From: FABB, c/o Angie Zelter, Larch House, Knucklas, LD7 1PN.
To: Iain Livingstone, Chief Constable, Police Scotland HQ,
Tulliallan Castle. Kincardine-in-Forth, Fife, FK10 4BE, Scotland & 2 Clyde Gateway, French St, Glasgow, G40 4EH & Ministry of Defence Police, Faslane & Coulport, Helensburgh, G84 0EH.
30th May 2022
Dear Scottish Police, (MoD and Police Scotland)
I am writing on behalf of Trident Ploughshares and XR Peace to make contact and assure you of our total nonviolence in our attempts to stop the ongoing conspiracy to commit the most serious breaches of international humanitarian law.
We will be camping at Peaton Wood, Coulport, of which I am a Trustee. This is a wood bought by the peace movement and we are managing it to increase biodiversity and enable the regeneration of native species as well as using it from time to time as a place for our disarmament camps. I ask that you respect our camp space as you would a private dwelling house.
As you will know from decades of protest at both Faslane and Coulport, as well as further afield, we have sought expert international legal advice as well as researched the law ourselves. We are certain that the activities at Faslane and Coulport are ongoing conspiracies to commit war crimes and crimes against the peace. There is no way that any of the nuclear warheads on Trident submarines can be used in accordance with international law. In fact, we have a statement made by H.E. Judge Bedjaoui, who was the presiding Judge of the International Court of Justice on the occasion of the Advisory Opinion on nuclear weapons in 1996, on this precise point. The statement has been published and can be found in full at the end of this letter but the most relevant sentences are as follows:-
“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.”
Trident Ploughshares and XR Peace are setting up a disarmament camp from 10th to 17th June 2022 at Peaton Wood with the permission of the Trustees. We are calling it FABB – Faslane Action for the Bomb Ban. This is a reference to that most important UN Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) that came into force last year when the 50 required number of states ratified the Treaty and it became international law. It has a growing number of countries ratifying (at present 61) and the first Conference of the Parties will be held in Vienna from 20-23rd June. It is there that the UN will firm up plans for global nuclear disarmament. Meanwhile, the 9 nuclear powers are ignoring this process, even as it becomes more and more difficult as more countries deny them facilities and investment. Horrifyingly, nuclear weapons states are brandishing their nuclear weapons with Putin threatening to use them and the US and France bringing their nuclear submarines to join the UK Trident system at Faslane. These threats and counter threats are all illegal and threaten us all.
The people who work inside Faslane and Coulport and all those who are part of the manufacture, maintenance, and deployment of nuclear weapons are, knowingly or unknowingly, supporting criminal activity. It is the peaceful activists who are upholding the law. As we go about our lawful disarmament work please remember that we are peaceful, nonviolent and respectful fellow citizens trying to enable a new peaceful world order to emerge out of the chaos and destruction of a world run by the 1% for profit rather than for everyone’s good. Please support us and arrest those at the top of the nuclear system, who are directly responsible.
As law enforcers, we ask you to investigate the law, especially those international laws brought directly into UK law, the Genocide Act (1969/2001) and the Geneva Conventions Act (1957) and the ruling of the Scottish High Court that clarifies that international humanitarian law applies in Scotland.
The possibility of nuclear war and the ongoing climate and biodiversity crisis are the twin existential crises facing us all. Please join us and demand that the UK dismantle its weapons of mass murder.
If you require any further information do not hesitate to contact us at fabb@gn.apc.org.
Yours peacefully, Angie Zelter, Dr Rowland Dy and Gillean Lawrence on behalf of FABB.
Excerpt from ‘Trident and International Law’ edited by Rebecca Johnson and Angie Zelter, published by Luath, 2011.
Page 90 of ‘Trident and International Law’– Postscript written by Judge Bedjaoui to his Chapter entitled ‘Good Faith, International Law and Elimination of Nuclear Weapons’.
“As a post-script to my Geneva speech above, and for the use of all those in Scotland wishing to ensure full compliance with international humanitarian law, I would like to stress that the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion of July 8, 1996, did not have at its disposal adequate elements of fact to permit concluding with certainty whether a specific nuclear weapon system would be contrary to the principles and rules of the law applicable in armed conflict. The Court was asked to rule on a general question of use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. If the Court had been asked to rule on the legality of a specific nuclear weapons system or doctrine the conclusion we arrived at might well have been much clearer.
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 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 6 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.”