Tag: Ban Treaty

Campaign for a Global Ban on Weaponized Drones

International organizations are uniting their efforts to advocate for a Campaign for a Global Ban on Weaponized Drones, and the International Peace Bureau stands as one of the endorsing organizations.

Unveiled in June during our International Summit for Peace in Ukraine held in Vienna, and simultaneously at the War Resisters International Conference in London, the Campaign’s momentum remains unwavering.

Our objective stands at securing the endorsement of 300 supporters, paving the path to present a collective appeal to the UN General Assembly for the enforcement of a treaty prohibiting lethal drones.

You can still become a part of this movement by endorsing this campaign. Feel free to send us an email to show your support!

➡️ for@forusa.org

The utilization of drones for warfare, both by state and nonstate entities, has engendered the unlawful killing, physical harm, and displacement of millions worldwide, primarily in the Global South. Moreover, the looming specter of autonomous drones being equipped with depleted uranium and directed towards nuclear power plants and critical installations poses catastrophic prospects. To halt this imminent threat, the United Nations must render this alarming tool of fatality and devastation illegal.

The following statement sets forth the demand by organizations in many countries, including international organizations and organizations of faith and conscience, for the United Nations to adopt a Treaty on the Prohibition of Weaponized Drones.

WDBT-Campaign-Endorsers-8-12-23Download

Thank you!

Настоятельная необходимость деэскалации для предотвращения ядерной катастрофы

– 27 февраля 2023 года –

Приостановка Россией действия договора СНВ-3 (the New START Treaty) знаменует собой последнюю опасную и безответственную эскалацию ядерных угроз после вторжения на Украину год назад. Быстрое ухудшение дипломатических отношений между Россией и Западом, наряду с усилением военных действий в Украине и прежними ядерными угрозами со стороны России, должно послужить тревожным сигналом для всего мира: мы ближе, чем когда-либо, к ядерному уничтожению.

Незадолго до российского вторжения, в январе 2022 года, лидеры пяти ядерных держав подтвердили то, что мы все знаем как истину: ядерную войну нельзя вести и ее нельзя выиграть. Вместо того чтобы принять это сообщение близко к сердцу, Россия и Запад продолжают полагаться на ядерное сдерживание как на фундаментальную стратегию своей внешней политики, в том числе в качестве щита для своих империалистических авантюр. Обе стороны виновны в подрыве режима контроля над ядерными вооружениями, установленного во время холодной войны — посещение ядерных объектов США в рамках СНВ-3 также было ограничено санкциями против России. Угроза применения ядерного оружия сейчас выше, чем когда-либо в истории со времен кубинского ракетного кризиса.

Международное бюро мира вновь призывает к немедленному прекращению огня в Украине и к участию всех вовлеченных сторон в переговорах, чтобы положить конец насилию и кровопролитию. Мы требуем, чтобы переговоры включали вопросы безопасности украинцев, россиян и западных правительств, чтобы они основывались на общей безопасности и немедленно возобновили действие договора СНВ-3, а также работали над восстановлением дальнейших договоров по контролю над ядерными вооружениями и об установлении доверия, на основе принципов общей безопасности.

Кроме того, Международное бюро мира призывает положить конец дорогостоящей модернизации ядерного оружия — многомиллиардному проекту, который ничего не делает для обеспечения безопасности, — и ко всем странам поддержать Договор о запрещении ядерного оружия (ДЗЯО) во имя безопасного и безъядерного будущего.

Мариенштрассе, 19-20

10117 Берлин, Германия

New-Start-Statement-Russian-1Download

IPB Statement: The Urgent Need for Deescalation to Prevent Nuclear Disaster 

 – 27 February 2023 

Russia’s suspension of the New START Treaty marks the latest in the dangerous and irresponsible escalation of nuclear threats since the invasion of Ukraine one year ago. The rapid deterioration of diplomatic relations between Russia and the West, alongside the intensification of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s previous nuclear threats, must serve as a wake-up call to the world: we are closer than we have ever been to nuclear annihilation. 

