IPPNW Co-President Dr. Ron McCoy talks about
the NPT, IPPNW and himself

                                                                             
e-Pulse: Tell us a little about IPPNW: when did this organization begin and the impetus for its creation? What role has IPPNW, as the only international medical organization dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons, played in the global movement?

McCoy: IPPNW was founded in 1980 at the height of the Cold War, when the momentum of the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe threatened to propel the two protagonists to nuclear war and ‘mutual assured destruction.’ As the only international medical organization dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons, IPPNW has unique credibility, professional authority and public trust when it advocates the abolition of nuclear weapons. The publication of medical research into the catastrophic effects of blast, radiant heat and ionizing radiation on the population of Boston, in the event of a nuclear war, based on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had a dramatic impact on the consciousness of a world teetering on the brink of nuclear war in the 1980s. For this work in public health education, IPPNW received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 and continues to play this role in all disarmament forums. Since then, IPPNW has grown into a global federation of national physicians’ groups that affirm the Hippocratic principle - first, do no harm. In that context, IPPNW seeks to understand the economic and social causes of violence and war and the need to prevent war. IPPNW argues against the greater reliance on military power by the powerful and wealthy to advance narrow national interests and strategies that depend upon nuclear weapons.

 e-Pulse: What is the greatest priority for your organization at this Conference?

McCoy: The greatest priority at the 2005 NPT Review would be for both nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states to show good faith by complying with their legal obligations under the NPT and taking a balanced approach to the mutually reinforcing imperatives of nuclear disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation. The nuclear weapon states must renounce both the use of nuclear weapons and the development of new nuclear weapons, and proceed immediately to de-alerting. Non-nuclear weapon states must renounce all ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons and fulfill their obligations in the peaceful uses of nuclear technology, under Article IV and the Additional Protocol.

e-Pulse: In your view, what would be the best outcome of the Conference? And, the worst?

McCoy: In the case of the worst scenario, how will the international community handle the crisis of nuclear weapons, if the Review Conference should fail to significantly strengthen the regime? The best outcome of the Conference  would be for the nuclear weapon states to generate the necessary political will to strengthen the NPT by immediately building on the 13 Practical Steps agreed at the 2000 NPT Review, all of which flow from their fundamental “unequivocal undertaking” to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. The worst outcome of the Conference would be for the nuclear weapon states to repudiate their commitments made at the 2000 NPT Review and for stalemate in the NPT process to deteriorate further, leading to further unraveling of the NPT and withdrawal of more States Parties from the NPT, as in the case of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. If this crisis were to happen and there was no way to build a bridge between nuclear disarmament and nuclear proliferation after 35 years of diplomatic gamesmanship, the international community would be faced with the realization that it must look beyond the NPT and take a new approach by emulating the Ottawa process and adopting a framework for the abolition of nuclear weapons through a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which is now more feasible through advances in verification technology and compliance procedures. This will take advantage of the substantial conceptual work that has already been done on the legal, technical and political requirements for achieving and maintaining a nuclear weapons free world. In fact, a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention has been submitted and circulated in the United Nations. A political judgment will be needed on whether the verification regime will offer sufficient levels of assurance, acknowledging at the same time that no verification system can provide absolute certainty. It is inevitable that some risk of attempted breakout will have to be accepted, if the greater benefits of a safer nuclear weapon free world are to be realized. In a globalizing world where the effectiveness and destructive force of conventional weapons are increasing, the development of an illegal nuclear force would be self-defeating. Nuclear disarmament is primarily a positive obligation to undertake the technical process of dismantling and eliminating nuclear weapons, whereas nuclear abolition is a positive obligation to eliminate nuclear weapons, combined with a normative process of prohibiting the acquisition, transfer, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. In other words, nuclear abolition is the synthesis of the two competing approaches in the NPT process - disarmament and non-proliferation. The concept of an abolition framework is therefore closer to what the nuclear weapon states have already agreed on disarmament and it encompasses their concerns about proliferation. It may be an easier framework with which to engage the nuclear weapon states than one which focuses mainly on disarmament. An independent Ottawa-style conference on nuclear abolition would generate considerable media coverage and political pressure on all nuclear weapon states, declared and undeclared, to abandon nuclear weapons and embrace abolition. Whatever the reasons or concerns that have led some States to develop nuclear weapons and doctrines in the name of security, nuclear weapons pose an unacceptable threat to human civilization and must be abolished. Nuclear weapons are weapons of genocide and totally annihilate populations. For 35 years, the NPT has failed abysmally to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The majority of the people of the world want nuclear weapons abolished. It is time to look for new ways to translate the will of the majority into democratic action to overturn the malfeasance of the few.

e-Pulse: How did you get interested in disarmament and nonproliferation issues?

McCoy: I’ve had an interest in international relations for a very long time that goes back to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War and the liberation of Malaysia from Japanese occupation. It was only after reading John Hershey’s book, Hiroshima, years later that I began to understand the true nature of nuclear weapons. In 1986, when I read about the activities of IPPNW and its British affiliate, Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons, in the British Medical Journal, I became a member of MCANW and began my involvement in nuclear disarmament. A year later, I founded the Malaysian affiliate of IPPNW and have been its chair since. My work in IPPNW has grown over the years, first as Malaysian international councilor and later as vice-president, co-president and president of IPPNW. I’ve had a close working relationship with the Malaysian government on disarmament and was a member of the Malaysian government’s delegation when it made its oral submission on the legal status of nuclear weapons to the International Court of Justice in 1995. I was a member of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons in 1996.

e-Pulse: Dr. McCoy, thank you for this interview.