NCCD

NATIONAL CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE ON DISARMAMENT

Bringing together New Zealand organisations keen to encourage disarmament at home and abroad

If you have an enquiry about the NCCD, please send a message by clicking here.


This web site has been discontinued, for the new NCCD site please click here.

For archival NCCD material, please scan down this page.


Contents

1. Resources on Disarmament

2. Working for Disarmament in New Zealand - a pamphlet on the NCCD

3. The 1991 NCCD STATEMENT

4. A Short History of the NCCD

5. Membership List with Addresses

6. N.C.C.D Disarmament Times - the N.C.C.D. newsletter


Resources on Disarmament

Click on any blue line to get information on a topic

* Peace Movement Aotearoa the national networking and main activist peace group. Publishes a regular Newsletter on the web. Covers many more peace issues than just disarmament.

* NGO Committee on Disarmament, New York Many links to United Nations information and to 'Gophers' which will find more.

* Victoria University Student Site "Human Rights Action Group" This website won the Media Peace Award in 1997. Links to peace and environment and human-rights websites. Also links to 'the baddies' - the Business Round Table, the CIA, etc.

* Stockholm International Peace Research Institute The most respected collector of international information about wars, arms trading, weaponry, deployment, treaties...

* New Zealand Government Defence The official Government line. Up to date. Includes an Australian Defence Department page, but no NZ Airforce page.

* Greenpeace Needs no introduction. Their world site at www.greepeace.org is excellent.

* Centre for Defence Information, Washington DC, USA Up to the minute information about arms sales, etc. Staffed by ex-admirals. Monthly reports. US orientated but monitors the whole world.

* Non-Violence International Lots of organisations have links to this site. Deals with the alternatives to war that make disarmament possible and sensible.

* Physicians for Global Survival This Canadian organisation has good pages on war, peace, arms, nuclear weapons, health issues.

* Abolition 2000 and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Abolition 2000 is a coalition of 900 organisations pressing for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons for ever.

* Peacekeeping A Canadian Government site with 90 links to technical material, news and UN information on peacekeeping.


Explanatory Pamphlet


Working for Disarmament in New Zealand


NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

Considerable progress is being made:

In New Zealand

In New Zealand we have the Nuclear Free Act which keeps nuclear weapons out of New Zealand.

In the South Pacific

In the South Pacific France has stopped testing nuclear weapons and signed the protocols to the Treaty of Rarotonga. So we now have a complete South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone which keeps nuclear weapons off the land in Australia, New Zealand and all South Pacific island states.

The World Scene

On the world scene we have good signs:

1. South Africa has dismantled its nuclear weapons; Belorus, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine are dismantling their weapons;

2. Russia and the USA (under the START Agreements) are reducing the number of their nuclear weapons;

3. The USA has taken its nuclear weapons off all its surface navy ships;

4. The Non-Proliferation Treaty (which aims to stop more countries building nuclear weapons) has been extended;

5. A new treaty (the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) was signed in 1996. It bans all physical testing of nuclear weapons;

6. The World Court has declared nuclear weapons illegal (except for last resort defence) and unanimously agreed that there is an international obligation to 'bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament.'

There are also bad signs:

1. India and Pakistan have both tested nuclear weapons and are developing missiles.

Political Will

We now have the political will to ban all nuclear weapons completely, thanks to public pressure. In September 1995, speaking on French television, Mr Jim Bolger, Prime Minister of New Zealand, said: Just as we have international treaties which debar the use of chemical or biological weapons, we will eventually move to a similar sort of treaty in the future regarding nuclear weapons.

Back in 1977 the United Nations called a special session of the United Nations to discuss disarmament. The New Zealand Government of the day got together people from various bodies interested in disarmament and asked their advice on how New Zealand should vote at the Special Session. The group was called the National Consultative Committee on Disarmament. It has met, once a month, since then. It is now a completely independent, self funding body.

The first UN Special Session on Disarmament was remarkable: it came to a consensus agreement that all UN members would work towards disarmament. The first priority was for nuclear disarmament, and it said, 'Removing the threat of a world war - a nuclear war - is the most acute and urgent task of the present day.'

Since then changes in the world encourage hope and we can look forward to the eventual destruction and banning of all nuclear weapons.However, the movement to nuclear disarmament must not slow down and the National Consultative Committee (NCCD) continues to see nuclear disarmament as its first goal.

CONVENTIONAL DISARMAMENT

Although nuclear disarmament is proceeding, the world is awash with conventional arms.

Firstly, there are the small arms which are the main weapons in the internal wars which continue unabated.They are cheap and traded in a huge black market.

Secondly, there are the 100 million land-mines scattered in the farm land of Afghanistan, Cambodia, Angola and other countries.

Thirdly, wealthy nations still make and buy sophisticated weapons, diverting precious money, resources, and scientific brain-power from the problems of poverty, poor health and inadequate education.

Fourthly, new weapons are being developed. For example, there are blinding laser guns which would create a whole new category of wounded - those who will never see again. We lobbied our Government and they supported the recent international ban on these weapons.

