Category Archives: DISARMAMENT & SECURITY

Banning landmines taught us how to bring about real change in the world, now we’re sharing these lessons to ban nuclear weapons

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An email from Mines Action Canada

Our humanitarian disarmament partners in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) are currently working hard at the United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.

In a process inspired by the Ottawa Process banning landmines, states with support from civil society and international organizations are negotiating a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons from 15 June to 7 July 2017.

After 20 years of work on the Ottawa Treaty and other efforts to address the humanitarian impact of indiscriminate weapons, we have learned a lot and have considerable experience we are sharing with our colleagues. In that spirit Mines Action Canada has drafted three documents for states to review during their negotiations.

First, we submitted a new Working Paper to the negotiating conference. Our paper on The Disproportionate Impact of Nuclear Weapons Detonations on Indigenous Communities is available on the United Nations website. It follows on some themes from our Working Paper submitted with ICAN to the March session of negotiations.

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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Second, we have a new Frequently Asked Questions document about victim assistance in the draft treaty text. This FAQ aims to help states and civil society ensure that the provisions regarding assistance to affected persons in the final treaty support existing norms around victim assistance.

Third, we co-published a paper on sustainable development and the draft text of the treatywith the International Disarmament Institute at Pace University. Our work has shown that indiscriminate weapons are lethal barriers to development.

We are pleased to offer these papers for free but please consider supporting Mines Action Canada work to ensure that we can continue to promote humanitarian disarmament in Canada and internationally.

Over the next three days, MAC staff will be attending the negotiations and speaking at a briefing event on positive obligations in the treaty on Wednesday June 21, 2017 to further outline lessons learned from previous disarmament treaties. For more on the negotiations please visit ICAN's website at www.nuclearban.org, follow @MinesActionCan on Twitter plus the hashtag #nuclearban on social media.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global

Korea: 500 Global Students to Hold Peace March near DMZ

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from KBS radio

About 500 students from around the world plan to hold a peace march near the Demilitarized Zone(DMZ) separating the two Koreas.


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Gangwon Province Office of Education said on Tuesday that it will hold the 2017 world peace education festival from May 27th to 31st in Gangneung and Goseong.

About 500 middle and high school students as well as teachers from seven countries including Japan, China, Russia and Indonesia plan to participate. 

The event is jointly sponsored by the organizing committee of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and the Asia-Pacific Center of Education for International Understanding under UNESCO.

Participants plan to hold a debate on ways to make a better and peaceful world in Gangneung.

They are then schedule to visit the Unification Observatory located in Goseong and hold a peace march to the nearby DMZ museum. 

(Editor’s note: It is not clear if this is the same initiative as the peace march by 300 youth in the demilitarized zone scheduled for June 23 and sponsored by the U.S.-based International Cooperation of Environmental Youth (ICEY), led by Korean-American environmentalist Jonathan Lee – see article in the Yonhap News Agency).

(Thank you to the Global Campaign for Peace Education for calling this article to our attention.)

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, East Asia

UK: Surprise, Surprise, Jeremy Corbyn’s Anti-War Policies Turned out to Be a Vote Winner

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Chris Nineham for Stop the War Coalition

Theresa May’s humiliating failure to gain a majority in the General Election is a great boost to everyone who opposes foreign wars. May is an enthusiast for the ‘War on Terror’ and has been one of the political world’s keenest supporters of Trump’s deranged foreign policy since day one. She very publicly backed his provocative attacks on Assad’s forces in April and, during the election period, she threatened to follow up with a British escalation against the Syrian regime if she got a majority. 


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Given her dreadful election result a May-led government, if it gets off the ground at all, is likely to be way too weak to pursue any more foreign wars. She may try to do so using her unholy alliance with the DUP, but her fatal weakness makes this much easier to oppose. What is more, the fact that Trump has been forced to call off his planned visit in October for fear of demonstrations is an unprecedented blow against the special relationship as well as being more proof that protests work. Trump says he won’t visit if there are going to be demonstrations and while people do not welcome his visit, so we can safely assume he won’t be coming over any time soon.

This is more than a matter of movement self-congratulation. Britain has been the US’s key political and military ally throughout the ‘War on Terror’. The removal of Britain at least as a public champion of the US is a big foreign policy setback for a regime whose serial aggressions are isolating it further and further on the world stage.  

