Notes

Debate At Brock

Be it resolved that in the opinion of this House, the countries of NATO should renounce unilaterally the use and the threat of using nuclear weapons under all circumstances, and without condition destroy all stocks of such devices, and that this should be done quite independently of any action or lack thereof by the countries of the Warsaw Pact.

To be debated Wed., Feb. 17 at 7:30 pm in the Senate Chambers at Brock University,organized by Science for Peace Brock. Peter Nicholls, chair of the Dept. of Biological Sciences and lifetime member of the Union Debating Society, Cambridge, England, will move the motion. It will be seconded by Ms. Marcia Timmel of the Olive Branch Catholic Worker Movement, Washington, D.C. Opposed will be William Mathie, Professor of Political Science, Brock, seconded by George Bell, Professor of Strategic Studies at York University, Toronto.

In the chair will be Wm. Matheson, Vice-President, Brock University.

Making Treaties Work

The Markland Group organized a Workshop on Arms — Control Treaty Compliance Systems at the University of Toronto Law School November 28/29. The Workshop was made up both of experts and citizen representatives. The experts included professors of international law and former diplomats(including George Ignatieff) and was led by John Holmes (CIIA, SfP member). The participants explored various alternative mechanisms and institutions that might be available for attachment to arms control treaties for the purpose of promoting compliance.

A most important institution explored is a new international agency to administer the inspection provisions of treaties. This agency would hire inspectors, analyze data and determine whether or not a violation is taking place.

We believe further that treaties can only be made effective if we create an international body to promote compliance. This new body should function as a UN related agency. Once such organizations are in place and operating, there will be a framework into which a whole series of new arms control treaties can be fit. Without that framework, new treaties may well be impossible and existing treaties start to fall apart.

The outcome of this expert/citizen workshop was the establishment of a committee to draft concrete policy recommendations to be submitted to the Department of External Affairs in spring.

– Doug Scott, President

Recommended Reading:

Volume 43, Number 4, 1987 of the Journal of Social Issues, Beyond Deterrence. Issue editor: George Levinger. “Beyond Deterrence” is the lead article by Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein. This is followed by 13 comments on the theme and replies from Lebow and Stein.

The Tritium Case

The ruling in Energy Probe’s “Tritium Case” has gone completely against the plaintiffs, according to Norm Rubin, research director. The Court upheld the 1977 Minister’s Exemption of Ontario Hydro from Environmental Review. Consideration is being given to an appeal.

SAGE

Four young students visited 162 communities in all ten provinces of Canada in 1986-87 and spoke with 120,000 high school students.

The four attended the IPPNW Seventh Congress in Moscow, sponsored by Canadian PPNW. The report by Seth Klein, one of the SAGE Four, on this trip to a superpower city is now available from the Bulletin.