Since its inception in 1986, the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear
Arms (IALANA) has been devoted to the abolition of nuclear weapons and the maintenance of
the rule of law. We, the General Assembly of IALANA, deplore the erosion of law and the
resurgence of reliance on nuclear weapons, as evidenced by the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review
and the most recent NATO Strategic Concept.
Neither terrorism nor weapons of mass destruction, threatening though they are, justify
the scrapping of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter or the total disregard by the
nuclear weapon powers of their duty to comply with the mandate of the International Court
of Justice to "pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to
nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international
control."
War, which under the United Nations Charter may only be resorted to as a very last
resort, after all means of pacific settlement have been exhausted, is not a proper answer
either to terrorism or to the suspected presence of weapons of mass destruction in any
part of the world.
We commend the Security Council for not having authorized the use of force in
Resolution 1441 and call on the members of the Security Council not to authorize war
against Iraq in violation of these time honoured principles. We call on the United States
of America not to pursue the course of war on its own initiative. We call on all nuclear
weapon states, official and unofficial, to accomplish the total elimination of their
nuclear weapons with all deliberate speed. We call on civil society to insist that their
governments sacrifice neither the rule of law nor civil and human rights to a misguided
concept of security.
These are indeed dangerous times. It remains to be seen, however, whether the world
community will in the end suffer greater damage from the ravages of terrorists or from
those who, under the banner of anti-terrorism, would destroy the home built for "we
the peoples" by the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
Marburg, Germany
November 24, 2002
International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms
Northern Office
Wilhelm-Roser Strasse 25
35037 Marburg, Germany
tel.: (+49) 06421 - 2 30 27
www.ialana.org; info@ialana.org
