Most Canadians do not realize the horrifying implications of Canada's support for NATO's
“first use" policy. The policy should be made an object of public examination and debate.
It should be challenged, and that's exactly what the Nuclear Weapons Legal Action is
aiming to do.

If governments will not act more decisively against the nuclear danger, the public must.
Over the past few years public opinion world-wide has been mounting against nuclear
weapons.

A strong consensus is emerging that it is intolerable for the whole human race to have to
live continuously under the shadow of nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war. As
the peace movement has raised public awareness of nuclear issues, many more lawyers and
academics have published articles on the illegality of nuclear weapons. Two years ago they
were even joined by the president of the Canadian Bar Association, Claude Thompson,
who told an internationai audience in Berlin, "nuclear weapons are illegal because they have
the potential to destroy us all." There is now a rapidly growing body of legal opinion that

nuclear weapons, in addition to being dangerous and immoral, would also violate
international law if used.

When such a massive shift in public attitude occurs, and the new consensus can be

grounded on established legal principles, the prospects for using the courts to achieve
social change become increasingly favourable. Courts don't make law, but they do
interpret law and assign weight and significance to the various elements presented in a case.
Such interpretations are often qualititative, and so are subject to the influence of the social
milieu, the "times." Even when the law remains static, its meaning can change. As the
times change, so do court decisions.

If it is true, as So many lawyers have been saying, that the use of nuclear weapons would
be illegal, it should be possible to challenge Canada's policies in court, The Nuclear
Weapons Legal Action is organizing that court challenge. The Nuclear Weapons Legal
Action is above all an effort to give the courts a chance to act by presenting them with a
case in law for declaring the illegitimacy of NATO's plans to use nuclear weapons.

With the impressive and growing body of legal opinion, the time is ripe for the question of
the legality of nuciear weapons to be heard in a court of law. There have already been a
few successful cases in other countries. In Illinois v. Jarka in the U.S., demonsirators at a
naval base who had been charged with resisting arrest were acquitted on the defence of
“necessity” on the grounds that use or threatened use of nuclear weapons violates
international law. In most cases, however, (such as in Bnitain, the U.S. and The
Netherlands} where the legality of nuclear weapons has been at issue, the courts have
avoided the question by ruling that they lack jurisdiction to review government decisions in
foreign policy or defence matters.