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| Monday, 27 October 2003 |
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by Sandasen Marasinghe The International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) has drawn up a scheme to commence a project against producing and stockpiling of nuclear weapons within the South Asian Region. Judge C. G. Weeramantry, the Former Vice President of the International Court of Justice and also the President of the IALANA revealed this at a seminar on 'Illegality of Nuclear Arms' organized by the Sri Lanka Bar Association in collaboration with the Weeramantry International Centre for Peace, Education and Research (WICPER) and IALANA, at the Galadari Hotel, on Friday. The President of IALANA observed that despite the ruling by the International Court of Justice, several Countries remain in possession of nuclear weapons. Officially the Nuclear Club consists of the five permanent members of the United National Security Council: the United States, Russia, France, Great Britain and China. However, other nations as well now have nuclear weapons capability and the number of nations with such capability is likely to increase. He further observed the horrors of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb which was dropped in 1945 and in which more than 80,000 people were killed and the inter generation damage and environmental devastation caused by the bomb. He stated that the US possesses more than 10,600 nuclear weapons, while Russia more than 8,600, Great Britain around 200 while China, India, Pakistan and several other countries also possess nuclear weapons. The power of the stockpiled arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world is a million times as more powerful and lethal as that of the Hiroshima Bomb. He was of the opinion that people of the world were not protesting sufficiently on this nuclear weapons issue and the lawyers were not active enough regarding the matter. Dr Jayantha Dhanapala, Former Under Secretary General of Disarmament said that we were deafeningly silent although two of our neighbouring countries were in the possession of nuclear weapons. |
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