Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: ICAN

2018 Evening for Peace Acceptance Speech

I’m really humbled by this award and grateful for the opportunity to celebrate this evening with you. I want to start first by thanking David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and of course the board and the staff of the foundation for their long-term commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons and their work as one of the original organizations to join ICAN. I also want to give a special thanks to Jill Dexter and Diane Meyer Simon, the co-chairs of the honorary committee that put together this wonderful event tonight. It has really been a remarkable evening and it’s not over yet. I also would like to take a moment to recognize Kikuko Otake, a survivor of Hiroshima (hibakusha), for being here. It is the survivors of nuclear weapons who remind us why we’re doing this. Their human stories make us understand why this is an imperative issue. I would also like to thank California State Assemblymember Monique Limón for being here. She was responsible for the great resolution that shows that California, is supporting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Yay!

Asm. Monique Limón with ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn.

So working in nuclear disarmament for the last few years, means constantly finding yourself in a state of either complete terror or inspiring hope. In that sense too it’s a little bit like being a parent. But instead of young children like the two ones that I have in my home giving us near nervous breakdowns constantly it’s the two most powerful men in the world acting like children. Threats to wipe out an entire nation on Twitter: terror. A majority of states in the world, over 120, agreeing to prohibit nuclear weapons rooted in humanitarian reality and law: hope. North Korea testing a missile that could reach us in this room: terror. The treaty opening for signature a year ago and already been signed by 69 states, ratified by 19, at a record pace: hope. Over one million Americans waking up one morning to a text message saying “ballistic threat inbound to Hawaii, seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill”: absolute sheer terror. And people are beginning to wake up to the reality that we are still living under the threat of these weapons every single day.

They are starting to experience the terror of the Cold War, and it’s our job to give them hope. Following the end of the Cold War, we were promised a world where reasonable men and democratic states would slowly reduce their nuclear arsenals in an orderly fashion, until there were none left: from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty under California’s own Ronald Reagan; to START under George Bush; to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty under Bill Clinton; to the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty under George W. Bush, when he said, “This treaty liquidates the Cold War legacy of nuclear hostility between our countries”; and Obama’s soaring Prague speech calling for the end of nuclear weapons era and his support of New START as the latest treaty. But the weapons weren’t liquidated. The threat remains. The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was never ratified by the Senate, and just yesterday Donald Trump confirmed plans of the United States pulling out of the INF Treaty. You know, in honesty, it would be all too easy to just blame Donald Trump as a rogue, but the truth is that a system that one impulsive or unpredictable person can uproot is not an appropriate security system in the first place. Maybe the problem is not the man, maybe it is the weapon.

Since the end of the Cold War, India, Pakistan, North Korea have become nuclear-armed states. You know, we might see Iran join them, and Saudi Arabia has said that if Iran can develop nuclear capability, they will too. The old plan has not been working. So what went wrong? Why are all these weapons still here threatening us all almost three decades on from the fall of the Berlin Wall?

It’s not the treaties. Each one has value and must be fought for, including the INF right now, but it is a fact that we forgot to actually outright reject nuclear weapons – to ban them.

Thanks to the leadership of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, one of the first organizations to join ICAN, we are seeing monumental progress in a time of great danger – hope and opportunity in this time of terror and fear. The past approach was centered around abstract concepts of security, realism about geopolitics, but they really ignore the reality that keeping these weapons around forever means that they will eventually be used again. They ignore the reality that if you say nuclear weapons are instruments of power, and they keep you safe, other nations will want to follow you. Then they ignore the reality that nuclear weapons cause humanitarian catastrophes and violate the laws of war. The mission of ICAN and our many partner organizations, including the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, was to bring those realities into the conversation about nuclear weapons.

We highlighted the humanitarian reality of these weapons. Relief organizations would not be able to send help into nuclear blast zones. As the International Committee of the Red Cross stated, “There will be no effective means to provide aid to the dying and wounded.” People will essentially be on their own. Our recent climate modeling shows a relatively limited nuclear exchange involving about a hundred nuclear weapons between India and Pakistan could result in a nuclear winter lasting two to three years. Beyond the unacceptable immediate deaths from the blast and fires, billions more around the world would die from the resulting famine. Our food system would collapse and our societies would likely follow.