Just prior to the Russian invasion, in January 2022, the leaders of the five nuclear-weapon states reiterated what we all know to be true: a nuclear war must not be fought and cannot be won. Instead of taking this message to heart, Russia and the West continue to rely on nuclear deterrence as a fundamental strategy for their foreign policies, including as a shield for their imperialist ventures. Both sides are guilty of eroding the nuclear arms control regime established during the Cold War – visits to US nuclear sites under New START were likewise restricted by sanctions against Russia. The threat of the use of nuclear weapons is now higher than at any point in history since the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

The International Peace Bureau calls again for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and for all involved parties to engage in negotiations to bring the violence and bloodshed to an end. We demand that negotiations include the security concerns of Ukrainians, Russians, and Western governments to rely on common security and to immediately resume the New START treaty, as well as to work for the re-establishment of further nuclear arms control and trust-building treaties, in line with the principles of common security. 

Furthermore, IPB calls for an end to the expensive modernization of nuclear weapons – a multi-billion dollar project that does nothing to ensure security – and for all nations to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons for a safer, nuclear-free future. 

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You can download the PDF version of this Statement in English here:

statement-New-Start-February-27-2023Download

You can download the PDF version of this Statement in Russian here:

New-Start-Statement-RussianDownload

➡️ Interact with us on social media especially to learn about our latest actions and activities: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube.

➡️ Our office is open to reply to any doubts regarding the documents that were above presented. To get in touch with us, e-mail us at info@ipb-office.berlin.

Hiroshima Declaration by the 2022 World Conference against A&H Bombs

No More Hiroshimas! No More Nagasakis! No More Hibakusha! Abolish Nuclear Weapons!

The 2022 World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (August  4th-9th) has adopted the “Hiroshima Declaration” on August 6, at the closing of the Hiroshima Day Rally, which was held in Hiroshima and online.

Aiming at a nuclear weapon-free, peaceful and just world, it not only includes the demand that the nuclear weapon states reconfirm their NPT treaty obligations, but also the call for a diplomatic resolution of all international conflicts.

It further points out the importance of gender perspectives in the nuclear disarmament process, the need for a reduction of military expenditures as well as the dissolution of military alliances, and the extension of solidarity to many other movements, including the peace movement. Nonetheless, campaigns to make known the A-bomb damage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and other inhumane consequences of the use of nuclear weapons are still of utmost importance.

Please find the full statement here: https://ipb.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Hiroshima-Declaration-Aug6.pdf

If interested in the full program of the 2022 World Conference against A&H Bombs, please visit: http://www.antiatom.org/english/world_conference/2022index.html

After the States Conference on the TPNW and before the NPT Conference – from Vienna to New York

Rarely has a world conference been prepared with so little hope and empathy as this year’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Conference, which will begin in New York on August 1, 2022 for a period of four weeks.

Hopes for an outcome even remotely resembling an evaluation and implementation of the NPT are nil. Even an initiative for a ban on first use will not be successful, and there is no need to talk about arms control or even disarmament.

The conference will take place in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which is contrary to international law, the recurring threat of a possible use of nuclear weapons, the comprehensive modernization of all nuclear weapons in all nuclear-weapon countries, the technological development of nuclear weapons into battlefield weapons (mini nukes) and, more generally, the aggressive geostrategic global confrontations.

Is it conceivable in the face of military and economic wars (both of which go far beyond the Ukraine conflict) that there will be serious negotiations on arms control, nuclear-weapon-free zones, and disarmament? Realistically, this is not the case. 

The actors, especially from the Global South, who could push in the direction of negotiations, arms control and disarmament are unfortunately too politically weak, not coordinated enough, and also still without many of their own initiatives. First approaches, like participation within the context of the TPNW, are not yet a global, independently political role comparable to the role of the non-aligned states in the 60/70s. Only with this will for independence from the power centers and in connection with a world-wide civil society active for disarmament would a peace-oriented political alternative paragraph be at all conceivable.

Instead, we are confronted with the fact that the danger of nuclear war has never been so high and so threatening as it is now. The doomsday clock stands on 100 seconds to midnight and is only one pointed expression of the daily atomic madness – 100 seconds was before the Ukraine war!