But there is more heartening news to be extracted from the experience of the election. First, the concerted attack on Jeremy Corbyn over his refusal to promise to ‘press the nuclear button’ failed to make an obvious difference to the election campaign, despite the fact that an ambush was staged against him on the high-profile Question Time ten days before the election. 

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Question related to this article:

How can the peace movement become stronger and more effective?

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Reeling from her manifesto blunders, it was felt by some that the two appalling terrorist attacks in the election campaign would allow Theresa May to play the security card and re-establish her ‘strong and stable’ credentials but this was clearly not the case. In the days after the attacks the media went on a co-ordinated rampage against Corbyn’s record on war and peace. The day before the election the Sun led with a so-called expose on ‘Jezza’s Jihadi Comrades’, the Telegraph claimed ‘Corbyn Ducks Terror Challenge’ and the BBC obediently followed suit with a photomontage of Jeremy Corbyn next to Osama Bin-Laden.  

All this appears to have failed to make much of an impact on the general public. The surge to Labour continued right up until election day and beyond. Jeremy Corbyn had responded to the dreadful attack in Manchester by calling a press conference at which he explicitly argued that Western foreign policy has been one of the drivers of the spread of terrorist attacks and organisation. Despite the media onslaught an opinion poll taken days after showed that the overwhelming majority of the population agreed with him. The ORB survey found 75 per cent of people believe interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have made atrocities on UK soil more likely. Even 68% of Tory voters agreed.

This underlines the growing sense that despite the fact that 70% of the newspapers backing the Tories, the print media is losing what ability it ever had to shape popular opinion. Partly no doubt it was a product of the novelty of a party leader breaking the taboo on discussing the causes of terrorism and putting a coherent and clear argument against the record of the War on Terror. But partly it revealed something deeper.

Despite the failure of the media to engage in a real debate, despite the refusal of the establishment to accept the findings of the Chilcot report and at least four parliamentary investigations into the wars that we have been dragged into, popular opposition to foreign aggression has only deepened over the years. A largely unreported YouGov poll which came out during the election campaign showed that between 43% and 55% of the population disapproved of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya with less than 25% in favour and that more people opposed than supported even the first Gulf war in 1991. 

All this is important for a number of reasons. It is a reminder that we mustn’t make the mistake of reading public opinion off from the people who claim to be opinion formers in British society almost all of whom regard criticism of Britain’s war record as being beyond the pale. It tells us too that those siren voices in the Labour Party who believe that anti war policies are too radical for the British electorate are plain wrong.

It indicates in fact that it is now time to launch a concerted campaign for a fundamentally new foreign policy. Such a new direction is a necessary counter to the right wing vision of a world of more security, surveillance and international retribution.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Europe

Tel Aviv rally for two-state model

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Deutsche Welle

Some 15,000 Israelis at a Tel Aviv rally have demanded progress on the long awaited two-state solution, almost 50 years since Israel occupied Palestinian land. Opposition leader Isaac Herzog said chances had been wasted.


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Israeli supporters of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, including the non-government group Peace Now, heard a written message from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas that it was time for both peoples to “live together in harmony.”

It was read out at the Tel Aviv rally, where the turnout was 15,000, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

“It is time to live together in harmony, security and stability,” Abbas was quoted as saying.

Missed opportunities

Attending Saturday evening’s rally on Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, Israeli opposition Labour party leader Isaac Herzog accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sowing fear and of missing opportunities for apeace settlement based on two states.

Early this week, Netanyahu hosted US President Donald Trump, who also visited East Jerusalem’s Western Wall and Abbas in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, but made no specific mention of the two-state model.

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Question related to this article:

How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?

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Fifty years ago

In June 1967, Israel seized the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan during the so-called Six-Day War withneighboring Arab-majority states.

Israel’s later annexation of east Jerusalem was never recognized by the international community. Palestinians claim the city’s eastern part as the future capital of their anticipated state.

Netanyahu’s right-wing government has pressed settlement in the West Bank despite international legal objections, raising the settler count to beyond 400,000.

‘Lack of hope’ being perpetuated

Peace Now head Avi Buskila said Saturday’s rally was to protest what he termed “the lack of hope being offered by a government perpetuating occupation, violence and racism.”

“The time has come to prove to the Israelis, the Palestinians and the entire world that an important segment of the Israeli population is opposed to occupation and wants a two-state solution,” Buskila said.

