Trial on 12 Oct 2017 for blockade of Coulport on 11 July 2017 at Dumbarton JP Court.
Defence of Brian Quail
[Note – Brian was stopped from saying all this but most of it and certainly the basis of his passionate arguments were laid before the court]
My alleged offence took place, not on a public road, but on a MoD road to which the public were allowed access. The date was not fortuitous; it was chosen to be close to an event of major political and legal significance.
On the 7th July, 122 members of the General Assembly of the UN in New York voted to support the draft of a treaty banning nuclear weapons. Britain and the other 8 rogue nuclear sates boycotted this, but nuclear weapons are now banned. This “closes the gap” in law, whereby Chemical and Biological weapons have already been banned, but no treaty specifically bans nuclear weapons – until now
This does not mean that the UN has suddenly decided that nuclear weapons are illegal, and that they were somehow legal before July 7th. As WMD they already belong to a prohibited class of weaponry, and Trident as the WMD “ne plus ultra”, is and always has been, flagrantly illegal
The means and methods where by a state may defend itself are not unlimited. The limitations imposed rise from the principles of natural justice (ius gentium). Thus, one may not rape, torture, execute prisoners of war, or deliberately target the civilian population – even if doing so were perceived to bring victory nearer (the Hiroshima Fallacy). Such acts remain crimes, because a desirable end does not justify an evil means.
[While I speak, a young man sits at a control panel deep under the surface of the ocean, waiting for the order to press the button. We have already signed the nuclear blank cheque, and wait in the hypocritical hope that it will not actually be cashed. But, morally, we have already done the deed.]
Trident is a real and existing, on-going war crime, because the laws of war have always applied to nuclear weapons.
And if it be objected that the crime I was trying to prevent was not immediate, I must respond that it may well have been the case that the vehicles we held up were carrying people on their way to Coulport to load hydrogen bombs onto Vanguard submarines, in which case we were directly preventing a war crime. The base workers, whatever their particular jobs, are all cogs in a vast killing machine, and the machine cannot work without its myriads of components. They are “art and part” of an on going conspiracy to commit major war crimes.
The July 8th 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) outlined the sources of international law as they relate to nuclear weapons, and makes it quite clear that nuclear weapons would generally breach all of the following laws and customs of war:
The Declaration of St. Petersburg, 1868 because unnecessary suffering would be caused;
The Martens Clause, 1899 because humanity would not remain under the protection and authority of the principles of international law derived from established custom, from the principles of humanity and from the dictates of public conscience;
The Hague Conventions, 1907 because unnecessary suffering would be caused and there would be no guarantee of the inviolability of neutral nations;
The U.N. Charter, 1945 because such a use of force would not be proportionate;
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 because long-lasting radioactive contamination would interfere with innocent people’s inherent right to life and health;
The Geneva Conventions, 1949 (which has been brought directly into UK law through the 1957 Geneva Conventions Act) because protection of the wounded, sick, the infirm, expectant mothers, civilian hospitals and health workers would not be ensured;
The Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 1977 (which have also been directly brought into UK law through the 1995 Geneva Conventions (Amendments) Act) because there would be massive incidental losses of civilian lives and widespread, long-term and severe damage to the environment if a nuclear weapon were to be used.
Serious violations of these treaties and declarations are defined as criminal acts under the Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgement of the Tribunal and were adopted by the International Law Commission of the United Nations, 1950.
Principle VI defines crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Specifically, Nuremberg Principle VI (a) defines Crimes against Peace as “Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of … a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances … Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned”.
Nuremberg Principle VI (b) defines War Crimes as “violations of the laws or customs of war” .
Nuremberg Principle VI (c) defines Crimes against Humanity as “murder, extermination … and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population … when … carried on in execution of, or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime”.
In addition The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), 1968 is being violated now, in that the United Kingdom is not fulfilling its obligation to negotiate – in good faith – for nuclear disarmament but instead, is seeking to replace Trident
British Trident nuclear warheads are 100 to 120 kilotons each – that is around 8 to 10 times more powerful than the ones used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki (the bombing of these 2 cities have been judged to be war crimes). Trident nuclear warhead targets are known to include numerous city targets. Such use of these particular nuclear weapons could not distinguish between civilian and military targets, nor are they intended to do so. Indeed it is a nonsense to suggest that a nuclear bomb 8 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb could possibly do so. The reason nuclear weapons are targeted in this way is to try to deter war by threatening mass destruction – the purpose of Trident is to terrorise and to create “incalculable and unacceptable” risks, just as the NATO Strategic Concept Document specifies.
