Legal Review Of Trident

EDM number 312 in 1998-99, proposed by Austin Mitchell on 11/02/1999.

That this House notes that the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion of 8th July 1996 was unable to find any legal circumstance where the threat or use of nuclear weapons by any nation could be permitted; further notes that international humanitarian law forbids the use of any weapons which, by its nature, could not discriminate between military targets and civilian targets and civilian populations; believes that the threat or use of the Trident nuclear weapons system is open to serious legal question, principally because the explosive capacity of its nuclear warheads and the nature of its potential targets mean that it cannot make the distinction between military targets and civilian populations; and therefore calls upon Her Majesty's Government to instruct its law officers to initiate an open and democratically accountable review of the legality of Britain's Trident nuclear weapon system and the Government's current nuclear doctrine.

This motion has been signed by a total of 63 MPs, 1 of these signatures have been withdrawn.