2013 Don’t Bank on the Bomb Report

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, 14 Oct 2013

Susi Snyder, Don’t Bank on the Bomb – TRANSCEND Media Service

Over 314 billion US Dollars are currently made available to the nuclear weapon industry by 298 financial institutions around the globe. That is the core finding of the 2013 Don’t Bank on the Bomb report.

For the first time this report also profiles the positive efforts financial institutions have made to implement comprehensive policies to prohibit any investment in nuclear weapon producers. This is the only global report to profile both the positive nuclear weapon policies of financial institutions and detail global investment in nuclear weapons production.

The nine nuclear-armed nations each year spend billions of USD on their nuclear forces – assembling new warheads, modernizing old ones, and building ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines to launch them.

While the majority of that comes from taxpayers in the nuclear armed countries, this report shows that the private sector is investing over USD 314 billion in the private companies that produce, maintain, and modernise the nuclear arsenals.

We have grown accustomed to the idea that nuclear weapons are part of the national arsenals of a few countries, but as US President Obama pointed out in his Berlin speech on 19 June 2013, “so long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not truly safe”.With this report, IKV Pax Christi, together with partners of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), aims to increase transparency and stimulate the debate on the responsibilities of financial institutions and highlight the individual responsibilities of citizens to pursue a world free of these weapons of mass destruction.

In April 2010, the International Committee of the Red Cross issued an appeal to the Geneva diplomatic community emphasising:

• Nuclear weapons are unique in their destructive power, in the unspeakable human suffering they cause, in the impossibility of controlling their effects in space and time, in the risks of escalation they create, and in the threat they pose to the environment, to future generations, and indeed to the survival of humanity.
• It is difficult to envisage how any use of nuclear weapons could be compatible with the rules of international humanitarian law.
• Regardless of their views on the legality of nuclear weapons, States must ensure that they are never again used.
• Preventing the use of nuclear weapons requires fulfilment of existing obligations to pursue negotiations aimed at prohibiting and completely eliminating such weapons through a legally binding international treaty.

Since then, the 190 States party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons have recognized the “catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons”and the relevance of international humanitarian law in this regard.

Those States have also reaffirmed the call made by the United Nations Security Council at its summit in 2009, and by Presidents Obama and Medvedev earlier that year, to move towards a world free of nuclear weapons.

There is no comprehensive or universal ban in international law on the use or possession of nuclear weapons, but in July 1996 the International Court of Justice concluded that international humanitarian law (IHL) does apply to the use of nuclear weapons and that their use will generally be contrary to IHL principles and rules. As such, possession, but also the manufacturing of nuclear weapons is in itself not illegal, but use is. For financial institutions, it can be argued that their involvement in the nuclear weapon industry is aiding in preparations to violate international humanitarian law.

The purpose of this report is to provide accurate and timely evidence on the extent to which the private sector is investing in a weapon which is a threat to humanity, and like chemical or biological weapons, should be banned.

Download the 2013 Executive Summary

Download the  2013 Don’t Bank on the Bomb- Full Report (2.9MB)

Download the  2013 Introduction

Download Chapter 1 Making the Case for Divestment

Download Chapter 2 Nuclear Weapon Producers

Download Chapter 3 Hall of Fame

Download Chapter 4 Runners-up

Download Chapter 5 Hall of Shame

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Susi Snyder is the nuclear disarmament programme leader for IKV Pax Christi in the Netherlands. She is one of the primary authors of the 2013 Don’t Bank on the Bomb report.

Go to Original – dontbankonthebomb.com

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