H.E. Judge Bedjaoui, who was President of the International Court of Justice 1994-1997 which included the period of the historic Advisory Opinion of 1996, made a clear statement on the illegality of UK nuclear weapons (see [pages 90-91 of] ‘Trident and International Law – Scotland’s Obligations’, edited by Rebecca Johnson and Angie Zelter (who graces this court by her presence today as my co-accused) by Luath Press Ltd in 2007):
I have been asked to give a personal opinion on the legality of a nuclear weapons system that deploys over 100 nuclear warheads with an approximate yield of 100 kt per warhead. Bearing in mind that warheads of this size constitute around eight times the explosive power of the bomb that flattened Hiroshima in 1945 and killed over 100,000 civilians, it follows that the use of even a single such warhead in any circumstance, whether a first or second use and whether intended to be targeted against civilian populations or military objectives, would inevitably violate the prohibitions on the infliction of unnecessary suffering and indiscriminate harm as well as the rule of proportionality including with respect to the environment. In my opinion, such a system deployed and ready for action would be unlawful. In accordance with evidence heard by the Court, it is clear that an explosion caused by the detonation of just one 100 kt warhead would release powerful and prolonged ionising radiation, which could not be contained in space or time, and which would harmfully affect civilians as well as combatants, neutral as well as belligerent states, and future generations as well as people targeted in the present time. In view of these extraordinarily powerful characteristics and effects, any use of such a warhead would contravene international and humanitarian laws and precepts. In other words, even in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake, the use of a 100 kt nuclear warhead – regardless of whether it was targeted to land accurately on or above a military target — would always fail the tests of controllability, discrimination, civilian immunity, and neutral rights and would thus be unlawful.
In my opinion, any state that aids and abets another country, in the deployment and maintenance of nuclear warheads of 100 kt or comparable explosive power would also be acting unlawfully.
The modernisation, updating or renewal of such a nuclear weapon system would also be a material breach of NPT obligations, particularly the unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to “accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament” and the fundamental Article VI obligation to negotiate in good faith on cessation of the arms race and on nuclear disarmament, with the understanding that these negotiations must be pursued in good faith and brought to conclusion in a timely manner.”
The seemingly insurmountable problem is that we have no language adequate to the present actuality. Casualty numbers are a haze of brain numbing statistics. We can say the words “one Trident warhead is equal to 8 Hiroshimas”. But what on earth does this mean, when we cannot understand even one Hiroshima? The epicentre of a nuclear explosion is hotter than the surface of the sun. We have no experience remotely comparable to that, to help us envisage what that means. Our imagination fails us. And our language fails.
It is only in the particular and the personal that we can even begin to understand. Let me try to do just that.
It is 8:15 am. on August 6th, 1945. In Hiroshima. Fukuhara Eiji, aged nine is walking to school when he sees a red dragonfly. He takes his cap off to capture it, reaches out and – everything goes blank. When he wakes up, he is in a world of utter darkness filled with the screams of the damned. He thinks he has died, and is in Hell. Then he makes out his mother and sisters crawling through the dark. So he reasons; “this can’t be Hell, because my mother is good, she would not be in Hell, nor my sisters”. But why are their clothes trailing behind them? Only it’s not their clothes, it is their skin….
A doctor bends over a little girl, and with tweezers gently lifts her eyelids. The eye sockets are empty. Her eyeballs have melted. He turns her to the side and extracts a thick white maggot from her arm. Why does irradiated flesh fester so quickly? I do not know. She is still alive, her little chest heaving like a captured bird…
In 1986 at a public meeting in Glasgow, I met Analong Lijon, from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, which had been the scene of US nuclear tests. There had been 67 nuclear explosions, including the then largest ever, the Bravo “event”, equivalent to 1000 Hiroshimas.
