New Report Calls for Nuke-Free Arctic Zone

A new report urges nations that border the North Pole to declare the region a nuclear weapon-free zone (NWFZ). With the exception of Russia, all the other Arctic states (Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and the United States) are members of NATO.
 
“Cold War–era nuclear weapon policies and practices in the Arctic, such as nuclear submarine patrols and over-flights by bombers, pose an environmental risk to the region, and an unnecessary security threat to the international community,” said co-author of the report Steven Staples, President of the Rideau Institute.
 
The report proposes greater security cooperation among the Arctic states with the ultimate goal of creating an Arctic NWFZ. Nuclear Weapons Free Zones (NWFZs)—which ban the stationing, testing, use or development of nuclear weapons within defined geographic areas—are one of the best hopes for bringing a nuclear weapon-free world into being.  Regional NWFZs are already established in Latin America, the South Pacific, Africa and Southeast Asia. Together, they exclude the stationing of nuclear weapons on virtually all territories south of the equator. The seabed, space and the moon are also off-limits to nuclear weapons.
 
“No one can deny that these treaties have been an important part of efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons,” said the other co-author Michael Wallace, Professor Emeritus of the University of British Columbia. “The Russian Federation might be persuaded to give up its Arctic-based nuclear forces if the United States was prepared to enter a significant, new strategic arms control treaty”, he said.
 
The authors endorse a piecemeal approach that would start with a unilateral declaration by Canada that the Northwest Passage is a NWFZ. The zone would be expanded as others are invited to join. However, while Canada claims sovereignty over the Northwest Passage, the United States asserts that it is international waters. The authors also recognise that a sea-change in US and NATO nuclear doctrine would be necessary to implement the proposal.
 
Dr Ian Davis, director of NATO Watch said, that “this is precisely the type of innovative thinking that the NATO Foreign Ministers should be exploring during their upcoming nuclear discussions in Tallinn”. “The existing nuke-free zones can be expanded and linked as part of the global menu to achieve nuclear abolition”, he added.