Page 20 - IB November 2023

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Nuclear Issues Nuclear Issues

STRENGTHENING THE PACIFIC’S
NUKES-FREE ZONE

The US regularly deploys B-52H Stratofortress bombers to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam and Tindal Air Base in Australia’s Northern Territory.

By Nic Maclellan about commitment to the Pacific Islands. Last year, the
communique of the inaugural US-Pacific summit expressed
In August 1985, the Pacific Islands Forum held its annual Washington’s support for SPNFZ, rhetoric undercut by ongoing
summit in Cook Islands and adopted the Treaty of Rarotonga Senate inaction. At this year’s second summit, hosted by
for a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (SPNFZ). Created at President Joe Biden in September, island states pushed for
the height of the 1980s Cold War arms race between the sharper language. The final communique records that “States
United States and Soviet Union, the Treaty was one of the first Parties to the Rarotonga Treaty…encouraged the United States
significant, collective achievements of the Forum. to ratify the Treaty’s protocols, as soon as possible.”
This month, Cook Islands will again host the Forum in
Rarotonga, and a range of nuclear threats are on the regional Challenging nuclear arsenals
agenda. As war rages in Europe and the Middle East, Japan Under Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
discharges treated nuclear wastewater into the Pacific, and (NPT), nuclear weapons states are obliged to commence
major powers modernise their nuclear arsenals, will leaders comprehensive nuclear disarmament negotiations. But the
act again in Rarotonga to strengthen SPNFZ? NPT process is broken and there are not even talks about
The Treaty of Rarotonga bans the use, testing and talks! Australia’s decision to purchase nuclear submarines
possession of nuclear weapons within the borders of the under the AUKUS partnership has also raised concerns about
zone. SPNFZ signatories pledge they will not develop nuclear nuclear proliferation in some neighbouring states.
weapons. Beyond this, the Treaty also sought binding Many non-nuclear states are showing their support for the
guarantees from the five major nuclear weapon states: Russia, abolition of nuclear weapons through the new Treaty on the
China, France, Britain and the United States. Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which entered into
Three protocols of the 1985 Treaty prohibit the use or threat force in January 2021. Eleven Pacific Islands Forum member
of use of any nuclear devices against Parties to the Treaty, states and territories have now ratified or acceded to the
and ban nuclear weapons testing within the Zone. Another TPNW (Aotearoa-New Zealand, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati,
protocol calls on the three states with territories in the zone Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Tokelau, Tuvalu and Vanuatu).
(France, United Kingdom and the United States) to apply the Kiribati and Kazakhstan—both sites of Cold War nuclear
Treaty to their territories. testing—have been developing mechanisms to implement
Russia and China signed and ratified these protocols in 1986, TPNW provisions requiring states to commit to assistance for
soon after the Treaty entered into force. France, the US and nuclear survivors. This support is of vital importance to the
Britain waited a decade, only signing in March 1996 after the civilian and military personnel who staffed the ten nuclear
end of 30 years of French nuclear testing. London and Paris testing sites across Oceania, as well as neighbouring island
soon ratified the Treaty. The US is now the only major nuclear communities affected by nuclear fallout.
weapons state that has still not signed the protocols. They are especially important for Ma’ohi communities
Fearing Chinese influence, the US is ramping up its rhetoric that have suffered health and environmental damage from

20 Islands Business, November 2023