As a little girl, she wondered at “snow” falling from the sky after the explosion on Bikini Island. She gave a searing description of the birth abnormalities seen on the island. She said “Marshallese women gave birth not to children, but to things we could only describe as octopuses, turtles, and jellyfish, and other things in our experience. We do not have Marshallese words for these kinds of babies, because they were never born before the radiation came.
Women on Rongelap, Likiep, Ailuk and other atolls in the Marshall Islands, gave birth to these “monster babies”… one woman on Likiep gave birth to a child with two heads… There is a young girl on Ailuk today with no knees, three toes on each foot and a missing arm. The most common birth defects on Rongelap and nearby islands have been “jellyfish” babies. These babies are born with no bones in their bodies and transparent skin. We an see their brains and hearts beating…
Many women die from abnormal pregnancies and those who survive give birth to what looks like purple grapes which they quickly hide away and bury… “
She told us how she personally had suffered five miscarriages. Her sister had carried thirteen dead babies.
This is the only time in my life when I have had to leave the room while somebody was speaking, go into the gents’ toilet and splash water on my face to stop me passing out.
Later, she gave testimony before the UN. Let me quote from her speech on that occasion:
“Of my family, these are the survivors: Father. Mother. Brothers Tomi, Freddi. Sister Api. These are the dead: Sisters Lijon, Sari, Mata. Brothers Wili, Kunio, Paul, Apolo.
This is our history: blindness. thyroid tumours. miscarriages. jellyfish babies. Mental retardation. Sterility. Lung cancer, kidney cancer. liver cancer, sarcoma. lymphoma, leukemia….
I do not weep for my lost babies. Two stillbirths. Three jellyfish – glassy, pulsing discoids that made the nurses sick. I no longer weep for the dead. The dead do not care. We are the people of the Marshall Islands. We are your experiment.”
I remember Hiroshima. As a boy, I saw the windows of the tramcars filled with giant letters made from ticket roll: VJ, VJ, VJ. – Victory in Japan. There was universal rejoicing. Peace at last. No more war. Nobody thought of the bodies blasted and burnt in a faraway city, because they weren’t told about that. The bomb was a scientific wonder that would bring universal peace. That’s all they were told.
Strict censorship was imposed at the time by the US government. No photographs of the human victims were published until after 40 when there was declassification. The general public knew nothing of the terrible injuries inflicted by burning, blast and radiation – because they were kept in ignorance.
Just as they knew nothing – and still know nothing – of the fact that 3 weeks before the destruction of Hiroshima in July 1945 the US drew up war plan – JIC 329/1 – which singled out for obliteration 20 Soviet cities from Moscow and Leningrad, to Tblisi and Tashkent. This was following a US chief of Staff recommendation that “with atomic weapons a nation must be ready to strike the first blow if needed”. However, the US didn’t have 20 atomic bombs; they had only the two destined for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Following the brilliant success of these two experiments, full-scale production went ahead.
At this time the Soviet Union did not possess any nuclear bombs. It would be four years before they did.
Likewise, 51 days after the surrender of Japan, in war plan Totality, the Pentagon’s Joint Intelligence Staff promulgated a study entitled “Strategic Vulnerability of Russia to an Air Attack”. This envisaged an air attack with atomic bombs on 20 Russian cities. I repeat; at that time, the Soviet Union did not possess any nuclear bombs. It would be four years before they did.
These early blatantly offensive war plans clearly illustrate the colossal lies at the heart of our self-righteous cant about nuclear “deterrence” as a purely defensive Western policy. The universal use of the weasel word “deterrent” encapsulates this lie. This word is a self-vindicating euphemism – its use automatically justifies the object it denotes. Its incantation is essential ritual in the demonology of deterrence. We simply cannot grasp that we are the ones who initiated and lead the nuclear race. I have seen the enemy – he is us.
Because we justify Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are prepared to do the same again. We have already used the atomic bomb twice – why not a third or fourth time?
To the victims of the past, and to our human targets today, our hearts and our minds are closed. So we are prepared to repeat this monstrous war crime and unimaginably worse, again today. While we talk here in this court in Dumbarton, a young mans sits at a control panel deep under the ocean, waiting for the order to fire. We have already agreed to this. Theresa May has told parliament that she would give the order. Morally, we have already done it.
