On Monday 27th Janet Fenton of Secure Scotland spoke to the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) with a particular focus on Scotland’s predicament arising from the UK’s nuclear weapons. The text of her evidence is below:

“Statement by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Thank you Mr President,

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and its British partners welcome the recognition given by this Council that nuclear weapons threaten our human rights, and regret that the UK’s UPR made no mention of its nuclear weapons possession. In 2021 the UK Government reversed previous nuclear disarmament commitments. Instead, it increased the ceiling on nuclear warhead numbers and its ambiguity in nuclear policies.

The Scottish Government is strongly opposed to nuclear weapons and seeks their abolition. The Scottish people and their elected representatives are precluded from meaningful representation in decisions about the UK’s nuclear weapons, all deployed from Scotland, putting the Scottish people’s human right to life at particular risk without representation. Radioactive waste is discharged into the Gare Loch, violating the Scottish people’s human right to health and a clean environment, while the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency is debarred from intervening.

The US Lakenheath airbase is being upgraded, apparently with US-UK plans to deploy upgraded B61 nuclear bombs, overturning the 2008 decisions to remove these completely from Britain.

Costs of the UK’s Trident replacement programme and government-led lack of transparency undermine and diminish our human rights and put security and the environment at continuous risk, with disproportionate impacts on women and vulnerable communities, meanwhile diverting resources away from human security, healthcare, education, and the alleviation of poverty.

Mr. President,

We urge the UK Government to fulfil its Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty responsibilities and to restore its long-standing treaty commitments, end nuclear weapons activities in Scotland and elsewhere, and join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

The UK can further contribute to the strengthening of human rights by increasing transparency, strengthening verification capabilities, assisting victims of nuclear use and testing, and remediating nuclear-affected environments,

We urge the Human Rights Council to attend to the threat to human rights and to our planet that arises from the continuing possession of nuclear weapons by a small number of States, including the UK.” END