NationStates Jolt Archive

Environment Damaging Weapons
A resolution to slash worldwide military spending.


Category: Global Disarmament Strength: Strong Proposed by: Serconea
Description: The United Nations,
NOTING its resolution of 6 December 2003 "Banning the use of Landmines"
NOTING that said resolution only covers landmines, and not depleted uranium shells, cluster bombs or napalm
CONCERNED about the fact cluster bomblets remain active for many years after initial deployment,
AND that they are very hard to find and look like toys
ALSO noting that depleted uranium has a radioactive half-life of 4.1 billion years,
NOTING that the use of napalm prevents land from being used for farming for many years
DESIRING to protect civilians from being hurt or killed by cluster bomblets and poisoned by depleted uranium in water.
AWARE of a nation's need for defence,

CALLS on all nations
1. To cease manufacturing cluster bombs, depleted uranium shells and napalm immediately.
2. To cease purchasing or selling such weapons.
3. Not to use them in any conflict they are engaged in
4. To destroy all such weapons in their stockpiles within 5 years.
5. To give all possible aid to humanitarian organisations clearing up landmines, cluster bomblets, depleted uranium shell remains or land damaged by napalm use.

It is so resolved.

Approvals: 0

Status: Lacking Support (requires 135 more approvals)

Voting Ends: Thu Aug 19 2004


Please can delegates approve this.

Here is a suggested "reformatting" of your proposal (in case it needs to be resubmitted):


The United Nations,

NOTING its resolution of 6 December 2003 "Banning the use of Landmines";

NOTING that said resolution only covers landmines, and not depleted uranium shells, cluster bombs or napalm;

CONCERNED about the fact cluster bomblets remain active for many years after initial deployment, and that they are very hard to find and look like toys;

ALSO NOTING that depleted uranium has a radioactive half-life of 4.1 billion years;

NOTING that the use of napalm prevents land from being used for farming for many years;

DESIRING to protect civilians from being hurt or killed by cluster bomblets and poisoned by depleted uranium in water;

AWARE of a nation's need for defence;

CALLS on all nations:

1. To cease manufacturing cluster bombs, depleted uranium shells, and napalm immediately;

2. To cease purchasing or selling such weapons;

3. Not to use them in any conflict they are engaged in;

4. To destroy all such weapons in their stockpiles within 5 years; and

5. To give all possible aid to humanitarian organisations clearing up landmines, cluster bomblets, depleted uranium shell remains, or land damaged by napalm use.


Again, very minor formatting suggestions. Overall, your proposal is very straight forward, and something I'll bring to the attention of my region's UN Delegate, Cheney Land.

Basically all I did was add "white space". It makes it easier for us to debate your proposal / resolution. I also capitalized "NOTING" once and then changed some of your puncutation.

Clear, specific but not overwrought, and a worthy purpose. I look forward to marshalling the support of my region when this comes to a general vote.

It would be an honor to put my support behind this proposal as the first proposal that the region Rising of the Sun has the priveledge of voting on.

:D

I'll offer cautious support on behalf of my nation pending a thorough review. Mikitivity's amendments look advisable to me.

Mathieu Vergniaud
Deputy Speaker to the UN

Unless anyone in my region has objections, you have my support.

Lady Desdemona of Merwell,
Senior UN representative,
The Black New World

I'll be campaigning against this proposal simply on the insertion of DU into the proposal. If this was removed then I would reconsider.

I've had this discussion before on DU, I'll dig it up.

I forgot my PC had to be rebuilt.....

Anyway, here are a couple of RL reports on DU from moderately balanced sources - I'd add there are very few established, professional opinions which outright go against DU, and a an awful lot of scaremongering from certain unreliable sources.

Misconception 1: DU is dangerously radioactive.

DU is not "dangerously radioactive" and this is not just the MOD's opinion. The World Health Organisation and the Royal Society have described DU as being only "weakly radioactive" and an editorial in the British Medical Journal states that "Uranium is not very radioactive".

DU is used widely for a range of civilian applications. For example, it is often used as shielding in hospitals to protect radiographers and patients from radiation during X-rays and in aircraft as counterweights.

source: http://www.mod.uk/issues/depleted_uranium/misconceptions.htm

In fact, the primary danger (the toxicity) of DU is comparable to that of lead. I refer you to another source on DU which covers the radioactivity and toxicity of DU:

Health aspects of DU

Depleted uranium is not classified as a dangerous substance radiologically, though it is a potential hazard in large quantities, beyond what could conceivably be breathed. Its emissions are very low, since the half-life of U-238 is the same as the age of the earth (4.5 billion years). There are no reputable reports of cancer or other negative health effects from radiation exposure to ingested or inhaled natural or depleted uranium, despite much study.

