All civilized states to Mexico in February
In March 2013, representatives from 128 countries met in Oslo, Norway for the first intergovernmental conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. It was, however remarkable that all the nuclear-weapon states were absent and gave incredibly bad excuses for not attending. They were sorely missed. The conference was a huge success and made it absolutely clear—what has always been the message of IPPNW—that no state, under any circumstance, will ever be able to protect and help its own citizens in case of an attack with nuclear weapons. Read more…
IPPNW and PSR mourn an exceptional leader
Dr. Jeff Patterson, a former International Councilor of IPPNW and former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW’s US affiliate, died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack on January 24 in New York City as he embarked on an international trip. IPPNW members from around the world have been expressing their shock, sadness, and grief at the loss of a good friend and tireless peace worker and humanitarian. The following remembrance was published yesterday by PSR.
Dr. Jeff Patterson
Jeff Patterson, DO, was an indefatigable champion who served Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and will be sorely missed by all who knew and worked with him. Jeff exuded compassion. He cared for human life and committed himself to the relief of suffering; it motivated all his work. Jeff was a gentle soul with a powerful spirit and always provided a calming influence in difficult times. Read more…
IPPNW joins the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, the World Medical Association, Physicians for Human Rights, and other major medical associations in calling for revocation of a provision of a new Turkish law that would compromise access to emergency medical care in Turkey and make it a crime for independent medical practitioners to provide emergency care in certain situations. Article 46 of the health law drafted by the Turkish Grand National Assembly and signed by Abdullah Gül, president of the Turkish Republic, appears to be targeted at political protesters, imposing fines and up to three years of imprisonment on private practitioners who offer emergency care after the arrival of a state ambulance.
As Special Rapporteur Anand Grover pointed out in a report to the UN General Assembly on the right to health in conflict situations, physicians and other medical practitioners have a right and a duty to provide care to those in need under the International Code of Medical Ethics.
According to Otmar Kloiber, Secretary General of the WMA, “in times of urgency, from earthquakes to floods to protests and demonstrations, the international standards for emergency medical care are based on the medical need of the wounded and sick rather than the presence of official medical transport.”
IPPNW calls upon the Turkish Parliament to remove Article 46 from the health law, to guarantee the right of the Turkish people to emergency care, to respect medical ethics, and to ensure that all medical practitioners are free to provide emergency care on the basis of need without fear of prosecution, fines, jail time, or other reprisals.
The endless arms race
It’s heartening to see that an agreement has been reached to ensure that Iran honors its commitment, made when it signed the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to forgo developing nuclear weapons.
But what about the other key part of the NPT, Article VI, which commits nuclear-armed nations to “cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament,” as well as to “a treaty on general and complete disarmament”? Here we find that, 44 years after the NPT went into force, the United States and other nuclear powers continue to pursue their nuclear weapons buildups, with no end in sight. Read more…
When it comes to war, the American public is remarkably fickle.
The responses of Americans to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars provide telling examples. In 2003, according to opinion polls, 72 percent of Americans thought going to war in Iraq was the right decision. By early 2013, support for that decision had declined to 41 percent. Similarly, in October 2001, when U.S. military action began in Afghanistan, it was backed by 90 percent of the American public. By December 2013, public approval of the Afghanistan war had dropped to only 17 percent. Read more…
New report from IPPNW: two billion at risk from nuclear famine
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and its US affiliate Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) today released a new report concluding that more than two billion people—a quarter of the world’s population—would be at risk of starvation in the event of a limited nuclear exchange, such as one that could occur between India and Pakistan, or by the use of even a small number of the nuclear weapons held by the US and Russia.
“A nuclear war using only a fraction of existing arsenals would produce massive casualties on a global scale—far more than we had previously believed,” said the report’s author, IPPNW co-president Ira Helfand.
Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People at Risk? updates a study originally written by Dr. Helfand in 2012. Like the previous edition, the report released today is based upon research published by climate scientists who have assessed the impact of nuclear explosions on the Earth’s atmosphere and other ecosystems.
The report comes as momentum builds internationally to reframe disarmament efforts around a renewed understanding of the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. In October, 125 nations issued a joint statement at the UN calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons as a humanitarian imperative. Next February, more than 100 nations will convene in Mexico to discuss the humanitarian consequences posed by nuclear war and the need to act on that knowledge.
“Countries around the world—those who are nuclear-armed and those who are not—must work together to eliminate the threat and consequences of nuclear war,” Dr. Helfand said. “In order to eliminate this threat, we must eliminate nuclear weapons.”
Former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev said in 2012 that the climate impacts of the use of nuclear weapons underscore that, “we must discard Cold War-style plans for the possible use of these weapons and move rapidly to eliminating them from the world’s arsenals.”
ICAN—the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons—was launched by IPPNW in 2007 and now comprises more than 300 partner organizations in 80 countries campaigning for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons and to mandate their elimination. The report published today lends added weight to ICAN’s call to convene negotiations on such a treaty without further delay.
How to guarantee a nuclear-weapon-free Iran
A lot (or nothing) can happen in six months. As the P5+1 and Iran try to work out the terms of a permanent agreement that would alleviate global anxiety about an Iranian nuclear weapon while providing the Iranian people with some relief from crippling economic sanctions, the interim deal signed on Sunday is important for reasons that go beyond its specific terms. Read more…
A Red Cross and Red Crescent call to action on nuclear weapons
The Council of Delegates of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement renewed its call for the elimination of nuclear weapons at the IFRC’s General Assembly this month in Sydney, Australia.
The resolution, “Working towards the elimination of nuclear weapons,” was adopted unanimously and reiterated the Movement’s concern, expressed two years ago in a similarly worded resolution, about “the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons, including the unspeakable human suffering that their use would cause and the threat that such weapons pose to food production, the environment and future generations.” Read more…
Honoring a giant in the movement for peace and social justice
Victor W. Sidel
[Victor W. Sidel, MD, a co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a former PSR president and IPPNW co-president, a contributor to the original studies on the medical consequences of nuclear war that were published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1962, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, where he taught public health and social medicine, and a former president of the American Public Health Association, was honored over the weekend at a special session celebrating his career during the APHA annual meeting in Boston. Read more…
Nuclear Exits – out of the dark, into the light
You might have known that South Africa built nuclear weapons and then destroyed them again in the early 90s. But did you know that Sweden tried to get nuclear weapons? Or Switzerland? Countries that have had a nuclear weapons programme and have then chosen to forgo nuclear weapons can be said to have undergone a Nuclear Exit. Nuclear Exits should be examined as examples of best practice when considering how to get countries to forgo nuclear weapons now. Read more…
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