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	Doctors warn even limited nuclear exchange could threaten the lives of two billion people by Dr. Ira Helfand International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War & agencies   Dec 2013   A war using even a small percentage of the world"s nuclear weapons threatens the lives of two billion people, a new report warns.   The findings in a report issued by International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) are based on studies by climate scientists that show how nuclear war would alter the climate and agriculture, thereby threatening one quarter of the world"s population with famine.   Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People at Risk? offers an updated edition to the groups April of 2012 report, which the groups say "may have seriously underestimated the consequences of a limited nuclear war."   "A nuclear war using only a fraction of existing arsenals would produce massive casualties on a global scale—far more than we had previously believed," Dr. Ira Helfand, the report’s author and IPPNW co-president, said in a statement.   As their previous report showed, years after even a limited nuclear war, production of corn in the U.S. and China"s middle season rice production would severely decline, and fears over dwindling food supplies would lead to hoarding and increases in food prices, creating further food insecurity for those already reliant on food imports.   The updated report adds that Chinese winter wheat production would plummet if such a war broke out. Based on information from new studies combining reductions in wheat, corn and rice, the new edition doubles the number of people that could be expected to be threatened by nuclear-war induced famine to over two billion.   "The prospect of a decade of widespread hunger and intense social and economic instability in the world’s largest country has immense implications for the entire global community, as does the possibility that the huge declines in Chinese wheat production will be matched by similar declines in other wheat producing countries," Helfand stated.   The crops would be impacted, the report explains, citing previous studies, because of the black carbon particles that would be released, causing widespread changes like cooling temperatures, decreased precipitation and decline in solar radiation.   In this scenario of famine, epidemics of infectious diseases would be likely, the report states, and could lead to armed conflict.   Within nations where famine is widespread, there would almost certainly be food riots, and competition for limited food resources might well exacerbate ethnic and regional animosities. Among nations, armed conflict would be a very real possibility as states dependent on imports attempted to maintain access to food supplies.   While a limited nuclear war would bring dire circumstances, the impacts if the world"s biggest nuclear arms holders were involved would be even worse. "With a large war between the United States and Russia, we are talking about the possible —not certain, but possible—extinction of the human race," Helfand told Agence-France Presse.   "In this kind of war, biologically there are going to be people surviving somewhere on the planet but the chaos that would result from this will dwarf anything we"ve ever seen," Helfand told the news agency.   A joint statement by 124 states delivered to the United Nations General Assembly in October stated: "It is in the interest of the very survival of humanity that nuclear weapons are never used again, under any circumstances."   "Countries around the world—those who are nuclear-armed and those who are not—must work together to eliminate the threat and consequences of nuclear war," Helfand said. “In order to eliminate this threat, we must eliminate nuclear weapons.”   http://www.ippnw.org/ http://peaceandhealthblog.com/2013/12/10/nuclear-famine-two/ http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/news-release/2014/02-11-mexico-nayarit-impact-nuclear-weapon-conference.htm http://www.ippnw.org/pdf/nuclear-famine-two-billion-at-risk-2013.pdf   * ICAN—the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons—was launched by IPPNW in 2007 and now comprises more than 300 partner organizations in 80 countries campaigning for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons and to mandate their elimination. http://www.icanw.org/ http://www.sipri.org/media/pressreleases/2014/nuclear_May_2014 Visit the related web page
	Nobel Peace Laureates Call for Preemptive Ban on Autonomous Weapons by Human Rights Watch & agencies The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots   May 2014   Nobel Peace Laureates Call for Preemptive Ban on Autonomous Weapons   In April 2013 in London, a group of nongovernmental organizations – most associated with the successful efforts to ban landmines and cluster munitions – publicly launched the “Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.” Their efforts have helped bring the issue of fully autonomous weapons to a broader audience and spur governments to begin discussions on these weapons this May in Geneva.   We, the undersigned Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, applaud this new global effort and whole-heartedly embrace its goal of a preemptive ban on fully autonomous weapons that would be able to select and attack targets on their own. It is unconscionable that human beings are expanding research and development of lethal machines that would be able to kill people without human intervention.   Not all that long ago such weapons were considered the subject of science fiction, Hollywood and video games. But some machines are already taking the place of soldiers on the battlefield. Some experts in the field predict that fully autonomous weapons could be developed within 20 to 30 years; others contend it could even be sooner. With the rapid development of drones and the expansion of their use in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – and beyond, billions of dollars are already being spent to research new systems for the air, land, and sea that one day would make drones seem as quaint as the Model T Ford does today.   Too many applaud the so-called success of drone warfare and extol the virtues of the weapons. While these unmanned aircraft can fly thousands of miles from home base on their own, they still require individuals watching computer screens to fire its weapons and attack a target. Already over 70 countries have drones and many are looking to develop methods to make them ever more autonomous and create new lethal robots that will, in fact, kill human beings on their own.   Those who favor the development of autonomous lethal robots make many arguments on their behalf. They note that such machines do not put soldiers’ lives at risk nor do they tire or become frightened. Emotion would not cloud their decision-making. They also say that ultimately lethal autonomous robots will be cheaper than manned systems and laud that feature in these times of cutting government budgets.   But not everyone supports the arguments. In it very aptly entitled report, “Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots,” Human Rights Watch outlined legal and other arguments against the development of such weapons. The report says that such robots will have serious challenges meeting tests of military necessity, proportionality and distinction, which are fundamental to the laws of war. Lethal autonomous weapons would also threaten essential non-legal safeguards for civilians. They would not be constrained by the capacity for compassion, which can provide a key check on killing civilians. These arguments were also brought to the fore in the report of the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial and arbitrary execution, Christoff Heyns, presented to the UN Human Rights Council in May 2013.   