However, uranium does have a chemical toxicity about the same as that of lead, so inhaled fume or ingested oxide is considered a health hazard. Most uranium actually absorbed into the body is excreted within days, the balance being laid down in bone and kidneys. Its biological effect is principally kidney damage. WHO has set a Tolerable Daily Intake level for U of 0.6 microgram/kg body weight, orally. (This is about eight times our normal background intake from natural sources.) Standards for drinking water and concentrations in air are set accordingly.

Like most radionuclides, it is not known as a carcinogen, or to cause birth defects (from effects in utero) or to cause genetic mutations. Radiation from DU munitions depends on how long the uranium has been separated chemically from its decay products. If thorium-234 and protactinium-234 has built up through decay of U-238, these will give rise to some beta emissions. On this basis, DU is "weakly radioactive" with an activity of 39 kBq/g quoted (12.4 kBq/g if pure).

In 2001 the UN Environment Program examined the effects of nine tonnes of DU munitions having been used in Kosovo, checking the sites targeted by it. UNEP found no widespread contamination, no sign of contamination in water of the food chain and no correlation with reported ill-health in NATO peacekeepers.

Thus DU is clearly dangerous for people in vehicles which are military targets, but for anyone else - even in a war zone - there is little hazard. Ingestion or inhalation of uranium oxide dust resulting from the impact of DU munitions on their targets is the main possible exposure route.

Source: http://www.uic.com.au/nip53.htm

I have a few more reliable RL sources to trawl through....

The only RL event that used DU that has been studied in detail is in Kosovo. I'll just add a couple of the relelvant points here:

As part of the post-conflict assessments conducted in the Balkans, the first-ever assessment of the environmental impact of depleted uranium when used in a real conflict situation was carried out in 2000 2001 resulting in a UNEP report entitled “Depleted Uranium in Kosovo – A Post-Conflict Assessment” of March 2001. The report stated that analyses of the samples collected showed only low levels of radioactivity. Furthermore, the results suggested that there was no immediate cause for concern regarding toxicity. However, major scientific uncertainties persist over the long-term environmental impacts of depleted uranium, especially in terms of groundwater.

As a result of these scientific uncertainties, UNEP called for precautionary measures and recommended action to be taken to clean-up and decontaminate the polluted sites, to raise awareness of the local population, and to monitor the situation in the future. UNEP made an effort to inform both the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Kosovo Force, in order to ensure that they had all the relevant information and recommendations to take necessary steps on the ground.

Source:http://www.unon.org/css/doc/gc22/22_02Add7/K0263733-E.doc

I would suggest that this NS UN urges member states towards a responsible usage of DU, and urge such nations to ensure clean-up operations are executed. I'd also urge the UN nations to contribute any research in this matter to debate at another time.

First, thank you for taking the time to throughly repeat that. :) You've convinced me to ask my government to lobby to have the DU references removed, but the question I have left is why is DU used in military applications if it does not have significant secondary impacts?

Cave Canem applauds the moderate demands of this resolution. The approach adopted by Serconea is an example of the effectiveness of the gradual introduction of change over demands for instant revolution.

We feel there is one area in which the proposal could go further - this is a natural extension of Calls 1 and 2, so should not cause undue extra concern. Cave Canem would like to see an insert under 'CALLS on all nations' as follows:

1. To cease manufacturing cluster bombs, depleted uranium shells and napalm immediately.
2. To cease purchasing or selling such weapons.
3. To cease immediately investing in private enterprises abroad that are connected to, or profit from the production, sale or distribution of such weapons.

The loophole allowing government investment in foreign arms trades is not closed by the proposal as it stands, and this is a crucial issue. The amendment of the demands of this proposal to explicitly preclude this is the only enhancement we have to suggest.

Congratulations and thanks to Serconea.

UN Delegate for Cave Canem

The answer is ... well I think it's facinating. It forms the basis for all anti-tank and anti-anti-tank weaponry. And it's physics and engineering at its finest.

When an object travels through a medium at a speed greater than the speed of sound in that medium, the medium behaves like a liquid. Air, water, solid rick, even solid steel, all act like liquids when something moves supersonically through it. Like Moses parting the Red sea, the object parts the object in front of it and passes through.

Now the speed of sound in any medium is in part based on how dense that medium. Note also the idea of relativity ... is the object going through the medium or is the medium going through the object? The answer is yes and yes. Therefore when designing supersonic anti-tank weaponry you want something denser than the material you are penetrating, so that the speed of sound in the material you are penetrating is slower than the speed of sound of the material that is penetrating. It can still act as a solid while the barrier becomes like a liquid.

And nothing says "dense" like depleated uranium. Use it a a shell, and it will cut through regular metal like butter. Use it as a shield and it will keep less dense metals from cutting through it like butter.

An alternative to desnse defense is to ensure that the round impacts at a sub-sonic speed. Active defense that explodes outside of the tank can slow the incomming projectile to a sub-sonic speed realtaive to the material of the tank and can also be effective. Unfortunately, a tank can only do that once and the defense needs to be replaced.

thank you tzorland for explaining that in far more detail than I could have been able to express