After a hung jury in March (see NR #112) British prosecutors brought Sarah Hipperson and Peggy Walford of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp back for a new trial on July 23, when they were convicted and given a two-year conditional discharge for cutting down the fence at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) Burghfield and causing £10,000 of damage.

At the start of the retrial, all submissions relating to the International Court of Justice's Advisory Opinion concerning nuclear weapons, as well as U.N. Charter law, International law, and Humanitarian law, were ruled inadmissible by Judge Mowat. Judge Mowat claimed that the possession and threat to use nuclear weapons did not constitute a crime under International or domestic law, though she subsequently offered no legal argument to support this opinion.

Denied the chance to offer the jury a defense of lawful excuse for causing criminal damage because of the possible illegality of the United Kingdom's nuclear weapons arsenal, the women moved onto the question of radiation pollution from AWE Burghfield's assembly and refurbishment of Trident missile warheads at the site.

Three eminent scientists gave evidence that the emissions were injurious and deadly to the local population. The Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence in rebuttal of these scientific submissions by the defense.

Although both the judge and the prosecution agreed that nuclear weapons were an "abomination" and "the sooner we are rid of them the better", neither were willing to address the legal and moral issues raised by the women's actions.

On the day before the verdict came in, Sarah Hipperson received a letter from the Security Policy Department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office regarding the United Kingdom's policy of nuclear deterrence. The letter states that the Government is "confident" that the International Court of Justice's Advisory Opinion does not require a change in its nuclear weapons policy. Unfortunately, this confidence does not currently extend to allowing the arguments regarding the disputed legal status of nuclear weapons to be put before a jury.

(from a report by Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp at Yellow Gate)

On July 2, Menwith Hill Women's Peace Camp activist Helen John was sent to jail for seven days for nonpayment of fines imposed for painting the U.S. Embassy in London with the slogan SHUT MENWITH HILL - NO STAR WARS last January. A few days before going to jail, Helen John, Anne Lee, and Jenny Gaiawyn were banned by injunction from sleeping at the Menwith Hill camp after July 22. The High Court judge also told local authorities they could apply to have the camp's house trailers removed.

On July 1, Scottish local authorities won a legal appeal for permission to evict the Faslane Peace Camp, following a protracted legal battle. Peace campers fortified the camp against eviction by preparing lock-on sites, building tree houses and digging tunnels in the manner of recent road building protests in Great Britain. These public preparations and the events of the Trident Ploughshares 2000 campaign in August kept authorities, at least temporarily, from evicting the 16-year old peace camp located across the road from the home port of the United Kingdom's Trident nuclear submarine fleet.