International co-operation is needed to deal with most of these problems; our government needs all the encouragement it can get to arrive at international conferences prepared to propose resolutions, and to back these with money and resolve. We need inhumane weapons banned and restrictions on the arms trade made workable and properly policed. The Government is often willing, but needs to know that public opinion is behind it.

Our own New Zealand contribution to the arms trade - mainly in the export of parts for weapons - must be monitored and where it could be adding to tension and actual warfare, tightly controlled. Present controls are hardly controls at all because they rely entirely on the honesty of manufacturers and exporters.

HOW THE NCCD WORKS

The National Consultative Committee on Disarmament is made up of New Zealand organisations who wish to support national work towards disarmament. The month-by-month work of the Committee is carried out by representatives nominated by the member organisations. They meet in Wellington.

The representatives keep up to date with disarmament progress at home and abroad, and they study the technicalities. For example, the workings of the UN are not simple; the designs of landmines need to be understood to make banning agreements watertight; the manufacture of arms in NZ needs to be monitored. The Committee then consults with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Ministry of Defence, and any other arm of Government which is involved. From from time to time the Committee calls on the Minister of Disarmament. However, most of the work of lobbying the Government is done by letter.

The Committee keeps in touch with its member organisations mainly by its monthly minutes. The NCCD has made many submissions to Parliamentary Select Committees and Commissions of Inquiry; it has conducted and published an extensive survey of Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) opinion on disarmament; has run seminars and short conferences; given overseas experts the opportunity to speak in public; and has published talks, findings, and contributions to conferences and surveys. Articles by members have been published in newspapers and magazines.

MEMBERSHIP

The NCCD has three types of membership:

1. Members These are organisations which contribute $30 per year; they receive full minutes; and are entitled to have a representative at each monthly meeting. The Committee from time to time asks them to make individual representations to the Government on particular important issues.

2. Associates These organisations donate what they can afford. They are sent reports on the Committees work once or twice a year. They give moral support and are invited to send a representative to the Annual General Meeting.

3. Experts People with particular expertise in disarmament matters and in agreement with the NCCD Statement may be invited to join the Committee.

Membership does not involve specific duties and Member Organisations are invited to find a volunteer to serve on the Committee, but not required to do so. The annual fee covers the cost of photo-copying and postage. We invite interested organisations to become Members or Associate Members.


The 1991 Statement

[Rather out of date in some respects - we already have a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the Warsaw Pact has collapsed - but otherwise still a plan for action.]

The National Consultative Committee on Disarmament

STATEMENT

March 1991


THE NATIONAL CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE ON DISARMAMENT

CONSIDERS that disarmament is a primary need of the international community in that the consequence for the world community of not disarming is intolerably high risk of disastrous conflict;

PERCEIVES that the history of difficulty in halting the build-up of arms, despite recent welcome moves in Europe and beyond, cautions us against assuming that disarmament can be achieved easily or without some major changes in attitudes and social institutions;

ASSERTS, nevertheless, that any country which visibly restrains the growth of its own armaments exerts, by example, an important moral force fostering peace;

ASSERTS that New Zealand has shown itself to have international influence and should speak out independently with confidence; indeed our own independence from the nuclear energy industry gives us a freedom and credibility which should not be wasted.

CONSIDERS that mutual defence treaties, such as the Warsaw Pact, NATO and ANZUS, tend to undermine general progress towards disarmament and the development of worldwide specific measures related to disarmament;

FURTHER CONSIDERS that any confidence which mutual defence treaties may create is based on the capability of the unilateral use of arms and is not such as to generate the growth of a willingness to disarm, neither within countries which are parties to such treaties nor within countries against whom they might possibly at some time be directed;

AND BELIEVES that co-operative economic development among all nations, with a persistent drive to reduce existing disparities, will reduce pressure towards conflict.

THE NATIONAL CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE ON DISARMAMENT, THEREFORE, URGES THE NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT

TO MAKE, as a standard and repeated preamble to any of its disarmament initiatives, a declaration that general and complete disarmament is New Zealand's goal;

TO INCLUDE in such statements the further declaration that human beings have a fundamental right to survive, and to freedom of attack by nuclear and other weapons; (it is considered that such a declaration would prove valuable in bringing pressure to bear on governments, both from within their countries and through the world community, in a manner analogus to the influence by which the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights has proved its worth);

TO ADOPT the stance of supporting in principle all initiatives which are directed to the ultimate goal of disarmament, including the setting up or strengthening of United Nations Agencies specifically devoted to disarmament;

TO JOIN with other nations in calling for urgency in negotiations on a programme leading to a treaty of general and complete disarmament, and to pursue resolutely throught the United Nations Organisation the achievement of such a treaty.

