To the Abolition 2000 Radiation Health Effects working group From Solange Fernex, (WILPF France, IPB, The Greens Alsace) France, fax: +33-389-407804
TWO URGENT PROPOSALS FOR AN INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE INTERNATIONAL PROMOTION OF THE COMMERCIAL USE OF NUCELAR POWER
Annexes:
Your Honor,
We have the honour to present to you the Permanent People's Tribunal's verdict and its proceedings on "The Enviornmental, Health and Human Rights Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe", for which we will commemorate the very sad 11th anniversary on April 26, 1997, this very week.
After listening to about 40 outstanding international witnesses, the PPT came to the conclusion that nuclear energy is dangerous (carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic), and that the same regulations which apply to drugs and chemicals should also apply to this source of energy, which means that it should be forbidden.
The Tribunal therfore asks for the *banning of nuclear power for civil and military uses, and for the withdrawal, by the UN, of the madate given to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to promote nuclear energy for commercial uses.
Counsequently, Article IV of the NPT should be suppressed by an amendment, and the IAEA mandate to promote the commercial use of nuclear energy has to be withdrawn, by a corresponding resolution, as a contribution to the currently debated UN reforms.
At the Intergovernmental Conference of the EU (ICJ) in Amsterdam, next June, EURATOM has likewise to be mandated to cease to promote nuclear power fo the wellbeing of Europeans, East and West.
IAEA and EURATOM should instead survey the cleanup of contaminated land, the dismantlement of nuclear weapons and commercial facilities and the safe control of the enormous quantities of very long-lived radioactive waste, unfortunately already produced since 50 years.
We hope that this document will be of interest and use for you, your delegation and your government, and that, as an elected representative of the people of Europe, you will be able to act in the direction indicated by the Permanent People's Tribunal.
We remain at your disposal for any further questions,
Yours very respectfully,
Solange Fernex, Vice President
International Peace Bureau