For Immediate Release: April 30, 2007
Contact: Jacqueline Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation
NGO Room, Austria Center, or mobile: + 44-7872-847093
Website: www.WMDreport.org

Media Advisory

Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security
To Be Released May 1 at NPT PrepCom; New Book Analyzes
U.S. Policy on Nuclear Weapons & International Security

Vienna - On May 1, three public interest groups will release the just published Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security? U.S. Weapons of Terror, the Global Proliferation Crisis, and Paths to Peace. Several of the authors will describe the book’s findings and recommendations in a briefing held during the first preparatory meeting for the 2010 Review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security offers analysis and recommendations regarding U.S. policy in relation to the international security framework, nuclear weapons R&D, non-proliferation and disarmament, climate change and nuclear power, missiles and weapons in space, and demilitarization and redefining security in human terms. A response to the report of the Hans Blix-led Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, it is the product of collaboration between the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP), Western States Legal Foundation (WSLF), and the Reaching Critical Will (RCW) project of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. The book recommends that the U.S. “make nuclear disarmament the leading edge of a global trend towards demilitarization and redirection of military expenditures to meet human and environment needs.”

Hans Blix, Chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, says regarding the book: “This assessment of our Final Report and its 60 recommendations is exactly the kind of response we were hoping for. The Report has now been critically reviewed and scrutinized by experts from civil society organizations, adding to its credibility. A very timely and important contribution.” Daniel Ellsberg, 2006 Winner of the Right Livelihood Award, says it is a “lucid, compelling book with concise, detailed directions for reducing nuclear dangers on the path to disarmament, a reliable road-guide away from the nuclear abyss. But it simultaneously reports that the current U.S. administration is reading that map upside down, following the guidelines posted in precisely the wrong direction.”

Speakers will be authors John Burroughs, executive director of LCNP, and Michael Spies, LCNP program associate; Jacqueline Cabasso, executive director of WSLF; and Jennifer Nordstrom, project manager, RCW. The organizations sponsoring the book have long experience tracking the NPT and United Nations and analyzing U.S. policy. New York-based LCNP (www.lcnp.org) specializes in legal aspects of disarmament and security matters. California-based WSLF (www.wslfweb.org) monitors the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. RCW, based in New York, plays an essential role for both civil society and governments in reporting on the UN and NPT through its intensively used website, www.reachingcriticalwill.org.

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