UN Voting on Nuclear Disarmament Shows Abysmal US Record

[marmar]

from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation:



UN Voting on Nuclear Disarmament Shows Abysmal US Record
By David Krieger

Each year the United Nations considers resolutions that seek to limit, control or eliminate the dangers that nuclear weapons pose to the inhabitants of the planet. In general, these resolutions can be described as nuclear disarmament measures.*

In 2007, in the 62nd General Assembly of the United Nations, 20 resolutions on nuclear disarmament were considered. Of these, five were not voted upon. Of the 15 resolutions that were voted upon by the UN General Assembly in 2007, only one country in the world, the United States, had a record of opposing all of them. It is an abysmal voting record, and the people of the United States should be aware of the dangerous and obstructionist role their government is playing in opposing a serious agenda for nuclear disarmament.

The votes of the nine nuclear weapon states are listed in the chart below. Countries were given one point for each Yes vote, zero points for each abstention, and a point was taken away for each No vote:

China Pakistan N. Korea India Russia UK Israel France US
Yes (+1) 11 10 11 8 5 3 1 2 0
No (-1) 0 0 2 3 1 9 8 10 15
Abstain (0) 4 5 0 4 8 3 6 3 0
Vote Tally 11 10 9 5 4 -6 -7 -8 -15



United States

In three of the votes, the United States was the only country in the world to vote against the resolutions. The resolutions called for:

1. Giving security assurances to non-nuclear weapons states that nuclear weapons would not be used against them;
2. Supporting the Treaty on the South-East Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone;
3. Supporting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, to permanently end all nuclear weapons testing.

Four other resolutions had only three votes against, and in each case the US was one of the three. These resolutions called for:

1. Supporting a nuclear-weapon-free southern hemisphere (US, France, UK opposed);
2. Decreasing the operational readiness of nuclear weapons systems (US, France, UK opposed);
3. A UN conference on eliminating nuclear dangers (US, France, UK opposed);
4. Supporting renewed determination toward the elimination of nuclear weapons (US, India, North Korea opposed).

France & United Kingdom

The other nuclear weapons states had more positive voting records, although in the case of the UK and France, only slightly more so. Both France and the UK voted Yes on a resolution highlighting the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and on supporting for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The UK’s other Yes vote was on renewed determination towards elimination of nuclear weapons. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2008/02/13_krieger_abysmal_record.php?krieger

[LynnTheDem]

1. Coz when we support nukes, we're really supporting peace!

:eyes: