Turning swords into ploughshares

JUDGE C. G Weeramantry's speech at Atomic Art Exhibition at the United Nations, May 5, 2005.

TURNING swords into ploughshares has been the dream of philosophers, theologians, poets and artists for thousands of years. Yet this line of thinking has not yet penetrated into the centres of power.

This exhibition gives expression to that idea in a powerful way for it converts the very substance of nuclear weapons into works of art, thus juxtaposing two extremes of human activity-total destruction and inspirational artistic creation.

From the legal point of view nuclear weapons stand condemned by at least a dozen bedrock principles of international law. I have no time here to elaborate on these but they include basic principles of humanitarian law, the prohibition of cruel and unnecessary suffering, the prohibition of genocide, the prohibition of intergenerational damage, and the prohibition of irreversible environmental damage, to mention just a few.

The total inconsistency of nuclear weapons with universally agreed norms of conduct becomes evident when we consider that all cultural traditions are so sensitive to the use of weapons that cause unnecessary suffering that in the nineteenth century the use of expanding (dum dum) bullets was solemnly agreed by all the recognised powers of the time to be too cruel to be used in warfare among "civilised nations".

Yet nations claiming to be civilised seriously contend in the 21st century that it is quite in order to use nuclear weapons which can kill hundreds of thousands if not millions of innocent civilians in one second and cause lingering suffering to hundreds of thousands more - not to speak of intergenerational damage.

The absurdity of this contention is evident even to a school child but evidently not to those in the centres of power.

The expenditure of earth resources on nuclear power must surely be one of the most monumental wastages of earth resources in human history - a waste not only of earth resources but of hard earned national wealth and of intellectual resources that could well have been devoted to projects of construction and human happiness rather than to works of destruction and human misery.

The US alone has spent 5.5 trillion dollars on nuclear weapons from 1940 to the end of the Cold War in 1996.

According to the Atomic Audit of the Brookings Institute, 1998 this exceeds the combined total federal spending on education, social services, agriculture, general science, space research, law enforcement and energy production.

As if that wastage were not enough, the U.S. is now spending 40 billion dollars a year on its nuclear forces, and nuclear weapons spending has grown by 84% since 1995.

What could all this money do for human welfare? According to the United Nations Development Report of 1998 this same sum of 40 billion dollars could, in a world where billions suffer from want and deprivation, achieve basic education for all, basic health care for all, reproductive health care for all women, adequate food for all and clean water and safe sewerage for all.

Imagine what the combined result would be if we added to that the spending of other nuclear powers as well, including the powers that are seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. There is also a moral dimension to this waste of resources which is scarcely perceived.

How does it square with the individual conscience of citizens that governments elected and supported by them should indulge in such an immoral use of resources that belong to the people. If an individual wastes earth resources in this way all society would condemn him.

If governments act in this way, using not their own money but the wealth of their citizens, those citizens scarcely protest.

Moreover economic deprivation is one of the main causes of international discord and war, and such spending would do much to avoid future wars before they erupt as well as to engender global harmony.

Exhibitions like this highlight this message to every individual citizen and stimulate thought on the wastefulness of the entire nuclear endeavour.

They are particularly significant at a key time like this when the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty comes up for its five yearly review.

Our thanks go out in a special way to the late Tony Price who created these 20 sculptures from nuclear weapons salvage. Seeing the waste that resulted from the nuclear weapons program he was inspired to turn these weapons of destruction into icons of peace.

We must also thank the many dedicated peace workers who devoted so much effort to making this exhibition a reality, and in particular Cora Weiss who has been a principal source of strength and inspiration, without which this exhibition would not have got off the ground.