Of course a key argument for robotic weapons is that using them could reduce military casualties. On the flip side, many fear that leaving the killing to machines might make going to war easier and shift the burden of armed conflict onto civilians. The use of fully autonomous weapons raises serious questions of accountability. Who should be held responsible for any unlawful actions they commit? The military commander? The company that makes the robot? The company that produces the software? The obstacles to holding anyone accountable are huge and would significantly weaken the power of the law to deter future violations.   While there has been some heated debate about the dangers and possible virtues of such weapons, until now it had almost exclusively occurred among scientists, ethicists, lawyers and military. Even as killer robots loom over our future, there had been virtually no public discussion about the ethics and morality of fully autonomous weapons, let alone the implications and impact of their potential use.   But the work of the campaign is changing that and even in the lead-up to the April 23rd launch of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, interest and public awareness had begun to grow. The press has increasingly begun to report on killer robots with both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal running opinion pieces outlining the moral and legal perils of creating killer robots and calling for public discourse before it is too late.   Lethal robots would completely and forever change the face of war and likely spawn a new arms race. Can humanity afford to follow such a path? We applaud and support the efforts of civil society’s Campaign to Stop Killer Robots to help move us away from a possible future of robotic warfare.   Individuals: Mairead Maguire (1976); Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (1980); President Lech Walesa (1983); Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1984); President Oscar Arias Sánchez (1987); Rigoberta Menchú Tum (1992); President F.W. de Klerk (1993); President José Ramos-Horta (1996); Jody Williams (1997); John Hume (1998); Shirin Ebadi (2003); Muhammad Yunus (2006); Leymah Gbowee (2011); Tawakkol Karman (2011)   Organizations:   American Friends Service Committee (The Quakers) (1947) – Shan Cretin, General Secretary. Amnesty International (1978) – Salil Shetty, Secretary-General. International Campaign to Ban Landmines (1997) – Sylvie Brigot-Vilain, Executive Director. International Peace Bureau (1910) – Colin Archer, Secretary-General; International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (1985) – Michael Christ, Executive Director.   http://nobelwomensinitiative.org/2014/05/nobel-peace-laureates-call-for-preemptive-ban-on-killer-robots/   Nov 2013   The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots welcomes the historic decision taken by nations to begin international discussions on how to address the multiple challenges posed by fully autonomous weapons. It marks the beginning of a process that the campaign believes should lead to an international ban on these weapons to ensure there is always meaningful human control over targeting decisions and the use of violent force.   At 4:47pm on Friday, 15 November 2013 at the United Nations in Geneva, states parties to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) adopted a report that included a mandate for the convention to convene on 13-16 May 2014 for its first meeting to discuss questions related to “lethal autonomous weapons systems.” Also known as fully autonomous weapons or “killer robots” these weapons have not yet been developed, but technology is moving rapidly toward increasing autonomy.   A total of 117 states are party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons, including nations known to be advanced in developing autonomous weapons systems: United States, China, Israel, Russia, South Korea, and United Kingdom. Adopted in 1980, the framework convention contains five protocols, including Protocol I prohibiting non-detectable fragments, Protocol III prohibiting the use of air-dropped incendiary weapons in populated areas, and Protocol IV, which preemptively banned blinding lasers.   The agreement to begin work in the Convention on Conventional Weapons next year could lead to a future CCW Protocol VI prohibiting fully autonomous weapons.   The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots believes that robotic weapons systems should not be making life and death decisions on the battlefield. That would be inherently wrong, morally and ethically. Fully autonomous weapons are likely to run afoul of international humanitarian law, and that there are serious technical, proliferation, societal, and other concerns that make a preemptive ban necessary.   We support any action to urgently address fully autonomous weapons in any forum. The decision to begin work in the Convention on Conventional Weapons does not prevent work elsewhere, such as the Human Rights Council.   The agreement to begin an international process on these weapons comes just seven months after the launch of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a global coalition of 45 non-governmental organizations in 22 countries that is coordinated by Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch. The campaign calls for a pre-emptive and comprehensive ban on the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons.   The campaign is grateful to Ambassador Jean-Hugues Simon-Michel of France, President of the Convention on Conventional Weapons meeting, for his work to secure the mandate for governments to work on fully autonomous weapons.   Since the topic was first debated at the Human Rights Council on 30 May 2013, a total of 44 countries have spoken publicly on fully autonomous weapons: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Holy See, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Madagascar, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, Spain, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and United States. All nations that have spoken out have expressed interest and concern at the challenges and dangers posed by fully autonomous weapons.   The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots urges nations to prepare for extensive and intensive work next year, both within the CCW and outside the CCW context. We urge states to develop national policies, and to respond to the call by UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Prof. Christof Heyns for national moratoria on fully autonomous weapons.   The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots urge states to return to the Convention on Conventional Weapons in November 2014 and agree to a new mandate to begin negotiations on a treaty to ban fully autonomous weapons.   http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/2013/11/ccwmandate/ http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/arms0514_ForUpload_0.pdf http://intercrossblog.icrc.org/blog/programmed-war-imagining-future-armed-conflict Visit the related web page
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