Call for Your Action for a Nuclear-weapon Free, Peaceful and Just World
Dear IPB family,
We live with the increasing danger of nuclear weapons that continue to threaten the survival of humanity.
The existence of nearly 15,000 of such weapons, many ready to be launched on warning, pose an imminent threat to us all. With the collapse of the INF Treaty, the resulting breakdown of the world’s arms control systems, and the new era of super power confrontation, we are threatened by unrestrained nuclear arms races.
We have been aware for a long time that any nuclear weapon detonation will have long-term catastrophic humanitarian consequences on a global scale, impacting on health, the environment, socio-economic development and world economies. Whether used intentionally, or as a result of miscalculation or accident, the risks posed by a nuclear weapons explosion are unacceptably high. We all live under the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Compounding the dangers, the intensifying confrontations and arms races of the nuclear weapon states have increased the likelihood of nuclear weapons actually being used. The trillions of dollars, rubles, yuan, rupees and other currencies being spent to upgrade, modernize and maintain the world’s nuclear arsenals and their delivery systems and on the military generally, while the basic needs of billions of people in the world are not met is systematically destroying people’s lives and communities.
The abolition of nuclear weapons is no longer a dream – it has become an urgent necessity.
Faced with this situation, civil society, together with the overwhelming majority of the world’s governments, rose up and achieved the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) at the U.N. on July 7, 2017. This marked a historic step to ban nuclear weapons once and for all. Since September 2017, when it was first opened for signature, the process of adoption of the treaty has gone well, 70 countries have so far signed and 22 have already ratified the Treaty. It is widely expected that the 50 ratifications needed for the treaty to enter into force will be achieved by 2020. However, nuclear armed states and nuclear umbrella states are resisting the Treaty and ignoring their legal obligations as signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT – and other international agreements) to negotiate “in good faith” the complete elimination of their nuclear arsenals.
Since the early years of the Cold War, IPB has insisted on the illegality of nuclear weapons and persistently worked for achieving a world without them and free from war. Now IPB urges people and organizations across the world to take action to prevent a nuclear war and to finally ensure the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons. You can help with this urgent task
- Urge your government to take meaningful actions to reverse the renewed arms races and sign and ratify the TPNW for its early entry into force. Actions by local governments, political parties, businesses and a wide range of community organizations and individuals can make a powerful impact.
- Raise public awareness about the inhumanity of nuclear weapons and the reality that human beings and nuclear weapons cannot coexist much longer, using the testimonies of those suffering from the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombings and nuclear tests. A-bomb photo display panels, DVDs and other popular education resources are available from many IPB member organizations.
- Support local and national campaigns that work for nuclear disarmament, reductions in military spending, alternative ideas for security and related issues.
- Collect signatures for the international Hibakusha Appeal for the elimination of nuclear weapons that was initiated by the Hibakusha (A-bomb sufferers) of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2016. The Appeal embodies the Hibakusha’s earnest desire to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons in their lifetime.
- Take actions in your communities, schools, workplaces, etc, worldwide, to build public support for the abolition of nuclear weapons, including taking the TPNW forward to 2020, the 75th year of Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-bombings. Help make the NPT Preparatory Committee meeting in 2019 (April 29 – May 10), the UN General Assembly and the NPT Review Conference in 2020 important international rallying points of actions.
Lisa Clark & Reiner Braun
Presidents of the International Peace Bureau
Florence and Berlin, 15th of April 2019
IPB Statement_Call for Your Action for a Nuclear-weapon Free, Peaceful and Just World