Southern Hemisphere Clean, or: Geographically Halfway to Success!

Wonderful news coming to us from the Global Security Newswire:

The African Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone Treaty's entry into force last month [July 2009] established a ban on nuclear weapons throughout the entire southern hemisphere, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday.

This truly is fantastic news. That all countries south of the Equator have committed to a nuclear weapons-free world is absolutely significant. Of course, the southern hemisphere is also largely devoid of the same technological development as the North -- plus the majority of the world's population lives above the Equator:


(On a side note, if you take a page out of Jared Diamond's brilliant book Guns, Germs and Steel, you'd recognize why the North is so developed vs the South. But I digress.)

So all that is to say that perhaps having the entire Southern hemisphere commit to being a nuclear weapons free zone (NWFZ) is not that big a deal, since the real power players live in the North. This very well might be a valid point. But consider the increasingly globalized world in which we live. Consider how much current events are affecting all countries and all peoples, regardless of socioeconomic factors like population density or income distribution. There is no doubt in my mind that this momentous occasion, when half of our geographic Earth is committed to a nuclear weapons-free world, will have a profound and long-lasting impact on key decision makers in all developed countries.

The goal of seeking a world devoid of these instruments of mass slaughter is no longer the goal of just President Obama -- it has been embraced by other world leaders, both on and off the political stage. Events have been set in motion and the movement is gaining momentum, slowly but surely. As efforts are consolidated by the medical community (IPPNW), grassroots organizations (We Must Disarm), academic intelligentsia (Harvard Kennedy School) and think tanks (Council on Foreign Relations), among others, policymakers around the world are starting to take notice.

So are people like you and me.

It's time to turn the tides; it's time to stop believing nuclear weapons will protect anyone from anything; it's time to come to full terms with the true capabilities of these instruments and accept that we as a race are better off without them (see my post on specicide).

It all starts here. It all starts now.