We told these stories where they needed to be heard. And most importantly we brought democracy to disarmament. For decades, the non-nuclear armed states have been told that they have no say in this issue. They were told that they have no right to speak up and create laws even though many bore the burden of these weapons when they were tested, and they will all bear the burden if they’re used again. Through working with those states and negotiating the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, we help those nations exercise their rights on the international stage and fulfill their obligation to protect their citizens.

The treaty was adopted by 122 states at the UN last year, bringing credible pressure to the nuclear-armed states and countries living under the nuclear umbrella. It will create even more pressure once it legally enters into force when fifty states have ratified it.

NAPF Deputy Director Rick Wayman spoke at the negotiations for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in June 2017.

But it’s not just nation states. Local communities and individuals play a really important role.

So do we have any University of California graduates here? Gauchos? Banana Slugs? Bruins? Bears? I really have to admit I had no idea what those things meant before, but all of you UC alumni and in fact every single taxpaying California resident has a unique opportunity to effect change.

The atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were designed at a lab run by University of California. Every U.S. nuclear weapon ever tested was designed by a UC lab. Every American warhead currently deployed around the world was designed in one of those labs now co-managed by the University of California. These labs are now developing Trump’s new generation of nuclear weapons. And their current task? Make nuclear weapons that are more likely to be used, what they call more usable.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the East Bay will receive nearly $1.5 billion in 2019 from the U.S. government. Eighty-eight percent of that will be going to nuclear weapons. While they have their grants, we have our plans.

We’re targeting cities and states, businesses like right here in Santa Barbara, banks like Wells Fargo, universities, like the University of California, and we will succeed. And how do I know that?

Well, first, we have the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We aren’t just guessing this, we know this approach works because we’ve seen it happen with other weapons: biological weapons, chemical weapons, landmines and cluster munitions. Treaties, prohibition treaties, they have an impact. We know that shifting norms and changing law have a concrete impact.

We can look at examples like Textron, for example, a U.S. company that actually stopped producing cluster bombs in 2016, even though the U.S. did not participate in the negotiations for the ban of cluster bombs or have any intention of signing or ratifying it. But because the rest of the world had banned them, it suddenly became bad business.

Second, because we have partners like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, working in this state and across the country, and have allies like all of you here. The ICAN movement has grown to over 500 organizations in over 100 countries working across generations to finally end the threat of nuclear weapons.

And third, because we’re already having historic success even without the nuclear-armed states’ administrations on board. Take California for example. In a true expression of representative democracy, the California state legislature has said that it is their role to tell their federal counterparts how to represent California on the world stage, and we are telling them to embrace the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. They passed Assembly Joint Resolution 33 to do just that and to make nuclear disarmament the centerpiece of our national security policy and spearhead a global effort to prevent nuclear war. And even more local, the L.A. City Council recently passed a similar resolution, and a Santa Barbara resolution to make Santa Barbara a nuclear free city is in the works, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been working to make that happen.

The California State Legislature adopted a resolution in August 2018 calling on the U.S. government to embrace the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

This state and those cities will join a host of major cities around the world who are speaking up on the rational side of nuclear disarmament through the treaty. ICAN will soon be launching a new campaign for a groundswell of local action: cities, regions, businesses, all joining our cause. What happens in these communities, in these cities, in California, matters around the world. I know this because I’ve heard it directly from global decision makers.

Just a few weeks ago during the leader’s week at the United Nations in New York, people from as far away as Africa were talking about California embracing the treaty. It has motivated and inspired diplomats and leaders everywhere else in the world and your work is changing attitudes about what is possible and having a direct impact on building a nuclear weapons free world. This is really what momentum looks like, and this is democracy, and this is the impact that partner organizations of ICAN like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation are having right now.

I know many of you here have long cared about this issue and to you I say, never sink to the unimaginable level of those who tell you that nuclear disarmament is a pipe dream, that the U.S. will never give up their nuclear weapons.Prove them wrong. And some of you, many young people and students in the crowd, never knew the duck and cover drills of the Cold War and the constant fear of nuclear attack, and to you I say we need a new generation of leaders to take up the mantle of peace so that you will never have to know those fears. You inherited a problem not of your own making. But by the same token, you can better imagine a new international security not based on the risk of nuclear weapons, because many others can’t. Don’t buy into their terror, and join us on the side of hope.

