Action AWE: You can take the Secretary of State for Defence to Court

Action AWE is supporting Picat - the new citizens challenge to UK’s nuclear weapons. Please read the details and press release below and join us if you can!
A letter from Angie Zelter, co-organiser of The Picat Project:

You can take the Secretary of State for Defence to Court
1 October, 2015

Trident Ploughshares has today, 1st October 2015, launched a project to encourage groups around England and Wales to go to their local magistrates court to try and initiate a citizen’s prosecution against the Secretary of State for Defence for conspiring to commit a war crime. If this is done in many places lots of local people will hear the arguments for and against Trident and the legal system will have to deal with the multiple attempts to get the courts to examine the legality of Trident.

In the context of the threat of Trident replacement, the growing demand for non-nuclear states across the world for genuine disarmament, and the increased sabre-rattling by the major powers, now is the time to begin a fresh challenge to theUK’s criminal stance.

We have tried to make it as easy and cost free as possible by preparing a very simple introduction (view ‘Introduction’ online here) to what we are calling PICAT (Public Interest Cases Against Trident) plus all the supporting documentation. We would like you to find a few people willing to work together and to send a letter to the Secretary of State for Defence asking him to sign adeclaration saying he will not use Trident in ways that would contravene international law – the letter has been carefully phrased.

In my own area, on the borders of Wales, I have been amazed to be able to find very easily around 60 people to sign the letter. At the same time they signed up to the next stage, signing as Informant Prosecutors. This helps show that there is public interest in the courts examining this issue. I collected both sets of signatures at the same time to save
work. When we go to the local court some of these people may well be willing to come along to witness the events there. I will be sending our letter to the Secretary of State for Defence today. It will be so good to hear back from you that you will try and get a group together too.

All the supporting documents can be found on our website at http://tridentploughshares.org/picat-documents-index-2/ Theyare in .pdf for ease of printing and as a word documents so you can personalise the documents for your area and group. You can download the complete pack of campaigning documents in .pdf at http://tridentploughshares.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Picat-Campaigning-Docs-Pack.pdf

Please do let me know if you would like to join the project and involve your local magistrates court? If you would like to chat about the project, ask for more details, clarification or help please do either email me [email protected] or ring me on 01547-520929.

Love and peace,
Angie Zelter
(Founder of Trident Ploughshares and author of ‘Trident on Trial – the case for People’s Disarmament’.

PS If you are in Scotland there will soon be an invitation coming from Trident Ploughshares members there to invite you to make use of the first step in the project – the letter asking for the Defence Secretary to give the assurance that Trident will not be used unlawfully. You might also like to act in solidarity by informing your local MSP and MP of this initiative and asking them to raise the issue of the illegality of Trident and to put pressure on the Attorney-General to give permission for the case to go ahead.

The Picat Project - 1st Press Release:

NEW CITIZEN CHALLENGE TO UK’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS
PICAT– A Public Interest Case Against Trident

Press release: 1st October 2015

For Immediate Release

NEW CITIZEN CHALLENGE TO UK’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Campaigners aim to prosecute British state

On 1st October campaigners will begin a new and ambitious project to institute a citizen’s prosecution of the Government and specifically the Secretary of State for Defence for breaching international law by its active deployment of the Trident nuclear weapon system.

PICAT is co-ordinated by Trident Ploughshares and will involve groups across England and Wales in a series of steps which will hopefully lead to the Attorney General’s consent for the case to go before the courts.

Groups will begin by seeking an assurance from the Secretary of State for Defence that the UK’s nuclear weapons will not be used, or their use threatened, in such a way as to cause wholesale loss of civilian life and damage to the environment.

In the case of no response or an unsatisfactory one groups will then approach their local magistrates to lay a Criminal Information (1). If consent for the case is not forthcoming from the Attorney General the campaign will then consider approaching the International Criminal Court.

Veteran peace campaigner Angie Zelter (2), who has developed the project along with international lawyer Robbie Manson (3), said:

“The government has consistently refused to give evidence to prove how Trident or any replacement could ever be used lawfully. This campaign is an attempt to find a court willing to examine objectively if the threat to use Trident
is in fact criminal as so many of us think it is. It is a matter of vital public interest.

The UK, along with the other nuclear weapon states, is becoming increasingly isolated from the growing global momentum to outlaw nuclear weapons, as expressed in the Humanitarian Pledge, which has already attracted the signatures of 117 nations.(4)”

Robbie Manson said:

“I remain very firmly of the view that it is both an immensely worthy and worthwhile cause to pursue these matters, even in court, and with vigour given the enormity of the humanitarian need, political significance and the scale of the diplomatic hypocrisy upon which our political masters rely for the achievement of their designs.”

The project is supported by an impressive list of expert witnesses (5), including Phil Webber, Chair of Scientists for Global Responsibility, Professor Paul Rogers, Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, and John Ainslie of Scottish CND.

Contacts:

General queries: Angie Zelter 01547 520929 07456 588943 [email protected]

Legal queries: Robbie Manson 01239 615921 [email protected]

Campaign webpages: http://tridentploughshares.org/picat-a-public-interest-case-against-trident-co-ordinated-by-trident-ploughshares/

Notes

The campaigners highlight the provisions of Articles 51 of the First Additional Protocol 1977 to the four original Geneva Conventions of 1949 – Protection of the civilian population and Article 55 — Protection of the natural environment, and Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute for an International Criminal Court 1998, which together set out clear and essential limitations on the rights of belligerents and others to launch attacks which may be foreseen to cause disproportionate, unnecessary or excessive harm to civilian lives and property, or the natural environment, not justified by the anticipated military advantage alone.

Angie Zelter is a peace and environmental activist. In 1996 she was part of a group that was acquitted after disarming a BAE Hawk Jet bound for Indonesia where it would have beenused to attack East Timor. More recently she foundedTrident Ploughshares, encouraging people’s disarmament based on international humanitarian law and was famously acquitted as one of three women who disarmed a Trident-related barge in Loch Goil in 1999.. She is the author of several books including ‘Trident on Trial - the case for People’s Disarmament”. (Luath -2001)

Robbie Manson was instrumental in setting up the UK branch of the World Court Project, contributing to obtaining the 1996 ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Threat & Use of Nuclear Weapons and established the Institute for Law, Accountability & Peace (INLAP) in the early 1990s. In 2003 he became involved as adviser and then as solicitor to a group of 5 peace activists who at different times had entered RAF Fairford before the start of the last Iraq War, in efforts to sabotage US bombers waiting there to attack Baghdad. He argued that their actions were justified in a reasonable attempt to prevent a greater crime, namely that of international aggression. The case was appealed as a preliminary point all the way to the House of Lords as R v Jones in 2006.

See http://www.icanw.org/pledge/
See http://tridentploughshares.org/picat-documents-index-2/

Thank you!

Action AWE