Hunger strike ends as Ramadan begins

Saturday’s rally coincided with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the end of a hunger strike by hundreds Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The Middle East peace process has been deadlocked since April 2014 when indirect negotiations led by then US secretary of state John Kerry collapsed.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Mideast

United Nations: Time to Ban the Bomb

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Alice Slater for World Beyond War

This week [on May 22], the Chair of an exciting UN initiative formally named the “United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination” released a draft treaty to ban and prohibit nuclear weapons just as the world has done for biological and chemical weapons.  The Ban Treaty is to be negotiated at the UN from June 15 to July 7 as a follow up to the one week of negotiations that took place this past March, attended by more than 130 governments interacting with civil society.  Their input and suggestions were used by the Chair, Costa Rica’s ambassador to the UN, Elayne Whyte Gómez to prepare the draft treaty. It is expected that the world will finally come out of this meeting with a treaty to ban the bomb!

This negotiating conference was established after a series of meetings in Norway, Mexico, and Austria with governments and civil society to examine the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war.  The meetings were inspired by the leadership and urging of the International Red Cross to look at the horror of nuclear weapons, not just through the frame of strategy and “deterrence”, but to grasp and examine the disastrous humanitarian consequences that would occur in a nuclear war.   This activity led to a series of meetings culminating in a resolution in the UN General Assembly this fall to negotiate a treaty to ban and prohibit nuclear weapons. The new draft treaty based on the proposals put forth in the March negotiations requires the states to “never under any circumstances … develop, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess, or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices … use nuclear weapons …  carry out any nuclear weapon test”. States are also required to destroy any nuclear weapons they possess and are prohibited from transferring nuclear weapons to any other recipient.
None of the nine nuclear weapons states, US, UK, Russia, France, China, Indian, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea came to the March meeting, although during the vote last fall on whether to go forward with the negotiating resolution in the UN’s First Committee for Disarmament, where the resolution was formally introduced, while the five western nuclear states voted against it, China, India and Pakistan abstained.   And North Korea voted for the resolution to negotiate to ban the bomb! (I bet you didn’t read that in the New York Times!)

By the time the resolution got to the General Assembly, Donald Trump had been elected and those promising votes disappeared.  And at the March negotiations, the US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, flanked by the Ambassadors from England and France, stood outside the closed conference room and held a press conference with a number of  “umbrella states”  which rely on the US nuclear ‘deterrent” to annihilate their enemies (includes NATO  states as well as Australia, Japan, and South Korea)  and announced that “as a mother” who couldn’t want more for her family “than a world without nuclear weapons” she had to “be realistic” and would boycott the meeting and oppose efforts to ban the bomb adding, “Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons?”

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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The last 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) five year review conference broke up without consensus on the shoals of a deal the US was unable to deliver to Egypt to hold a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone Conference in the Middle East.  This promise was made in 1995 to get the required consensus vote from all the states to extend the NPT indefinitely when it was due to expire, 25 years after the five nuclear weapons states in the treaty, US, UK,  Russia, China, and France, promised in 1970 to make “good faith efforts” for nuclear disarmament.  In that agreement all the other countries of the world promised not to get nuclear weapons, except for India, Pakistan, and Israel who never signed and went on to get their own bombs. North Korea had signed the treaty, but took advantage of the NPT’s Faustian bargain to sweeten the pot with a promise to the non-nuclear weapons states for an “inalienable right” to “peaceful” nuclear power, thus giving them the keys to the bomb factory. North Korea got its peaceful nuclear power, and walked out of the treaty to make a bomb.    At the 2015 NPT review, South Africa gave an eloquent speech expressing the state of nuclear apartheid that exists between the nuclear haves, holding the whole world hostage to their security needs and their failure to comply with their obligation to eliminate their nuclear bombs, while working overtime to prevent nuclear proliferation in other countries.

The Ban Treaty draft provides that the Treaty will enter into effect when 40 nations sign and ratify it.  Even if none of the nuclear weapons states join, the ban can be used to stigmatize and shame the “umbrella” states to withdraw from the nuclear “protection” services they are now receiving.    Japan should be an easy case.   The five NATO states in Europe who keep US nuclear weapons based on their soil–Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Turkey– are good prospects for breaking with the nuclear alliance.  A legal ban on nuclear weapons can be used to convince banks and pension funds in a divestment campaign, once it is known the weapons are illegal.   See www.dontbankonthebomb.com

Right now people are organizing all over the world for a Women’s March to Ban the Bomb on June 17, during the ban treaty negotiations, with a big march and rally planned in New York.   See https://www.womenbanthebomb.org/

We need to get as many countries to the UN as possible this June, and pressure our parliaments and capitals to vote to join the treaty to ban the bomb.   And we need to talk it up and let people know that something great is happening now!    To get involved, check out www.icanw.org

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, United Nations,

Countries for and against the UN resolution to launch negotiations for a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

A synopsis of the analysis made by the International Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons.

