Day of the middle powers (place of middle political powers in world peace movement).In his recent book The Ultimate Evil, Doug Roche proposed that middle power states such as Canada could play an important role in pressing the nuclear-weapon states (NWS NWS National Weather Service NWS Naval Weapons Station NWS New World Symphony NWS Nuclear Weapon State NWS Not Work Safe NWS National Watercolor Society NWS North Warning System NWS Nose Wheel Steering NWS National Waste Strategy (UK) ) to fulfill their nuclear disarmament nuclear disarmament: see disarmament, nuclear. obligations (see the September 1997 Monitor). The international Abolition 2000 coalition has picked up the idea and has begun putting together a Middle Power Initiative to promote it. The idea that middle power states have the potential to play a special role in international security has cropped up repeatedly in the past year. The achievement of the landmines treaty was a triumph for middle power diplomacy. Now, spurred in part by the nuclear arms race The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear weapons between the United States and Soviet Union and their respective allies during the Cold War. During the Cold War, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries also developed in South Asia This article is about the geopolitical region in Asia. For geophysical treatments, see Indian subcontinent. South Asia, also known as Southern Asia , governments have begun to examine the idea that middle powers could have a role to play in nuclear disarmament. On June 5th, Japan's foreign minister, Keizo Obuchi Keizo Obuchi (小渕恵三; Obuchi Keizō, June 25, 1937–May 14, 2000) was a Japanese politician who served in the House of Representatives for twelve terms, and ultimately as the 84th Prime Minister of Japan from July 30, 1998 to April 5, , declared that Japan would consider organizing a meeting of non-nuclear states that have the potential to develop nuclear arms (such as Japan, Germany, Brazil, and Canada) to put pressure on the NWS to make progress on disarmament. And on June 9th, a group of eight middle power countries led by Ireland announced the creation of the New Agenda Coalition, which issued a statement calling on the eight declared or de facto [Latin, In fact.] In fact, in deed, actually. This phrase is used to characterize an officer, a government, a past action, or a state of affairs that must be accepted for all practical purposes, but is illegal or illegitimate. NWS to "commit themselves unequivocally to the elimination of their respective nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons capabilities and to agree to start work immediately on the practical steps and negotiations required for its achievement." (See the full statement on pages 8-9.) Even the Canadian government has begun investigating a broader role for middle powers in security. On May 11th, the day that India conducted the first three of its recent nuclear tests, Canada and Norway signed an agreement to work in partnership on a broad range of human security issues, such as landmines, small arms, child soldiers, and international humanitarian law International humanitarian law (IHL), also known as the law of war, the laws and customs of war or the law of armed conflict, is the legal corpus "comprised of the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions, as well as subsequent treaties, case law, . In principle, Canada should have no difficulty extending its agenda for middle power action to include nuclear abolition. Nuclear disarmament has long been a Canadian policy goal, and during the last election campaign the Liberals promised that a re-elected Liberal government would "work vigorously" for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The time has come to put words into action. Canada should join the New Agenda Coalition. |
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