FURTHER, AND PARTICULARLY, THE NATIONAL CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE ON DISARMAMENT URGES THE NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT

1. TO ACT IN THE KNOWLEDGE that the NCCD and its member organisations support such actions as promote a comprehensive test ban treaty which would ban all nuclear tests;

2.(a) TO CONTINUE TO EMPHASISE that it would not, for its part, use nuclear weapons, anywhere, and does not want other nations to use such weapons in the defence of new Zealand;

3. TO PROPOSE a short clear convention outlawing nuclear weapons;

4.(a) TO CONTINUE TO PUBLICISE New Zealand's anti-nuclear legislation; and

5. TO PROMOTE a more effective nuclear-weapons-free zone

6. TO SUPPORT and INITIATE steps for the elimination of all foreign military facilities, including foreign military bases, nuclear weapons, nuclear war fighting systems and nuclear testing;

7.(a) TO SHIFT EXPENDITURE of resources from arms production to sustainable development and overseas aid bringing the double advantage of reducing economic tensions as well as positively increasing the climate of trust and security among nations;

8. TO SUPPORT ACTION to discourage and reduce the arms trade and to bring it under effective international control;

9. TO END any scientific research and technological innovation designed to create new weapons, their means of delivery, and techniques of warfare, in New Zealand; and to urge theis policy elsewhere;

10. TO PUBLICISE and support the observance of World Disarmament Week beginning each year on United Nations Day, October 24th;

11. TO ACT IN VIGOUR in pursuit of


A SHORT HISTORY

The National Consultative Committee on Disarmament began when the Government was preparing to take part in the first UN Special Session of Disarmament in 1977. The Minister of Foreign Affairs got the United Nations Association to call together representatives of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) committed to peace and disarmament, and some knowledgable individuals.

The First Special Session of Disarmament was held in New York in 1978 and was remarkable in that 129 resolutions were carried by consensus, only Albania refused to take part and only France dissented, and on one item only. The final declaration begins, "Mankind today is confronted with the unprecedented threat of self extinction arising from the massive and competetive accumulation of the most destructive weapons ever produced..." This document has been the touchstone for all further world discussions.

Following the First Special Session most of the members of the National Consultative Committee on Disarmament (NCCD) decided to continue meeting on a voluntary basis. Its membership has increased. It has maintained contact with successive governments mainly through meetings with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and, since the passing of the New Zealand Nuclear Free Act, through the Minister of Disarmament. It continues to take its lead from its member organisations and consults with many other non-governmental groups in New Zealand and overseas. It has organised seminars, surveys of opinion, arranged oportunities for visiting experts to be heard, made many submissions to select committees and official enquiries, undertakes research and publishes.

Membership is open to all non-government organisations in New Zealand which have in their constitution or aims and objects the advancement of peace through disarmament. There are a few individual members admitted for their particular expertise, but they never outnumber the organisational members.

Meetings are monthly, in Wellington, on the 2nd Thursday, 4pm to 6, at 192 Tinakori Rd, Thorndon, Wellington. Visitors are welcome - please let the Secretary know you would like to attend.

FULL MEMBER ORGANISATIONS

The United Nations Association of New Zealand, Box 12-324, Wellington, New Zealand.

Pacific Institute for Resource Management, Box 12-125,W ellington, New Zealand.

Campaign Against Land Mines, 76A Tinakori Road, Wellington 1, New Zealand.

NZ Federation of University Women, Box 21-028, Flagstaff, Hamilton, New Zealand.

Quaker Peace and Service, 115 Mt Eden Rd, Auckland 3, New Zealand.

Human Rights Action Group, c/o Rowena Tun, 24a St Michael's Crescent, Kelburn, Wellington, New Zealand.

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Aotearoa Branch), Box 2054, Wellington, New Zealand.

NZ Foundation for Peace Studies, Box 4110, Auckland, New Zealand.

Christian Pacifist Society, 3 Muir Avenue, Christchurch, New Zealand.

NZ Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, 332 West Tamaki Rd, Auckland 6, New Zealand.

NZ Council for World Peace, Box 703, Wellington, New Zealand.

National Council of Women, Box 12-117, Wellington, New Zealand.

NZ Council of Trade Unions, Box 6645, Wellington, New Zealand.

IPPNW, National Office, Building 43, Auckland Hospital, Private Bag 92-024, Auckland, New Zealand.

INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS

Professor Robert White, Physics Department, Auckland University, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand.

Ann Batten MP, Parliament House, Wellington, New Zealand.

Rev Lance Robinson, 55 Lupin Rd, Otaki, New Zealand.

Peace Movement Aotearoa, Box 9314, Wellington, New Zealand.

ASSOCIATE MEMBER ORGANISATIONS

Centre for Peace Studies, c/o Physics Department, Auckland University, Private Bag 29-019, Auckland, New Zealand.

Council of Churches in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Peace, Justice & Service Programme, Box 22-652, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Caritas, c/o Mr Peter Zwart, Box 12-193, Wellington, New Zealand.

Architects Against Atomic Anihilation, 77 Burma Rd, Wellington 4, New Zealand.

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Box 9314, Wellington, New Zealand.


This web site is being developed by Llewelyn Richards, at present Treasurer of the NCCD. He is responsible for any mistakes and omissions. If you have any comments please e-mail him by clicking here.

© 1998, 1999, 2000 Llewelyn Richards.

Material on this web site may be copied for legitimate study and forwarded to anyone else who wishes to study it. No names and no addresses may be copied for any commercial purpose.

Most recent work on this site: April 2000.