• Nuclear disarmament lobbying group that excuses nuclear buildup by rogue countries while condemning the United States
• "Even if Iraq is found to possess WMDs or their components, the U.S. approach is wrong."
• Opposes sanctions against North Korea, but is willing to boycott U.S.

This organization was established in April 1995 by Alice Slater, President of the anti-nuclear group Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, with the grand aim of eliminating all nuclear weapons from the earth by the turn of the century. Abolition 2000 claims a membership of more than 2,000 supportive nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in 95 countries.

Even as Abolition 2000 holds fast to the unequivocal goals set forth in its founding declaration -- "Our common security requires the complete elimination of nuclear weapons" -- the group has routinely settled for less ambitious initiatives like the "Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons" program. Working alongside other disarmament groups such as the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Abolition 2000 exhorted mayors from around the world to support negotiations for comprehensive nuclear disarmament by the year 2005. Although the "Mayors for Peace" initiative was intended as a first step toward the blanket elimination of nuclear arms, Abolition 2000 has now settled on what it deems a more pragmatic timetable: the year 2020.

In the short term, the group aims to mobilize anti-nuclear demonstrations, like its May 2005 rally in New York City, to gain the public's notice. Timed to correspond with the United Nations' review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the May 2005 event was meant to draw attention to Article 6 of the Treaty, which calls on nuclear weapons states to pursue good-faith negotiations designed to lead to eventual nuclear disarmament.

Perhaps impelled by its evident lack of success in securing the instant elimination of nuclear weapons, in recent years Abolition 2000 has diversified its interests, adopting resolutions endorsing other leftwing causes. In 1997, for example, it adopted the Moore Declaration, a signally vague statement of solidarity with "colonized and indigenous peoples." While unclear as to which particular peoples were the objects of its sympathy, Abolition 2000 stressed that they were, in any case, the victims of "environmental degradation and human suffering that is the legacy of fifty-two years of nuclear weapons usage, testing, and production."

In a similar vein was the Saffron Walden Declaration. Adopted by Abolition 2000 in the year 2001, it detailed the obstacles to the organization's vision of a nuclear-free world. Chief among those obstacles was the United Sates, whose "drive to weaponize and nuclearize space," and whose "immoral and illegal quest for global domination," was allegedly placing an "increasing burden on the world's resources."

Equally hostile was Abolition 2000's assessment of modern Western nations. In a broad indictment of globalization, the Saffron Walden declaration stated, "The Western nuclear weapons states and their allies believe they can put a 'lid' on the rising tide of discontent at the economic inequity and lack of social justice among the vast majority of the earth's people in order to maintain their access to world resources and their unsustainable levels of consumption."

Despite its professed opposition to all nuclear weapons, Abolition 2000 has frequently employed a double standard, condemning the possession of such weapons by Western nations while pointedly ignoring their possession by non-Western countries, including some of the most unstable rogue states in the world. The case of North Korea is instructive. When, in August 2003, international leaders pressed the Pyongyang government to disclose information about, and halt the buildup of, its nuclear arsenal, Abolition 2000, rather than applauding these efforts to disarm a militaristic regime with nuclear ambitions, condemned them. 

After rejecting any "attempts to use force, sanctions, threats of sanctions, regime change, or talk of such measures" in dealing with North Korea, Abolition 2000 heatedly insisted in a letter that the attention of the international community was misdirected: "It must also be borne in mind that whatever the size and capabilities of the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea]nuclear arsenal, it in no way remotely compares with the 8,000 to 12,000 warheads of the U.S. arsenal, the approximately 22,000 warheads of the Russian arsenal, the roughly 400 warheads held by China and France, the 200-400 held by Israel, the 150-200 held by the UK, nor even with the arsenals held by India and Pakistan."

The real threat in the region, Abolition 2000 explained, came not from North Korea's communist regime but from the United States: "The DPRK has, from at least 1956, faced the threat of U.S. nuclear weapons, and up to 100 tactical nuclear warheads were stationed south of the DMZ until at least 1991." Condoning the North Korean regime's right to bear nuclear arms, Abolition 2000 stated, "The desire of the DPRK to defend itself may be understandable."

Parallel reasoning informed Abolition 2000's opposition to the U.S.-led war against Iraq's Baathist regime, which was widely believed to be in possession of an illicit nuclear weapons program. Omitting any mention of Saddam Hussein's past campaigns of mass murder, Abolition 2000 focused instead on the possibility of American-perpetrated atrocities. During the buildup to the 2003 war in Iraq, Abolition 2000 stated, "We are gravely concerned that conflict in the region might spiral out of control and that the U.S. would again use nuclear weapons." Unlike many critics of the war, Abolition 2000 also claimed that even the presence of Iraq's WMDs could not justify military intervention. "Even if Iraq is found to possess WMDs or their components, the U.S. approach is wrong," Abolition 2000 insisted, contending that "though nuclear weapons represent the ultimate form of violence, they cannot and should not be eliminated through the use of force."

Abolition 2000 further insisted that Iraq, like North Korea, was the wrong target in the War on Terror: "While we condemn Iraq's record of human rights violations, the U.S. policy towards Iraq is selective and hypocritical. The U.S. continues to support Israel, which has nuclear weapons as well as a long record of noncompliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions, and which has occupied Palestine for decades."

In September of 2004, Abolition 2000 concentrated its energies on a project called "Boycott Bush," a grassroots organizing effort seeking to show that "the U.S. operates outside international law." And, notwithstanding its prior refusal to countenance talk of such measures, the organization expressed a willingness to support a boycott of U.S. products.

Abolition 2000 was a signatory to a petition of so-called "civil society" organizations that opposed globalization, big business in general, and "any effort to expand the powers of the World Trade Organization (WTO) through a new comprehensive round of trade liberalization." Members affiliated with some of the signers actively participated in the November 1999 riots in which some 50,000 protesters did millions of dollars worth of property damage in their effort to shut down the WTO Conference in Seattle. In fact, Medea Benjamin -- the leader of Global Exchange, which was another signatory to the petition -- is widely credited as having been a chief organizing force behind the riots.

A founding member of Abolition 2000 is the well known anti-war activist David Krieger, who also co-founded the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and serves as the deputy chairman of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility.

Abolition 2000 is a member organization of the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition, which is led by Leslie Cagan, the longtime communist who proudly aligns her politics with those of Fidel Castro. 

Funding for Abolition 2000 has been provided by the Seventh Generation Fund, the EarthWays Foundation, and the Lifebridge Foundation.