Trident ‘belongs to a prohibited class of weaponry’ and is illegal

THE esteemed former Lord Advocate Ronald King Murray is to be applauded for his letter (February 18) in which he draws attention to the case being pursued by the Marshall Islands. A real David and Goliath contest, the tiny Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) has filed unprecedented lawsuits against all nine nuclear-armed nations of the world for their failure to negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament, as required under Art. VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968).

However, with respect, I would suggest that Lord Murray give his expert attention to the current legal situation in Scotland. On October 21, 1999, Sheriff Margaret Gimblett instructed the jury at Greenock Sheriff Court to acquit Angie Zelter, Ellen Moxley and Ulla Roder, who had been charged with causing £80,000 damage to a Trident-related barge by peaceful, non-violent direct action. The jury did so, and Trident was, ipso facto, recognised as being illegal. This was a momentous ruling.

However, the prosecution appealed against this decision, and on March 30, 2001, in the Lord Advocates Referral (LAR) Lords Prosser, Kirkwood, and Penrose overturned this verdict and ruled that Trident was in fact legal. But if this were so, then every state in the world could also legally deploy Trident, an absurdity which proves that the original hypothesis is untenable. Among other anomalies, the LAR claimed that the rules of war do not apply in peacetime (we were, in fact, at war in Kosovo then), which would mean that a state could legally build ovens and stockpile Zyklon-B, but nothing could be done until the smoke was actually coming from the chimneys. It is surely indisputable that conspiracy to commit a crime is itself a crime.

Since then, courts in Scotland have regarded the LAR as a precedent, and all those who seek by peaceful, non-violent, direct action to uphold international and domestic law by frustrating the deployment of Trident, have been found guilty.

I should add that Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act 1998 reserved to the London Parliament “Control of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction [WMDs]”. By their own words, the UK Parliament defines Trident as a WMD. As such it is belongs to a prohibited class of weaponry, and is therefore illegal. Brian Quail, 2 Hundland Avenue, Glasgow. I WAS interested to read the letter from Ronald King Murrray. Tony de Brum is the Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands, a tiny Pacific atoll with a population of only 70,000.

I was fortunate to hear him speak very movingly at the third ICAN Civil Society Forum held in Vienna last December immediately preceding a governmental conference, hosted by the Austrian Government, on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.

I note that Ronald King Murray urges us to press our candidates to state how they stand on this issue.

In the middle of January I wrote to the leaders of all the main political parties in Scotland on behalf of my colleagues in the Scottish Branch of Medact (formerly the Medical Campaign against Nuclear Weapons).

We asked for the opportunity to discuss the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, as highlighted in the Vienna Conference, and also to share our concerns.

So far only one of the leaders, Ruth Davidson, has replied. Dr Judith McDonald, 1 Cairnhill Gardens, St Andrews.