We’ve had a lot of very powerful opponents in this work, and they told us that we would never be taken seriously; we were. They told us that we would never ban nuclear weapons; we have. They told us the people would never feel secure without nuclear weapons, but the opposite is true.

Now when they tell you it is not worth trying, that the U.S. will never give up its nuclear weapons, what will you choose? To continue to live in terror, or to join us on the side of hope? You are here tonight and you are part of this Evening for Peace and you support the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, so I know your answers pretty much already. And my question for you all is then, who will you bring with you on this journey and what will you do tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day, to assure that hope will win the day? This movement really needs your passion, your talent, and your commitment.

And with that, and with partners like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we will end nuclear weapons before they end us.

Thank you.

November 5, 2018
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Is Honored with a Nobel Peace Prize

This article was originally published by The Nation.

In Oslo on December 10, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and was accepted on behalf of the Campaign by its executive director, Beatrice Fihn, and by Setsuko Thurlow, an ICAN campaigner and survivor of the 1945 Hiroshima bombing. Both spoke for the thousands of campaigners in over 400 organizations and more than 100 countries around the world who succeeded this fall in working with friendly governments to move a majority of states at the United Nations to adopt a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons, making their possession, use, or threat of use unlawful.

The ceremony opened with a piercing fanfare by four trumpeters, their horns hung with crimson banners, from a stone balcony high up in the sunlit-filled, mosaic-covered Oslo City Hall over a distinguished crowd below that included a former Peace Prize laureate; ambassadors and other government officials, including the prime minister of Norway and the mayor of Hiroshima; movie stars and rock stars; as well as several hundred grassroots ICAN campaigners from every corner of the globe. As the trumpets sounded, the king and queen of Norway and the crown prince and princess strode down the red-carpeted aisle, followed by members of the Nobel Committee and the two ICAN speakers.

It has been just 10 years since ICAN first launched its astonishing campaign to ban nuclear weapons, just as chemical and biological weapons have been banned as well as land mines and cluster bombs. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has now closed a legal gap in the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that only requires “good faith efforts for nuclear disarmament” by the then-five existing nuclear weapons states—the United States, Russia, UK, France, China. ICAN organized a series of three major conferences in Norway, Mexico, and Austria together with government leaders, scientists, lawyers, and other experts, including representatives from the International Red Cross, a critical actor in this journey to ban the bomb. It was the International Red Cross who contributed a unique statement about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons in 2000 that changed the global conversation about these devastating instruments of mass destruction.

Instead of nuclear weapons’ being described in abstract terms, with references to strategic security needs and deterrence policies, a conversation dominated by the nuclear-weapons states and by US nuclear allies in NATO, as well as Japan, Australia, and South Korea (none of whom support the new treaty), there has been a shift in how nuclear weapons are discussed. There is a a growing realization that these military and security concepts fail to acknowledge the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from any use of a nuclear weapon. The new conversation was given a great boost by the Vatican, which participated in the UN negotiations and held a subsequent nuclear-disarmament conference in November to discuss its newly announced policy change from one that supported the concept of “deterrence” for the use of nuclear weapons in “self-defense” to a new policy declaring that nuclear weapons must never be used under any circumstances.

Despite the nearly 50-year-old NPT promise by the nuclear-weapons states for nuclear disarmament, ICAN Executive Director Fihn, in her acceptance speech, reminded us that “at dozens of locations around the world—in missile silos buried in our earth, on submarines navigating through our oceans, and aboard planes flying high in our sky—lie 15,000 objects of humankind’s destruction,” adding that “it is insanity to allow ourselves to be ruled by these weapons.”

Fihn went on to note that critics of ICAN’s success in closing the legal gap in the NPT with the new ban treaty describe its campaigners as “the irrational ones, idealists with no grounding in reality. That the nuclear-armed states will never give up their weapons.”

But we represent the only rational choice. We represent those who refuse to accept nuclear weapons as a fixture in our world, those who refuse to have their fates bound up in a few lines of launch code. Ours is the only reality that is possible. The alternative is unthinkable. The story of nuclear weapons will have an ending, and it is up to us what that ending will be. Will it be the end of nuclear weapons, or will it be the end of us? One of these things will happen. The only rational course of action is to cease living under the conditions where our mutual destruction is only one impulsive tantrum away.

Fihn also exclaimed, to enthusiastic applause, “Man—not woman!—made nuclear weapons to control others, but instead we are controlled.”

They made us false promises. That by making the consequences of using these weapons so unthinkable it would make any conflict unpalatable. That it would keep us free from war. But far from preventing war, these weapons brought us to the brink multiple times throughout the Cold War. And in this century, these weapons continue to escalate us towards war and conflict. In Iraq, in Iran, in Kashmir, in North Korea. Their existence propels others to join the nuclear race. They don’t keep us safe, they cause conflict…. But they are just weapons. They are just tools. And just as they were created by geopolitical context, they can just as easily be destroyed by placing them in a humanitarian context. That is the task ICAN has set.

Fihn called on all nations and each of the nine nuclear weapons states individually to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, saying,

The United States, choose freedom over fear.
Russia, choose disarmament over destruction.
Britain, choose the rule of law over oppression.
France, choose human rights over terror.
China, choose reason over irrationality.
India, choose sense over senselessness.
Pakistan, choose logic over Armageddon.
Israel, choose common sense over obliteration.
North Korea, choose wisdom over ruin.

She also asked the nations “who believe they are sheltered under the umbrella of nuclear weapons, will you be complicit in your own destruction and the destruction of others in your name?” And she called on all citizens to “Stand with us and demand your government side with humanity and sign this treaty,” noting “no nations today boast of being a chemical weapons states” or “argue that it is acceptable, in extreme circumstances, to use sarin nerve agent” or “to unleash on its enemy the plague or polio. That is because international norms have been set, perceptions have been changed. And now, at last, we have an unequivocal norm against nuclear weapons.”

Setsuko Thurlow, an ICAN campaigner who survived the bombing of Hiroshima as a 13-year-old, spoke next, bearing witness to the excruciating pain and terror she saw all around her as she escaped from the rubble she was buried under in the bomb’s aftermath, where so many of her schoolmates died and where so many of her family were lost as well. She reminded us that “in the weeks, months and years that followed, many thousands more would die, often in random and mysterious ways, from the delayed effects of radiation to this day, radiation is killing survivors.”

She acknowledged the suffering and willingness to bear witness not only of the Hibakusha, as Japanese refer to the survivors of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also of others who suffered from the nuclear age, including peoples “whose lands and seas were irradiated, whose bodies were experimented upon, whose cultures were forever disrupted” in places with “long-forgotten names” like Mururoa, Ekker, Semipalatinsk, Maralinga, Bikini.

Through our agony and the sheer struggle to survive—and to rebuild our lives from the ashes—we hibakusha became convinced that we must warn the world about these apocalyptic weapons. Time and again, we shared our testimonies.

But still some refused to see Hiroshima and Nagasaki as atrocities—as war crimes. They accepted the propaganda that these were “good bombs” that had ended a “just war.” It was this myth that led to the disastrous nuclear-arms race—a race that continues to this day.

Nine nations still threaten to incinerate entire cities, to destroy life on earth, to make our beautiful world uninhabitable for future generations. The development of nuclear weapons signifies not a country’s elevation to greatness but its descent to the darkest depths of depravity. These weapons are not a necessary evil; they are the ultimate evil.

Thurlow went on to say:

On the seventh of July this year, I was overwhelmed with joy when a great majority of the world’s nations voted to adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Having witnessed humanity at its worst, I witnessed, that day, humanity at its best. We hibakusha had been waiting for the ban for seventy-two years. Let this be the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.

All responsible leaders will sign this treaty. And history will judge harshly those who reject it. No longer shall their abstract theories mask the genocidal reality of their practices. No longer shall “deterrence” be viewed as anything but a deterrent to disarmament. No longer shall we live under a mushroom cloud of fear.