The success of the nuclear weapons prohibition conference in Vienna in June, against the will of the nuclear weapon states and the nuclear sharing countries, shows only the beginnings for an alternative nuclear weapons disarmament policy. Yes, it is encouraging that the number of ratifying states is increasing, that the commitment of governments, parliaments and civil societies to the treaty is growing. The concretization of the treaty’s formulations and the emphasis on common ground for future action against the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons are certainly also worthy of mention. The political integration of the TPNW into the struggle for a policy of common security is certainly particularly gratifying. 

All this, however, does not yet constitute a geopolitical course towards peace.

This strategic development of humanitarian engagement into an alternative political concept makes it clear that security today can only be achieved together. In this context, nuclear disarmament is a chain link for cooperative action. Only if the political confrontation between NATO and Russia or the U.S. and China is overcome will steps toward nuclear disarmament be possible again. Therefore, measures of dialogue and confidence building are also central to a policy whose long-term outcome is to be a world without nuclear weapons. This is even the officially declared goal of the NATO states. Cooperation is not only central to overcoming the dramatic threat of nuclear war, but is also an indispensable component if the climate catastrophe is still to be averted. At present we are heading with tremendous drama towards the double catastrophe – both nuclear and climatic.

To clarify these connections and to discuss the alternative of common security as a geostrategic alternative, peace groups like the international Peace and Planet network and the International Peace Bureau (IPB), in cooperation with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s New York Office, are organizing the international conference on July 30th in New York on the theme of “geostrategic disorder”. 

IPB is also represented at the NPT conference with two side events – one on nuclear weapons in Europe and the other on the technological challenges of a new arms race – to underline that the defense against the danger of nuclear war is a central challenge for the worldwide peace movement. This must be about more education and more action to stop the media and political course towards insane further high armament and war. A worldwide social and ecological as well as economic tsunami is the consequence if this policy – specifically, the nuclear armament policy of the P5 and other nuclear powers, including that of the NATO states – is not stopped. 

The NPT conference can therefore perhaps help to put the much-needed global “coalition of reason” on the agenda.  

– Reiner Braun, Executive Director of the IPB

Article written for Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung – New York Office

Berlin, Germany – July, 2022

Ulaanbaatar Statement on Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones

Nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) scholars and experts have met on 9-10 June 2022 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and discussed the importance, challenges and prospects of NWFZ development in this period of the post-cold war era.

The participants expressed their conviction that the most effective way to prevent nuclear weapons threats is their total elimination.

Today two parallel developments are unfolding in international relations. On the one hand, nuclear weapons of the cold-war era of the then two superpowers have been substantially reduced by mutual agreement. A number of NWFZs have been established bringing thus their number to five zones with 116 states that have committed to ban the manufacture, deployment and transit of nuclear weapons through their territories preventing thus proliferation of nuclear weapons in those concrete regions. South Africa has ended and dismantled its nuclear weapons program and became part of a NWFZ, while some others in Europe and Asia have agreed to remove their weapons in exchange for security assurances and become parties to the NPT. The participants called for further strengthening of the TPNW through its broader signing and ratifying as well as for concrete results for arms control and nuclear disarmament at the 10th NPT Review conference.

Currently the idea of establishing of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction is being under consideration. Informal exchanges of views and ideas to establish a Northeast Asian NWFZ and a zone in the Arctic are being discussed. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) has entered into force and provides a legal framework to delegitimize further nuclear weapons and strengthen the global norms to abolish such weapons. 

On the other hand, in parallel with the above positive changes troubling developments are also underway. Thus the number of states possessing nuclear weapons have increased, new generations of such weapons and even mini-nukes are being introduced in national arsenals lowering thus the decades of nuclear weapons use taboo. There is a dangerous trend to assign broader roles to such weapons in nuclear doctrines and rationalization of their use. Time and space are becoming dominant military and geopolitical factors with all the ensuing consequences.