In addition to the vote on resolution 71/71 last December, the following analysis is based on whether or not a country is participating in the ongoing negotiations for the treaty and whether or not it has made a public commitment in favor of a ban on nuclear weapons.

FOR THE TREATY

The treaty is supported by all of the African countries except Mali (unclear), all of the Latin American countries except Nicaragua (unclear), and all countries of the Arab region except Morocco, Sudan and Syria (all unclear). No country from these regions is clearly against the treaty. With the exception of the nuclear countries, Japan and South Korea, the other countries of South and East Asia are for the treaty, as well as countries of the Pacific other than Australia and Micronesia.

AGAINST THE TREATY

Here are the countries that are clearly against the treaty:

All of the nuclear countries: China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, United Kingdom, United States

Most European countries: Albania, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine.

Other allies of Europe and the U.S.: Australia, Canada, Japan, Micronesia, South Korea, Turkey.

Austria, Ireland, Sweden, Netherlands and Switzerland are the only major European countries that are not clearly against the treaty. Austria, Ireland and Sweden clearly support the treaty. Netherlands and Switzerland abstained from the vote and, unlike most other European countries, they are participating in the ongoing negotiations.

UNCLEAR POSITION

Many former republics of the Soviet Union are unclear about their position: Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Uzbekistan

Other countries that are unclear about their support are Andorra, Finland, Mali, Monaco, Morocco, Nicaragua, Sudan, Syria.

Question related to this article:
DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, United Nations,

United Nations: WILPF statement to the 2017 NPT Preparatory Committee

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

Statement published on the website of Reaching Critical Will

This statement was delivered by Ms. Ray Acheson, Director of WILPF’s disarmament programme Reaching Critical Will, to the 2017 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee in Vienna, Austria on 3 May 2017.

All of the nuclear-armed states—including those that are states parties to the NPT—are investing in the expansion, development, or so-called modernisation of their nuclear arsenals. These programmes are not just about “increasing the safety and security” of nuclear weapon systems, which is what the nuclear-armed states claim. The “upgrades” in many cases provide new capabilities to the weapon systems. They also extend the lives of these weapon systems beyond the middle of this century, ensuring that the arms race will continue indefinitely.

China is transitioning from liquid-fueled slow-launching missiles to solid-fuel, quicker-launching road-mobile missiles, to make the force more “useable”. Recently China has also sped up the modernisation of its sea-based strategic force, replacing its first generation ballistic nuclear missile-carrying submarines.[i]

France has replaced its sea-launched ballistic missiles for its current class of submarines,[ii] and is also planning to develop new missiles for a new class of submarines.[iii] It has carried out studies for a next-generation air-launched cruise missile.[iv] Half of its nuclear bomber force has been upgraded so far.

Russia is modernising its main silo- and road-mobile ICBM.[v] It is also developing a new silo-based ICBM,[vi] and is upgrading its ballistic missile submarine force.[vii] It’s also working on its nuclear attack submarines and nuclear-capable cruise missiles,[viii] as well as its bombers.[ix]

The UK parliament voted in favour in July 2016 of renewing its Trident nuclear weapon system. This means that the UK’s Vanguard-class submarines will be replaced with the “Dreadnought”-class of submarines.[x] In 2019, the UK will also make a decision about the design of a new warhead.[xi]

The United States is developing a new class of ballistic missile submarines, a new long-range bomber with nuclear capability, a new air-launched cruise missile, a next-generation land-based ICBM, and a new nuclear-capable tactical fighter aircraft. It will also include work on warheads and nuclear command and control facilities.[xii]

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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More examples, including from non-NPT states parties, can be found in WILPF’s updated study Assuring destruction forever.[xiii]

The only way to prevent states from modernising their nuclear weapons is to prohibit and eliminate these weapons. In the meantime, NPT states parties are already legally obligated to end the nuclear arms race and achieve nuclear disarmament.

