When humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons became a security issue

by Kati Juva

Educating people about the catastrophic consequences of nuclear war has been the mission of IPPNW since it’s foundation. We have always regarded the threat of nuclear war as a health issue, without regard to international politics.

This view has been shared widely among health professionals and health organisations. The World Medical Association (WMA) and the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) have made strong statements against nuclear weapons. In the 1980s, the WHO published a thorough report on the impacts of nuclear war on health and health services. 

The success of ICAN is also based on explaining clearly the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons including their impact on health and the environment. ICAN changed the nuclear discourse from megatons and missile trajectories to nuclear winter and human suffering. This narrative made the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) possible and gave ICAN its Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.

We have now been working for more than a year to persuade the WHO to produce a new report on the health impacts of nuclear war, in order to update the one that was published in 1987—almost 40 years ago. Much of the old report is still valid, but there is plenty of new information, e.g. regarding the vulnerability of women and children exposed to radiation, and new scientific data about nuclear winter and nuclear famine. This information should be brought to the public and decision makers powerfully and clearly. 

Our team in Geneva and diplomats from the Marshall Islands and other sponsor countries have done tremendous work to promote this project. And we succeeded! A resolution to produce a new report on the effects of nuclear war on public health passed in the World Health Assembly in May by a vote of 86 – 14, with 28 abstentions. 

During this process we have learned a lot about diplomacy, about how UN organisations work, and how so-called security policy and deterrence crawls into health issues.

When I first discussed the proposed resolution with a Finnish WHO representative, he told me that in the EU (where they negotiate the resolutions together) they do not like us bringing “political” issues like nuclear weapons into a health organisation. When the Swedes tried to reach their WHO representatives, they were guided to the ministry of foreign affairs, not to the ministry of health. So these officials regard a scientific report on the health consequences of nuclear war as a political and security issue.

It is not surprising that countries with nuclear weapons did not like this resolution, when it will show how horrible and unusable these weapons are. France, North Korea, Russia, and the UK voted against the resolution and China, India, Israel, and Pakistan abstained. The Trump administration withdrew from the WHO, so the US did not vote. 

But this peculiar idea of avoiding “politics” is also reflected in the behavior of many European countries. Several countries with a border with Russia (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Estonia, and Slovakia) voted against the resolution. So did Germany. Some other countries with nuclear sharing arrangements under NATO (Turkey, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Belarus) abstained, as did Finland, which has the longest border with Russia. Only the non-NATO European countries—Austria, Malta, Ireland and Switzerland—supported the resolution.

It looks like the NATO propaganda on nuclear deterrence has convinced the European border-countries to believe that nuclear weapons will give them security against Russia. Anyone who doubts this is thought to compromise their security. Interestingly, US allies from other parts of the world, such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea all supported the resolution. 

This NATO deterrence-security attitude was further confirmed, when after the WHA meeting I met the (retiring) head of the disarmament division of the Finnish foreign ministry, Jarmo Viinanen. He said that, basically, they have nothing against the WHO preparing such a report, but they feel the motives for the resolution were political and thus “wrong.” He believed our motive for the resolution was to gather information about the impacts of nuclear war in order to return to the International Court of Justice for a new decision that the use of nuclear weapons would be against international and humanitarian law. What a splendid idea!

This is actually something we tried to do in the 1990s. And, yes, this is exactly what we want. We do believe nuclear weapons are illegal. But Mr. Viinanen thought that such a decision by the ICJ would undermine our security, rather than enhancing it!

This shows we are on the right track. Those who believe nuclear deterrence brings us security are afraid of what we do and can achieve by using scientific evidence to prove the opposite. Let’s continue this line and policy. In the end we will win.

[Kati Juva is IPPNW co-president and the coordinator of ICAN Finland.]