I find this an intolerable anguish.
In the Bikini Islands atomic tests in the 60s, dolphins escorted the ships into the lagoon. They stayed behind, curiosity stirred by the underwater activity. The nuclear explosion blew a column of boiling water 6000 feet into the air, before dissolving into a mushroom cloud of radioactive gas and spray. The dolphins were vapourised. A paradigm to contemplate. It is not suicidal folly that impels people to co-operate with the death machine. It is loyalty, sociability, and intelligence hideously misplaced. Exploited by a system indifferent to their humanity, the people frolic and play as they follow the ship to extinction.
And here are more images: Albatrosses, their feathers on fire. Blinded, hideously contorted birds crashing into things. Pigs dressed in clothing to measure the effect of burns on protected and unprotected skin. Monkeys placed in tubes round the test site. Troops with no protective clothing – given sunglasses and told to turn their back on the explosion. Animals and humans alike. Guinea pigs. Victims, sacrificed to our nuclear idolatry.
No one has explained to Lijon Eknilang – or to me – why she and her fellow islanders had to suffer the agony of giving birth to children with gross birth defects, or born dead, so that we could have a nuclear arsenal, our imperial status symbol, our so-called “deterrent”.
Lijon came here seeking justice and acknowledgement of the crimes committed against herself and many, many others: The aborigines of Australia who suffered radiation sickness and death through uranium mining, and from the nuclear tests at Maralinga and Montebello; the test victims of the USSR in Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan and Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic; the test victims of the USA – the Shoshone peoples of Nevada, whose land is permanently contaminated, and the thousands of American servicemen exposed to radiation in tests. The British servicemen used as human guinea pigs in tests at Christmas Island – all the many unnamed and unnumbered victims of our nuclear insanity. These people have suffered a terrible injustice, and the crimes committed against them cry to heaven for justice.
The law does not belong to the rulers, to the state, or to judges. It is not established for the aggrandisement of its practitioners. It is instituted for the protection of ordinary people against arbitrary power and violence. Apart from individual personal moral conviction, we have nothing else, no common bond we might share to save us from sinking into mere barbarism and brute power – other than the law.
Why then does the law not hear the voice of Lijon and of many thousands like her? And when I, or others, try to speak or act on their behalf, why do the courts not listen?
The nuclear victims cry to the courts for justice – and we gave them nuclear justification.
They look for wisdom – and we gave them sophistry.
They seek compassion – and we gave them casuistry.
The look for the protection of the law – and we give them nuclear apologetics.
One final story, a parable from the American Jesuit philosopher, Antony De Mello.
“Once an eagle’s egg was placed in a nest box in a poultry yard. The egg hatched, and young bird grew up with the rest of the poultry. He scratched in the dirt and ate the scraps throw to him by the chicken farmer, He grew and grew, and lived happy enough. Finally, death came to him, as it does to all of us. As he lay dying, he looked up and saw these magnificent creatures soaring and wheeling high up in the sky above. Amazed, he asked one of the hens; “What is that?” She replied. “Why, those are eagles, Don’t you know, that’s what you are?”
With respect, I ask your honour to consider the message of this parable. You could rise above the farmyard dirt of political postures and conventional atomic apologetics, like an eagle, and deliver belated justice to our nuclear victims.
There is in fact, a precedent for the law making a courageous moral stand in advance of the government of the day. In 1778 the Sheriff of Perthshire liberated a Jamaican slave called Joseph Knight, ruling that slavery was not recognized by the law of Scotland and was inconsistent with its principles (in Knight v Wedderburn. Morrison’s Dictionary 14545). His decision was upheld on appeal where Lord Kames stated that ‘we sit here to enforce right, not to enforce wrong’
I am indebted for this information to the research done by Lord Murray, Lord Advocate of Scotland from 1974 to 1979.
But slavery was not abolished by Parliament till in 1833. The law anticipated Parliament then. Why cannot the law have the courage and integrity to uphold basic justice against the government of the day now in 2017, as it did then in 1778?
It is inconceivable that the Common Law of Scotland should tolerate the threat of mass murder as a permissible tactic in war.
So, even if there were no Geneva and Hague Conventions, Nuremberg Principles or any other of the vast corpus of International humanitarian law that protects the lives of non-combatants. I am happy to base my case on the Common Law of Scotland
As in 1778, this court can today anticipate this historic achievement
Let me finish on a personal note
Several years ago I had heart surgery – a double by-pass. This was at the time when Trident warheads were first being sent up to Scotland from Burghfield in Berkshire.
The good folk of Faslane Peace Camp, John Ainslie the administrator of SCND, and myself regularly used to follow these convoys and hold them up whenever we could safely do so.
I had noticed that every time I saw the convoy, and heard the particular sickening roar of the Foden carriers, I would get intense chest pains. This got worse and worse until finally things came to a head on one occasion when we stopped the convoy at Whistlefield roundabout, up from the North Gate of Faslane. The lead vehicle was stopped and I ran up to support the action. The pains grew more and more intense. I collapsed on the road in agony. People crowded round and someone said “We’ll need to take him to the hospital” I said “No, I’ll be OK. Leave me here”.
The pains were unbearable, like tiger’s claws in my chest. I thought “This is it. I am dying. Then I thought. “Why am I dying here, on the road beside a vehicle carrying nuclear bombs”?
I looked up at a patch of blue in the sky, and it reminded me of my youngest daughter Catherine, who has particularly lovely blue eyes. Then I thought, No, it’s not just my children’s blue eyes, but the green eyes, and the brown eyes, and the grey eyes of all the children – and their mothers and fathers too – that are the target of our bombs. Our fellow human beings, our brothers and sisters, whom we are prepared to burn, blast and irradiate.
And I knew the answer to my question Why? It is love that drives me. Love is not an emotional or sentimental feeling. As Dostoyevsky said, “active love is a harsh and fearful thing”. It is not what you say, it is what you do.
So I am not to be stereotyped as a peace protestor, I am – though I don’t look it – a lover.
When my father was dying in the Victoria Infirmary, he suddenly opened his eyes and said: |t’s true, it’s really true, and he started to quote the words of the old song:
“Ah sweet mystery of life /At last I’ve found you.
Ah At last I know the secret of it all. / For the longing, seeking striving, waiting, yearning,
The burning hopes,/the joy and idle tears that fall
For tis love and love alone/ the world is seeking
And ‘tis love and love alone/ That can repay
‘Tis the answer, ‘tis the end and all of living/
For it is love alone that rules for aye”
Maria Skobtsova, the Russian Orthodox nun murdered by the Nazis in 1943, wrote these words:
“No amount of thought will ever result in any greater formulation than the three words, ‘Love one another,’ so long as it is love to the end and without exceptions.
And then the whole of life is illumined, which is otherwise an abomination and a burden”.
This is the principle I try live by
The Afro-American philosopher, Dr Cornel West said, “’Justice is what love looks like in public.’”
This is s a court of Justice, and you, my honour, administer Justice, and if Justice is what love looks like in public, then you and I share the same goal.
De minimis non curat lex – the law does not concern itself with trifles. This legal maxim is being stretched to its ultimate absurdity today. We are on trial because we peacefully and non-violently held up the traffic to Coulport. The court simply ignores the fact that this houses the biggest arsenal of nuclear bombs in Europe. I stand here in the dock, accused of breach of the peace, but those planning to use criminal illegal weapons of mass destruction go freely about their business.
I repudiate the charge, and I accuse Prime Minister Theresa May, Minister of Defence Michael Fallon, and Commodore Clyde Mark Gayfer of planning serious war crimes. [Furthermore, I give notice, that, should the opportunity arise, I intend to make a citizen’s arrest of any of these individuals.]
Christopher Weeramantry, former Vice-President of the international Court of Justice whom I quoted earlier, described nuclear weapons as “the ultimate Evil” This means, in the simplest monosyllabic English, they are the worst thing in the world. Will your honour today in this court in Dumbartonb rule that this is legal?
I implore your honour to remember the wise words of Lord Kames in Knight v Wedderburn in 1778, which I quoted earlier, ‘we sit here to enforce right, not to enforce wrong’.
Please stop defending Trident against me, and defend me – and humanity – against Trident.
Thank you