This NPT outcome should reflect the serious concern expressed by many states parties about modernisation and development of nuclear weapon systems, and call for the cessation of such programmes, which violate article VI of the NPT and entrench double standards.

[i] “Annual Report to Congress – Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2014,” Office of the Secretary of Defense, 24 April 2014, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/2014_DoD_China_Report.pdf.
[ii] Julien Bonnet, “Tir d’essai réussi pour le missile nucléaire M51,” L’UsineNouvelle, 1 July 2016; “Successful M51 Ballistic Missile SLBM Test by French Defense Procurement Agency DGA,” Navy Recognition, 30 September 2015.
[iii] Speech by François Hollande, Visit to the Strategic Air Forces, 25 February 2015, http://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/vues/Kiosque/FranceDiplomatie/kiosque.php?fichier=baen2015-02-25.html.
[iv] JeanYves Le Drian, Defense Minister, Closing Remarks – Symposium for 50 Years of Deterrence, 20 November 2014, http://www.defense.gouv.fr/ministre/prises-de-parole-du-ministre/prises-de-parole-de-m.-jean-yves-le-drian/discours-de-cloture-du-colloque-pour-les-50-ans-de-la-dissuasion.
[v] Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, “Russian nuclear forces, 2017,” The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Vol. 73, No. 2, pp. 119–120; Pavel Podvig, “Flight tests of Barguzin rail-mobile ICBM are said to begin in 2019,” Russian strategic nuclear forces, 19 January 2017.
[vi] Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, op. cit., p. 120.
[vii] Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, op. cit., p. 121.
[viii] Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, op. cit., p. 123.
[ix] Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, op. cit., p. 122.
[x] John Ainslie, The Trident shambles, Scottish CND, March 2016, http://www.banthebomb.org/images/stories/pdfs/shambles.pdf.
[xi] National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015, op. cit., p. 35.
[xii] Kristensen and Norris, op. cit., p. 49.
[xiii] See http://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Publications/modernization/assuring-destruction-forever-2017.pdf.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, United Nations,

Brooklyn, US: Forum: One Struggle, Many Fronts: No Nukes, War, Wall or Warming

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An announcement from Massachusetts Peace Action

Join One Struggle, Many Fronts forum on June 18th [at 110 Schermerhorn St, Brooklyn, NY] to stand united against nuclear arms, the arms race & the use of nuclear weapons. The tide is shifting: we stand with the Women’s March to Ban the Bomb which takes place on June 17th and the UN conference negotiating a treaty to ban nuclear weapons (June 15th to July 7th) to say: no to war, no to nukes, no to warming, and no to walls.

This conference will highlight the impact of nuclear arms on the diverse communities and the importance of making the connections with justice, environmental and peace issues and movements. There will be opportunities for networking and conversation! The conference will cover:

1. Survivors Resist: Humanitarian Consequences
Moderator: Sally Jones (Peace Action Fund NYS)

Speakers: Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A & H Bomb Sufferers’), Iram Ali (MoveOn), Kathy Sanchez – TEWA Women United, Indigenous elder (awaiting confirmation)

2. Nuclear Arms: Causes, Effects and Movements Against
Moderator: Jackie Cabasso (Western States Legal Foundation)
Speakers: Vincent Intondi (Author of African-Americans Against the Bomb), Any Lichterman (Western States Legal Foundation), Sharon Dolev (Israeli Disarmament Movement)

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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3. Organizing for Nuclear Disarmament: Youth in the Lead
Moderator: Jim Anderson (Peace Action New York State, Citizen Action)
Speakers: Marzhan Nurzhan (Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Kazakhstan), Kate Alexander (Peace Action New York State), Marzhan Nurzhan – Kazakhstan. PNND Coordinator for CIS countries, Abolition 2000 Youth Working Group, Takae Hironaka (Hiroshima Democratic Youth League and 3rd generation Hibakusha), Amplify youth organizer (to be confirmed)

4. Ban Treaty and Beyond
Moderator: Joseph Gerson (American Friends Service Committee)

Speakers: Hiroshi Takai (Gensuikyo), John Burroughs (Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy), Alyn Ware (Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament)

Contact jgerson@afsc.org for more information.

