Dhanapala to Receive IPS Award for Nuclear Disarmament

UNITED NATIONS (IPS): Jayantha Dhanapala, a former U.N. under-secretary-general for disarmament affairs (1998-2003) and a relentless advocate for a world free of nuclear weapons, will be the recipient of the 2014 International Achievement Award for Nuclear Disarmament sponsored by Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency.

“Short of actually dismantling nuclear devices himself,” says Dr. Randy Rydell, until recently a senior political affairs officer at the U.N. Office for Disarmament Affairs, “he has contributed enormously in constructing a solid foundation upon which the world community will one day fulfill this great ambition.”

Current president of the Nobel Prize-winning Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (since 2007) and a former Sri Lankan ambassador to the United States, Dhanapala played a crucial role in the 1995 Conference of States Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

The award – which is co-sponsored by the Tokyo-based Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a 12-million-strong, lay Buddhist non-governmental organisation (NGO) which is leading a global campaign for the abolition of nuclear weapons – will be presented at an official ceremony at the United Nations Nov. 17.

The event, to be attended by senior U.N. officials, ambassadors and representatives of the media and civil society, is being hosted by the U.N. Correspondents’ Association (UNCA).

Douglas Roche, a former senator, an ex-Canadian ambassador for disarmament, and visiting professor at the University of Alberta, told IPS, “When the Non-Proliferation Treaty was indefinitely extended in 1995, the person most responsible for making nuclear disarmament a permanent legal obligation was Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala.”

He said Dhanapala’s “masterful diplomacy” – threading a course between the powerful nuclear weapons states and the non-nuclear world – was responsible for delineating three specific promises.

First, the systematic and progressive efforts towards elimination of nuclear weapons; second, a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty by 1996; third, an early conclusion of negotiations for a fissile material ban.

“Jayantha raised both the global norm and the conscience of the world that nuclear weapons are incompatible with the full implementation of human rights,” said Roche, founding chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative and chairman of the U.N. Disarmament Committee at the 43rd General Assembly sessions in 1988.

Jonathan Granoff, president of the Global Security Institute (GSI), told IPS “it is fair to say that no one has done more to preserve and strengthen the international legal system constraining the spread of nuclear weapons and setting clearly the compass point for the universal elimination of nuclear weapons than Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala.”

“His leadership in the U.N.’s Department of Disarmament Affairs and president of the 1995 Review and Extension Conference was rooted in an insight that clearly guides his life,” he added.

As a young student during the Cuban missile crisis, he wondered “how could the two superpowers of the time place millions of innocent citizens in non-nuclear weapon and non-aligned states in danger of the blast, radiation, climatic and genetic effects of such a weapon exchange?” Granoff recounted.

Dhanapala has tirelessly made nations, organisations, and individuals aware and empowered to act on the realisation that nuclear weapons and civilisation present a choice: one or the other, he pointed out.

“His work in the international field has exemplified the fusion of idealistic aspirations based on universal values and practical policies informed by the constraints of political realities and power,” said Granoff, who is also a senior advisor of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Arms Control and National Security.

He was also instrumental in reviving U.N. interest in the subject of “disarmament and development” at a time when military spending was once again starting to rise in the post-Cold War era, as social and economic needs went unmet in vast sectors of the world.

Dhanapala served as director of the U.N.’s Institute for Disarmament Research (1987-1992), where he successfully expanded its financial base while also broadening its areas of research to include non-military challenges to security.

Dhanapala has also been a member of two of the most influential international commissions established to advance nuclear disarmament: the Canberra Commission (1996) and the International Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (Blix Commission, 2006).

He was later awarded a MacArthur Foundation grant, which enabled the publication of his book, ‘Multilateral Diplomacy and the NPT: An Insider’s Account.’

He has served or is continuing to serve on several advisory boards of institutions known for their work in supporting nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, including the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the Stanford Institute of International Studies, the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Conflict, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, among others.

He has served as honourary president of the International Peace Bureau.

In all of his posts held over his career, said Rydell, he has inspired his colleagues to fight persistently for the interests of the world community even in the face of great obstacles.

“One day, this will be how nuclear disarmament is finally achieved,” he added.

Rydell said Dhanapala was one of the U.N.’s most prolific voices for global nuclear disarmament, which was apparent in his countless major keynote addresses, book chapters, articles, oped pieces, and frequent meetings with NGOs.

Roche told IPS: “If the nuclear weapons states had lived up to the standards set by Ambassador Dhanapala, the world would be a safer place today. Dhanapala had the vision to move forward in a way that held the international community together. We must not give up on that course.”

Reflecting on the diplomatic achievements of Dhanapala’s home country, Granoff said Sri Lanka is a small island and the world owes it a big thank you for producing several towering figures who have been instrumental in advancing global security, the rule of law, and standards of intelligence and virtue in global public service.

To state the case succinctly: “Without Ambassador Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe there would be no Law of the Sea Treaty.”

Judge Christopher Weeramantry’s work on the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where he helped define global legal standards of justice and practicality in the fields of nuclear weapons and sustainable development, is matched in excellence only by the wisdom and insightful legal analysis found in his prolific writings, making him one of the most respect international legal minds of modern times, said Granoff, who is also on the advisory board of Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy.

Sri Lanka, having barely emerged from four and half centuries of crippling colonialism, was threatened along with other countries by a contest for global supremacy in which it wanted no part, he added.

The past recipients of the IPS International Achievement Award for their contributions to peace and development include: Brazilian President Lula da Silva (2008), U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (2006), Global Call to Action Against Poverty (2005), Group of 77 developing countries (2000), U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1995), and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari (1991).

(INTER PRESS SERVICE)