The established NWFZs are working to coordinate closer their activities so as to contribute to the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world. To make NWFZs more credible and effective, all five de jure nuclear weapon states need to sign or ratify without delay the protocols to NWFZ treaties and withdraw reservations or unilateral interpretative statements that affect the statuses of the NWFZs. The states that have assumed international responsibility over dependent territories need to make sure that their responsibilities do not affect the NWFZs or the legitimate interests of the peoples of those territories. 

The international community needs to continue promoting the creation of NWFZs throughout the world as an effective and practical means for gradually achieving the cherished goal of the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Hence to be more effective the very concept of NWFZs needs to be made inclusive. This horizontal expansion of NWFZs should not be limited to groups of states only. Establishment of single-State zones is not anymore an academic issue but has far reaching practical implications.  Individual states due to their geographical location or for some credible political or legal reasons cannot be part of the traditional regional zones and thus be left out. Cumulatively they and their territories far exceed Central Asia and Southeast Asian NWFZ states or their sovereign territories. Ignoring this would result in political vacuums and create loopholes in international law. As is known, the nuclear-weapon-free world that we are all trying to establish would be as strong as its weakest link(s). Therefore second comprehensive study on NWFZs needs to be undertaken to address this and other issues connected with NWFZs and their increasing role in the world.

The participants have underlined that it was time to make practical steps to start the process to establish a Northeast Asian NWFZ. Mindful of the events in Europe, it was pointed out that it was time to think to extend NWFZs to the Northern hemisphere

Disarmament and non-proliferation education constitute important measures that will contribute to the common cherished goal. Therefore states and civil society organizations need to promote programs aimed at instilling the values of one common world as well as of peace and disarmament as the means to ensure such a world in their educational programs and academic works.  

The participants have congratulated Mongolia on the 30th year of its unprecedented initiative to establish a single-State NWFZ and ensure that no state or territory is left out of the common effort to establish a nuclear-weapon-free world.

                                                                                                          Ulaanbaatar, 10 June 2022

The Fierce Urgency Of Now- International Peace & Planet Network Call on the eve of the 2022 NPT Review Conference

The Ukraine war and competition among the great powers have dangerously increased the dangers of a third, potentially nuclear, world war, and have underscored what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. over half a century ago described as “THE FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW”.  

Like the period leading to the First World War, our era is marked by tensions between rising and declining powers, complex alliance structures, intense nationalism, territorial disputes, arms races with new technologies, economic integration – and competition, and wild card actors. In the best of circumstances, the end of the war in Ukraine will leave humanity confronted with intensified and dangerous geostrategic competitions, deterioration of strategic stability arrangements among the great powers, and intensified nuclear and advanced technological arms races.

The United Nations Charter and the rule of international law are increasingly being violated.  With the limited exception of the New START Treaty, no meaningful arms control agreements remain in force. Cooperation among nations that is essential to contain and reverse the climate crisis and to stanch and prevent pandemics has been undermined and is almost entirely absent.  With Finland’s pending accession to NATO, hopes that a 2025 Helsinki OSCE conference could have provided the foundation for negotiation of a new European security architecture have been dashed.

Obstacles to the export of grain and fertilizers from Russia and Ukraine leave the Global South facing increased food insecurity and widespread famine. The fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine is also upending global energy markets, with major implications for the global climate agenda. As U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres has explained,“Countries could become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or knee-cap policies to cut fossil fuel use. This is madness. Addiction to fossil fuels is mutually assured destruction.” Food and fuel insecurity will inevitably stoke conflict and violence that could lead to more wars.

The world’s nations are being consolidated into three opposing blocs: With Russia increasingly dependent on China, and with China seeking to offset pressure from the U.S. “Pivot to Asia” and its Indo-Pacific doctrine, these two powers have entered a tacit alliance.  European hopes for increasing interdependence and path leading away from U.S. hegemony have been sidelined as European nations find themselves increasingly dependent on the United States and under the thrall of still expanding NATO. And many of the world’s nations are understandably again opting for non-alignment despite pressures from the great powers to ally or collaborate with their blocs. Across the United States, Europe, Russia, China and much of the Global South, these dynamics are reenforced by rising authoritarianism in which the governments are not accountable to their people.

Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its nuclear threats, expectations for the 10th Nuclear Nonproliferation Review Conference (“NPT RevCon”) were low. Now, with a brutal and illegal war raging in Ukraine, and with all the nuclear-armed states committed to spending trillions of dollars in new nuclear and high-tech arms races, there is little expectation that the RevCon will even agree on a final consensus document. Faced with the further weakening of the NPT regime, the First Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and winning additional signatories and ratifications for the TPNW are even more important.

In past years, the Peace and Planet international network has mobilized nuclear abolitionists from around the world to press the NPT RevCons to demand progress by the nuclear-armed states in fulfilling their Article VI obligation to engage in good faith negotiations for “cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date,” and the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Our peace movements must prioritize deepening our collaborations and raising our voices to prevent a catastrophic world war and win the abolition of potentially omnicidal nuclear weapons. The 10th NPT RevCon provides a crucial opportunity for civil society organizations to meet, strategize, and generate maximum pressure on the world’s governments to make peace with each other, and to make a plan to realize the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons.

In these circumstances, the Peace and Planet International Network celebrates courageous actions being taken around the world to end the Ukraine War, to replace great power confrontations with Common Security diplomacy, and to eliminate the existential dangers posed by nuclear weapons and climate chaos.

As we look to the 10th NPT Review Conference, we urgently call for:

  1. An immediate Ukraine ceasefire, negotiations that ensure the security of a neutral Ukrainian state, withdrawal of Russian and all foreign troops from Ukraine, and improved Russia-Ukrainian relations that can serve as the foundation for a new European security architecture;
  2. Mobilization of world public opinion to manifest the popular will for peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons;
  3. Nuclear-armed states and nuclear sharing states to halt the threat of use and deployment of nuclear weapons and to adopt a policy of non-use of nuclear weapons;
  4. Popular mobilizations and actions by governments to support the TPNW with additional signatures and ratifications of the Treaty;
  5. Renewed respect for the United Nations Charter and the rule of international law.

At the 10th NPT Review Conference itself we call for:

  1. The nuclear-armed states and nuclear sharing states to commit to implement their NPT disarmament obligations and previous NPT RevCon commitments without further delay;
  2. The nuclear-armed states and nuclear sharing states to commit to a timeframe of no later than 2030 for the adoption of a framework, package of agreements or comprehensive nuclear weapons convention¹, and no later than 2045 for full implementation, in order to fulfil the NPT Article VI and customary law obligation to achieve the global elimination of nuclear weapons no later than the 100th anniversary of the first use of nuclear weapons, the 75th anniversary of the NPT and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations.
  3. Organization of a hybrid conference on the eve of the NPT RevCon to provide a vehicle for the world’s peace movements to share their understandings of the dynamics of the increasingly dangerous world disorder and to develop common strategies for peace, disarmament and human survival.

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. starkly pointed out in his last words, “For years now, we have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can we just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence.”

¹ Modalities and approaches to achieve and maintain a nuclear-weapon-free world include: negotiation of a comprehensive nuclear weapons convention or package of agreements; negotiation of a framework agreement which includes the legal commitment to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world, identifies the measures and pathways required in general terms, and provides a process for agreeing on details over time; negotiation of protocols to the TPNW or related instruments which nuclear armed and allied states would sign as part of a process for them to join the TPNW and build the nuclear destruction, elimination, verification and compliance process through the TPNW, particularly its Article 4. See WPAbolition2000WG.pdf

Statement by Philip Jennings on the deployment of nuclear weapons at RAF Lakenheath, U.K.

“I am here to express the solidarity of the world’s peace movement with your action here today. I speak for the world’s oldest peace organization the IPB. Still mobilizing for peace for 130 years. We will make sure your action today will echo around the world.

Our message is clear we do not want these nuclear missiles in Lakenheath. We want a world free of nuclear weapons. No one officially can admit that these missiles are or will be here. They won’t confirm or deny. Well I can confirm that the IPB does not want these missiles here or anywhere else.

A brilliant American researcher spotted the details and rang the global alarm bell. His name Hans Christensen there is no relation to his Danish namesake HC Andersen. From fairy to nightmare tales. These missiles are ugly ducklings and will remain so, the emperor has the clothes of lethal killing machines CND and the people of Lakenheath you banished these weapons 14 years ago.