Peace and Planet website: www.peaceandplanet.org

Women’s March to Ban the Bomb website: www.womenbanthebomb.org

Reaching Critical Will website (with calendar of events around UN treaty negotiations): www.reachingcriticalwill.org/

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, North America

Draft UN nuclear weapon ban released

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from ICAN, the International Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons

The first draft of the United Nations treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons was released in Geneva, Switzerland, on 22 May. Elayne Whyte Gómez, the Costa Rican ambassador who is presiding over negotiations of the historic accord, presented the text to diplomats and members of civil society, before answering questions from the media.

The draft was developed on the basis of discussions and input received during the first round of negotiations, held at the UN headquarters in New York from 27 to 31 March 2017, with the participation of 132 nations. The negotiations will resume on 15 June and continue until 7 July, with the draft as the basis.

ICAN welcomes the release of the draft as an important milestone in the years-long effort to ban these indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction in light of their inhumane and catastrophic impacts. Once adopted, the treaty will constitute an major step towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

The draft provides a solid basis for a strong, categorical prohibition of nuclear weapons. ICAN expects further constructive debate on certain provisions as the process moves forward, and will be campaigning to ensure the strongest possible treaty. We are confident that the treaty can be agreed by 7 July.

“We are particularly happy that the text is rooted in humanitarian principles and builds on existing prohibitions of unacceptable weapons, such as the conventions banning biological and chemical weapons, anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions,” said Beatrice Fihn, the executive director of ICAN.

Nuclear-armed and nuclear alliance states should engage constructively in these discussions, she said. “Whilst they will be able to join the treaty once it has been agreed, failure to participate in the negotiations undermines their claims to be committed to a world without nuclear weapons.”

“Nuclear weapons are morally unacceptable. They are intended to kill civilians indiscriminately,” Ms Fihn said. “Their continued existence undermines the moral credibility of every country that relies on them. A treaty to ban them, as a first step towards their elimination, will have real and lasting impact.”

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

Question related to this article:
DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, United Nations,

Abolition 2000 Annual Meeting: Supports Women’s March. Calls for Nuclear Risk Reduction

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Abolition 2000

Abolition 2000 held its 22nd Annual Assembly on May 1 as governments arrived in Vienna for a 2-week conference on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament; the 2017 Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT Prep Com).


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Abolition 2000 members from around the world discussed the current political environment; a time of great uncertainty and concern about the risks of nuclear war, but also the opportunities for progress that are emerging, such as the UN negotiations for a nuclear prohibition treaty and the 2018 UN High Level Conference on Disarmament.

There were dynamic reports on Abolition 2000 projects, working groups and affiliated campaigns, including De-alerting and nuclear risk reduction, Don’t Bank on the Bomb, Economic Dimensions of Nuclearism, ICAN, Interfaith action, International law and nuclear weapons, Mayors for Peace, Missile control, Nuclear Weapon Free Zones, Nukes Out of Europe, Parliamentary Outreach, Peace and Planet, UNFOLD ZERO and Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. (To join a working group contact info@baselpeaceoffice.org).

New working group

The Assembly established a new working group to build support from civil society and governments for the United Nations High Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament, which will take place in 2018. This follows on from successful UN High Level Conferences on Sustainable Development (2015) which achieved agreement on 17 Sustainable Development Goals, Climate Change (2015) which achieved the Paris Agreement and Refugees and Migrants (2016) which achieved the New York Declaration.

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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Action statements

The participants at the assembly adopted a statement alerting governments and civil society to the risks of nuclear weapons being used by accident, miscalculation or even by intent. The statement calls on governments to take all nuclear weapons off alert, and adopt additional measures to reduce the risks of nuclear weapons being used pending their elimination.

The Assembly also gave support to an exciting Women’s March and Rally to Ban the Bomb which will be held in New York on June 17, during the United Nations negotiations for a nuclear ban treaty. The March and Rally will bring together people of all genders, sexual orientations, ages, races, abilities, nationalities, cultures, faiths, political affiliations and backgrounds to support the negotiations. Abolition 2000 has contributed financially to the march, and member organisations are promoting the March and associated events including a conference in New York on June 18 entitled No Nukes, No Wars, No Walls, No Warming, organised by Peace and Planet.

Abolition 2000 dynamic new website

The Abolition 2000 Annual Meeting was happy to note the recent launch of the newly designed abolition 2000 website which is available in English and Spanish, and shortly in French. Expressions of interest in working on other languages should be sent to Tony Robinson tonymrobinson@gmail.com. The Assembly also affirmed a Global Council of over 60 nuclear disarmament activists from around the world, and a coordinating committee of 12 members.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global