The law and common sense say that non-violent nuclear disarmament is an obligation
of all countries and the role of all citizens.
Facts and Law of any threat or use of the Minuteman III.

Anabel Dwyer

Facts of Nuclear Holocaust with Minuteman IIIs: The US threatens to unleash, within 15 minutes, 500 Minuteman III ICBMs located on high alert in Colorado, North Dakota, and Montana. With each of these nuclear weapons, the US knowingly prepares to inflict vast heat, blast and radiation 13-60 times that of the Hiroshima bomb in an uncontrollable strike against nations. [cf. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, May/June2003; SIOP; Nuclear Posture Review (Jan. 2002) and the National Security Strategy (Sept.2002)]. All or any of the Minuteman IIIs, weapons of mass extermination, "cannot be contained in space or time... would affect health, agriculture, natural resources and demography over a very wide area ...and would be a serious danger to future generations." [International Court of Justice (ICJ), Threat or use of Nuclear Weapons, 8/6/96, para. 35]
US law and international law as US law prohibit threatening or inflicting indiscriminate harm and unnecessary suffering, in any circumstance in war or peace.
The laws of war, a body of positive federal US law, prohibit any use of the Minuteman III. The Constitutional war powers of the Congress and the Executive are not unlimited. Particular prohibitions of law are expressed in: the U.S, criminal code that prohibits war crimes (18 USC 2441) or genocide (18 USC1091-1093); binding US treaties that are the "supreme law of the land" (US Constitution, Article VI, clause 2); and universally binding rules and principles of humanitarian law.
This body of positive law is summarized most authoritatively by the International Court of Justice and is well understood and agreed to by the US, at least since the Nuremberg Tribunals. It prohibits any threat or use of any weapon of mass extermination including the Minuteman III.
The "cardinal" rules of humanitarian law categorically prohibit certain acts intended by threat or use of the MMIII:
1. "States must never make civilians the object of attack and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilians and military targets" (ICJ para 78 summarizing rules and principles of humanitarian law as codified for example in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 for the Protection of War Victims, 12 Aug 1949 and Protocol I Additional 1977). As the International Committee of the Red Cross pointed out, "The Court (ICJ) thus equated the use of indiscriminate weapons with a deliberate attack upon civilians." (PCNICC/1999/WGEC/INF2/Add.2 (4 Aug. 1999), p25).
2. "It is prohibited to cause unnecessary suffering to combatants; it is accordingly prohibited to use weapons causing them such harm or uselessly aggravating their suffering." (ICJ, para 78 as codified in the Hague Convention IV of 1907 (Art. 23) and the US war crimes statute 18 USC 2441).
Because any and all MMIIIs are indiscriminate and uncontrollable, any threat or use of any MMIII is blatantly illegal and criminal.
* 1. The "fundamental" rules of humanitarian law outlined above are "intransgressible" because they are the sine qua non of the rule of law itself. For this reason, the rules and principles of humanitarian law apply universally to everyone and all countries including the U.S. and in any circumstance as the US accepts. The Nuremberg Tribunals made it clear that these rules preempt contrary domestic law.
* 2. Since any use of any MM III would cause unnecessary suffering and target civilians indiscriminately in violation of humanitarian law, "a threat to engage in such use would also be contrary to that law." (ICJ, para 78). Such a real threat of war crimes exists because the MMIIIs are on high alert.
* 3. The MM IIIs are not legitimate for use in retaliation to an attack. As the Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia stated, "No circumstances would legitimize an attack against civilians even if it were a response proportionate to a similar violation perpetrated by the other party." ( Pros. v. Milan Martic, Case No IT-95-11-1 (8 Mar. 1996)
* 4. Use of MM III also causes widespread, long-term and severe damage to our common environment, attacks neutral states and violates non-derogable human rights such as the right to life.
* 5. ANY use of the MM III, no matter how justified or unjustified, whether in "offense" or "defense" is a war crime and goes far beyond the bounds of lawful warfare.(UN Charter Arts. 2.4, 51, ICJ Opinion).
* 6. The practical and lawful solution, a current obligation of all countries, is "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." (ICJ, para 105 (2) F.; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Art. VI).
Rights duties, privileges of citizens to non-violently and symbolically resist US’s illegal and criminal threat or use of MMIII, to create conditions for complete nuclear disarmament. .
87% of US citizens want our government to negotiate a treaty for complete nuclear disarmament (Lake Sosin Snell & Assoc., 1997). This is consistent with binding law and our commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT Art. VI). In the 2000 NPT Review Conference the US agreed to an "unequivocal undertaking" to eliminate its nuclear arsenal. Contrary to binding law including specific agreements, the Bush administration has not only continued to keep the MM IIIs on high-alert and refused to begin nuclear disarmament negotiations but has expanded nuclear weapons uses and targeted nations (See Nuclear Posture Review (Jan. 2002) and the National Security Strategy (Sept. 2002)}, withdrawn from (ABM) and acted contrary to treaties (UN Charter & NPT). How can the rule of law help extricate us from the trap of lawless force?
Since the US threat or use of MM IIIs violates the most fundamental law, citizens have felt compelled to act. They have exercised rights, duties, privileges of citizens in a democracy to "bear witness, to speak powerless truth to truthless power." Federal courts and prosecutors, in some instances, have accepted legitimacy of non-violent or symbolic acts of resistance by reducing charges or sentences or declining to prosecute at all. But in the recent prosecution and conviction of three Dominican Sisters Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert and Jackie Hudson, the Court recognized no legal or constitutional limits to Executive or Congressional war powers including specific laws of war that the MM III far exceeds. Nor did the Court permit any defense argument, holding that even the nuns’measured, open, non-violent and symbolic acts could never be justified or reasonable.
In light of the global catastrophe threatened by the US’s ICBMs, the principle of individual responsibility established in the Nuremberg Tribunals and the absolute prohibition against any threat or commission of war crimes and genocide, we continue to insist that citizens’ reasonable, non-violent or symbolic affirmative acts to point out and resist complicity with specific illegal and criminal acts of the US government are lawful, sensible and prudent. In addition, our basic rights to life and a sustainable environment must be protected by the rule of law. But a string of incorrect federal appeals courts decisions awaits successful challenge. These federal courts remain blind to the grim and urgent realities of US nuclear weapons. The facts and specific and directly relevant and intransgressible rules and principles of humanitarian law, treaties and statutes positively prohibit any threat or use of the Minuteman III.
If the people lead in good-faith, the courts may sooner or later follow and properly interpret existing law.