was no compensation. But now, this treaty asks for ‘adequate assistance’ and ‘environmental remediation’.
For Gerry, for the peoples of the South Pacific, we must persuade the nine nuclear states to come on board, and all those companies making billions from manufacturing weapons of mass destruction must turn their nuclear swords into ploughshares.