LETTER TO HEADS OF GOVERNMENT ON THE NEED FOR DECISIVE ACTION IN THE FIRST COMMITTEE

Dear Head of Gov,

I write to ask for your assistance in a matter of critical importance.

As Head of Government, you must feel keenly your privilege and responsibility in influencing the fate of your country.  Influencing the fate of the world is another matter, but I believe a pivotal moment to do just that has arrived.  As the “war on terror” escalates, will we take steps now to foster international cooperation and achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world?  Or will we act only after a third city has experienced the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

In hopes of averting that disaster, the 2005 Peace Declaration (enclosed) that I delivered this August calls for decisive action in the First Committee of the General Assembly.   

Many leaders ? you, no doubt, among them ? are deeply concerned that, as long as progress on nuclear disarmament continues to be stymied, the unraveling of the nuclear non-proliferation regime cannot be reversed.  The May 2005 NPT Review Conference was our last, best hope of reviving the moribund Conference on Disarmament.  That hope has been dashed.  Therefore, I was very glad to learn that a new line of action is under discussion by diplomats in New York and Geneva.  This emboldened me to speak out in the Peace Declaration.  My hope is that the Declaration will, in turn, embolden governments. 

Your intervention could ensure that this process comes to fruition.  Specifically, I humbly request that you do two things before the opening of the First Committee in October.

First, please instruct your Foreign Ministry to actively support the drafting and submission of a resolution to the First Committee that empowers a subcommittee to deal with nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.  Unshackled by the consensus rule that has hamstrung the Conference on Disarmament, this subcommittee could advance practical work on the broad spectrum of measures needed to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world.  Pursuit of this goal by such an open-ended committee would mean that in 2006 the world would at last be living up to the injunction issued by the International Court of Justice ten years earlier.

Second request:  During the Millennium Plus Five Summit, please let the other heads of government you encounter know that you have instructed your First Committee delegation to actively promote the subcommittee resolution and ask them to do likewise.  (As consensus is lacking on this issue, efforts must be directed at the First Committee where there is a long tradition of voting on resolutions.   As fitting as it would be for the Summit to take this up, an effort to that end would run up against a generally accepted view that holding votes among Heads of Government is unnecessarily divisive.)

Reviving the democratic powers of the international community will not solve all the problems besetting the international non-proliferation regime, but the subcommittee would provide the international community with a valuable tool for tackling those problems.  Ultimately, it is up to all governments to make full use of all appropriate means to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world. 

The 1,132 members of Mayors for Peace are mindful of their responsibility as civic leaders to mobilize civil society support for bold national action.  You can count on our members in your country and worldwide to enthusiastically back you in your efforts to jumpstart nuclear disarmament talks. 

One thing is absolutely certain: we cannot afford to ‘muddle through’ until the 2010 NPT Review Conference.  What we need by that year is a comprehensive program of action for the achievement and maintenance of a nuclear-weapon-free world.  I urge you to seize this historic opportunity to forge the collective will to directly influence the fate of humankind.  It is within your power to ensure that nuclear disarmament talks are underway early next year. 

Mayors for Peace are working toward a nuclear-weapon-free world in 2020. It will be a long road, but the essential task today is to start the journey.  I believe we stand with the majority of your citizens in hoping that you will be among those who demonstrate leadership in these perilous times.  Thank you.

With the greatest respect,

Tadatoshi Akiba
President
Mayors for Peace