You mobilized. Changed minds. You did not remain silent.

As MLK said  `He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it`. You are called to protest this evil once again.

Today Lakenheath is the example of a global arms race out of control. Your brothers and sisters in Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy are faced with this new wave of lethal militarization.

Budgets for war increasing military expenditure now over two trillion dollars, we ask where is the budget for peace? The budget for human needs and human security buckling under the strain of booming military budgets. I can assure you that they are mobilizing as they see these installations pushing the doomsday clock closer to midnight. The are awakening their public.

Let us applaud their action. The world is on edge.

A war in Ukraine. Climate devastation. Inequality.The rise of demagogues. Democracy and human rights in retreat. A global pandemic.

A world without a social contract. Fault lines everywhere. Poverty exploding in the UK and this failure of a UK government prefers to replenish and grow missile silos to ending foodbanks. That fits the definition of a morally bankrupt government.

Fault lines everywhere. Confrontation not cooperation. Superpower rivalry. This does not bring the world to a better place and today that toxic fault line runs through Lakenheath. We are staring into the abyss. Aggressive military doctrines menacing threats to use of nuclear weapons. Battle plans that include limited use of nuclear weapons. hey make them sound like childsplay they are not and are many times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

As you all know and must shout out that we are an accident, miscalculation, mistake away from a civilization ending nuclear Armageddon. The nuclear powers have admitted a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought. Meanwhile they walk away from those treaties that try to prevent this from happening.

We want a different world. We must invest in peace. We demand a ceasefire in the Ukraine and peace negotiations. We demand a global ceasefire and want to see war abolished.

Billions of people live in nuclear free zones and it is time for one in Europe. We must build a new architecture for preace for without it we face breakdown not breakthrough. For disarmament.

The IPB just concluded the work of a Global Commission on Common Security For our Shared Future.In doing so we marked the 40 th anniversary of the original Olof Palme report on Common Security. The basic message rings true today and `International security must rest on a commitment to joint survival rather than the threat of mutual destruction`. Words written at a time when superpower relations were at rock bottom, the risk of nuclear war high and real. Alternatives were developed then and we have done the same with our report.

We changed reality on the ground. We are summoned to do so once again. We must ReImagine Peace.

The peace movement must not be found wanting. We are billions with new generations understanding what existential threats face this planet. It requires all strands of our movement to organize and mobilise. In one month all peace roads lead to Vienna and the first states parties UN Conference on the treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons. That treaty says there is no place for missiles in Lakenheath, Kleine Brugel, Buchel,Volkel,Aviano and Ghedi or anywhere else.

We together fought for this treaty and others. In 2025 it’s the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Declaration.The world changed. New institutions, accords, understandings, dialogue for peace. The movement succeeded then. nWe must do so again.

In closing we will transmit your anger, your call to action to the conference and to the peace movement worldwide. From Hiroshima and Nagasaki to The Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific they will be inspired by your action and will power demonstrated here today. From your local voices we will ensure that new global horizons for peace will sing.

Thank you.”

The statement was given by Philip Jennings, Co-President of IPB, at RAF Lakenheath.

Celebrating the Entry Into Force of the TPNW

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On Friday, January 22nd, 2021, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) officially entered into force, roughly three years after its adoption by the UN Conference tasked with negotiating a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons. For the IPB, this day is a landmark win in the struggle to rid the world of the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons. Thanks to the efforts of numerous civil society organizations, experts, and peace advocates around the globe, and the tremendous coordination efforts of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the world has just gotten one step closer to a nuke-free future.

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The Nuclear Ban Treaty

John Burroughs
Lawyers Commitee on Nuclear Policy

 
Amb. Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko of South Africa, which played an important role in the negotiations.UN Webcast, March 28, 2017.
Approved on July 7 by a vote of 122 to 1 (Netherlands, the only NATO state to participate), with one abstention (Singapore), the nuclear ban treaty will open for signature on September 20 at the United Nations and will enter into force when 50 states have signed and ratified it.

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