Angie Zelter, the founder of Trident Ploughshares, is set to prosecute the government for conspiring to commit war crimes.
Zelter plans to use a private prosecution to set out why the use of Trident, Britain’s nuclear weapons system, would break UK and International Humanitarian Law.
She said “[the law is] meant to prevent genocide, prevent attacks on civilians and public infrastructure, protect children, respect neutral countries, and protect the environment.
“Obviously any use of nuclear weapons would breach all of these legal protections that have taken many decades and in some cases, hundreds of years to build up.”
She hopes the court case will allow for impartial examination of the evidence, providing an “unbiased non-political, non-ideological judgement on the UK’s nuclear arsenal and ‘deterrence’ policies.”
Earlier in the year, Parliament authorised government plans to spend £205 billion on replacing Trident despite huge public opposition.
CND will be following Angie Zelter’s case and will provide news updates as it develops. Please subscribe to our mailing list to keep in touch with our campaign.