on the Pentagon's draft revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons, including their pre-emptive use

A) Having regard to the Pentagon's draft revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons as published on 15 March 2005 and made public by the Washington Post on 11 September 2005;

 B) Having regard to the fact that this plan provides authoritative guidance for commanders to request presidential approval for using nuclear weapons and is the Pentagon's first attempt to revise procedures for the use of nuclear weapons in order to use them by way of pre-emptive strike or specifically against real or perceived threats from weapons of mass destruction, in particular biological or chemical weapons;

 C) Having regard that this is the next step in a nuclear weapon strategy evolution in which the US has decided to renege on its negative security assurance not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states, has decided not to accede to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; has started the development of new generations of nuclear weapons for combat-use (bunker-busters); and has recently announced plans to station offensive weapons in space to protect its satellites;

 D) Having regard to the commitments undertaken by all of the nuclear weapon states under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to work towards the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons, and the desperate need for a globally responsible strategy to prevent new nuclear weapon races and uncontrolled proliferation of all types of weapons of mass destruction, and for the necessity that the world biggest nations all would play a pioneers’ role to reach this goal; given the fact that citizens all over the world are looking at their governments to take up this issue positively;

 The EGP Council

 1) Points out that after the failure of the NPT Review Conference in the spring of 2005,  largely (but not only) due to opposition from the United States, this is a further attempt by the US administration to confirm its intention to use nuclear weapons as instruments of international coercion (and not only for deterrence purposes) and to use them pre-emptively or even preventively, and to use them against states that do not possess nuclear weapons, if that is perceived to be in its own national-security-interest;

 2) Points out that this plan is a blunt violation of the 1996 Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legal status of the threat or use of nuclear weapons;

 3) Points out that this plan is a next step of the US to undermine the UN as the world most important forum for nuclear disarmament negotiations, and that it violates the obligation accepted by the US as a signatory of the NPT to 'pursue nuclear disarmament in good faith' as expressed by article 6 of that Treaty;

 4) Points out that the implementation of this  plan would also be a violation of the NPT Treaty because it is undermining the guarantees which have been given in 1995 to all non-nuclear weapon NPT-signatories that they will not be attacked with nuclear weapons by the nuclear weapon states;

 5) Points out that the example of Iraq demonstrates that this plan opens a wide window of opportunity to undertake a nuclear weapon attack on the basis of imperfect and non-confirmed intelligence, exclusively based on US or unreliable sources and biased perceptions, wrongly interpreted, by human failure or deliberately;

 6) Points out that this plan - and even its announcement - totally undermines any plea on any nation to co-operate in efforts for nuclear weapon non-proliferation or disarmament, instead of trying to achieve its own nuclear weapon capability in order to build up a perceived credible deterrence against hostile attack by the US or others, pre-emptive or by retaliation, by conventional weapons or by weapons of mass destruction;

 7) Points out that this plan will provide positive support to any military authority of any nation to request a pre-emptive attack by its military forces on any perceived threat of weapons of mass destruction in any neighbouring state; points out that history demonstrates that this is not a theoretical issue;

 8) Points out in particular that this plan makes it very difficult to credibly convince political and military leaders of non-NPT countries, such as India, Pakistan and Israel to accede to the treaty or to co-operate on any other international instrument to stop nuclear weapon development, or to return to the Treaty, such as North Korea;

 9) Calls on President George W.Bush to openly distance himself from this draft and from positive reactions to this plan from the side of Defense-Secretary Donald H.Rumsfeld;

 10 Calls on the US Congress to openly reject this plan and to request the President to return to a globally responsible foreign policy to promote in a more credible and efficient way the non-proliferation and annihilation of all types of weapons of mass destruction;

 11) Calls on NATO and the North Atlantic Council to openly protest this plan with the argument that such plans undermine the credibility of the Atlantic Alliance as a global player in the fight against armed conflict, disorder and international terrorism;

 12) Calls on the European Union Presidency, the Council and the EU member states to fully and publicly distance themselves from this plan with the argument that it is incompatible with the European Security Strategy and that it undermines the security-relationship with the USA in the framework of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP);

 13) Urges this issue to be added as a permanent item to the agenda of the Transatlantic Relationship Dialogue;

 14) Calls on the governments of all European states on which territories US nuclear weapons are based, to demand an immediate and complete withdrawal of these arsenals;

 15) Decides to forward this resolution to the Global Parliamentary Forum on Nuclear Disarmament and to the office of the International Association Mayors for Peace in Hiroshima.

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link to the document: http://www.wslfweb.org/docs/doctrine/3_12fc2.pdf