UN Committee Advances Study of Nuclear War Effects Without US Support

Today, the United States failed to support a United Nations resolution to establish an independent panel of scientists to study the consequences and effects of nuclear war. The last UN study on nuclear war was conducted in the 1980s. The resolution, proposed by Ireland and New Zealand, passed out of committee with only Russia, the United Kingdom and France voting no.

While the U.S. abstained, the resolution passed with 144 votes and will go before the full UN General Assembly in December.

"There is no good rationale for not agreeing to an independent scientific study on the effects of nuclear war," said Dr. Laura Grego, research director and senior scientist in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). "We already look to international bodies of scientists for research and guidance on critical challenges like the climate crisis. Nuclear war would have lasting global consequences, and our governments and their constituents deserve the full picture based on the latest science. This is failure of leadership on the part of the U.S. It is heartening to see countries like Ireland and New Zealand stand up for science."

"This resolution builds on a profound recognition by scientists early in the nuclear age that we need to make sure everyone understands the dangers posed by the very existence of nuclear weapons if we are to avoid the catastrophe of nuclear war," said Zia Mian, a physicist and co-director of Princeton's Program on Science and Global Security, and a UCS Board member since August 2022. "As Einstein put it in 1946 'there is no secret and there is no defense; there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world.' A new UN-mandated scientific study of nuclear war will help enable a more fully informed and inclusive global debate on what nuclear war means in terms of the harm that would come to people and planet and the need for urgent action.

"It will be especially important for people and countries that will be innocent bystanders in any nuclear war. It also will let the people of nuclear-armed states understand the terrible human, social, economic, ecological and environmental harm that their governments threaten to unleash on the world. To borrow from the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 9 July, 1955, when nations are armed with nuclear weapons, 'All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it.'"