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Nuclear Issues Nuclear Issues

193 French nuclear tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls. successfully pushed back against proposals from Vanuatu and
On 28 September, the Assembly of French Polynesia adopted Papua New Guinea that would have banned the deployment
a resolution “relating to support for the Treaty on the of nuclear-armed warships and the testing of nuclear missiles
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons”, recognising the nuclear within the zone.
ban treaty as a “new norm of international law.” France, as Emeritus Professor Michael Hamel-Green, author of a
with other nuclear weapons states, has refused to sign TPNW, history of the SPNFZ negotiations, explains that “the SPNFZ
but the unanimous resolution from Ma’ohi politicians sends a Treaty’s negotiated solution to the nuclear ships issue was
strong message to Paris. a compromise formula, where individual states could make
their own decision on allowing or disallowing such visits and
Creating SPNFZ transit in territorial waters.” In 1987, New Zealand followed
After years of campaigning by Pacific churches, trade unions Vanuatu to ban nuclear vessels from its waters.
and the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement, In the working group, Australia opposed the inclusion
Forum leaders finally agreed to develop a South Pacific of a ban on the stationing of nuclear weapons within the
Nuclear Free Zone Treaty at the 1984 Forum in Tuvalu. In zone. During the negotiations, Solomon Islands, Papua New
Funafuti, leaders established a working group to draft the Guinea and Vanuatu voiced strong concerns that the lack of
final text of a SPNFZ Treaty, for their approval the following regulation of port visits by nuclear-armed vessels could lead
year in Rarotonga. to a form of de facto stationing. They argued for time limits
Cabinet papers released decades later show that, as on the “duration and pattern of port visits” and a “prior
Chair of the working group, Australia lobbied hard to water warning” requirement for nuclear ship visits. The Report of
down the treaty to protect US strategic interests. Canberra the Treaty Working Group noted that “Vanuatu and Papua New

Islands Business, November 2023 21