To the officials of nuclear-armed nations—and to their accomplices under the so-called “nuclear umbrella”—I say this: Listen to our testimony. Heed our warning. And know that your actions are consequential. You are each an integral part of a system of violence that is endangering humankind. Let us all be alert to the banality of evil.

Both speakers received standing ovations for their moving addresses and calls to action, and, with a room filled with hundreds of grassroots campaigners, the thunderous applause for the speakers was noted to be highly unusual for a Nobel award ceremony. The legal requirement for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to enter into force and to be binding on its signatories is that it must be ratified by 50 nations. To date, 56 countries have signed the treaty and four nations have ratified it in their legislatures.

To get involved in the ICAN campaign, visit http://www.icanw.org. There is a Parliamentary Pledge there that you can use to enroll your member of Congress or Parliament in calling for your nation to support the ban treaty. In the nuclear-weapons states and in the US nuclear alliance with NATO states and Australia, South Korea, and Japan in the Pacific—the “nuclear umbrella” states—grassroots efforts are under way to begin the stigmatization of their nuclear weapons and policies with a divestment campaign from nuclear-weapons manufacturers, since the treaty prohibits any “assistance” for nuclear weapons.

There have been demonstrations in Buchel, Germany, where activists have read the new treaty aloud to military personnel at a military base where US nuclear weapons are kept. Four other NATO countries also have US nuclear weapons on their bases—Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Turkey. This activity is banned under the treaty’s prohibition on any “possession” of nuclear weapons. See the new treaty here.

January 2, 2018
Setsuko Thurlow: Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) received the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 2017.

Your Majesties,
Distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee,
My fellow campaigners, here and throughout the world,
Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great privilege to accept this award, together with Beatrice, on behalf of all the remarkable human beings who form the ICAN movement. You each give me such tremendous hope that we can – and will – bring the era of nuclear weapons to an end.

I speak as a member of the family of hibakusha – those of us who, by some miraculous chance, survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For more than seven decades, we have worked for the total abolition of nuclear weapons.

We have stood in solidarity with those harmed by the production and testing of these horrific weapons around the world. People from places with long-forgotten names, like Moruroa, Ekker, Semipalatinsk, Maralinga, Bikini. People whose lands and seas were irradiated, whose bodies were experimented upon, whose cultures were forever disrupted.

We were not content to be victims. We refused to wait for an immediate fiery end or the slow poisoning of our world. We refused to sit idly in terror as the so-called great powers took us past nuclear dusk and brought us recklessly close to nuclear midnight. We rose up. We shared our stories of survival. We said: humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.

Today, I want you to feel in this hall the presence of all those who perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I want you to feel, above and around us, a great cloud of a quarter million souls. Each person had a name. Each person was loved by someone. Let us ensure that their deaths were not in vain.

I was just 13 years old when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb, on my city Hiroshima. I still vividly remember that morning. At 8:15, I saw a blinding bluish-white flash from the window. I remember having the sensation of floating in the air.

As I regained consciousness in the silence and darkness, I found myself pinned by the collapsed building. I began to hear my classmates’ faint cries: “Mother, help me. God, help me.”

Then, suddenly, I felt hands touching my left shoulder, and heard a man saying: “Don’t give up! Keep pushing! I am trying to free you. See the light coming through that opening? Crawl towards it as quickly as you can.” As I crawled out, the ruins were on fire. Most of my classmates in that building were burned to death alive. I saw all around me utter, unimaginable devastation.

Processions of ghostly figures shuffled by. Grotesquely wounded people, they were bleeding, burnt, blackened and swollen. Parts of their bodies were missing. Flesh and skin hung from their bones. Some with their eyeballs hanging in their hands. Some with their bellies burst open, their intestines hanging out. The foul stench of burnt human flesh filled the air.

Thus, with one bomb my beloved city was obliterated. Most of its residents were civilians who were incinerated, vaporized, carbonized – among them, members of my own family and 351 of my schoolmates.

In the weeks, months and years that followed, many thousands more would die, often in random and mysterious ways, from the delayed effects of radiation. Still to this day, radiation is killing survivors.

Whenever I remember Hiroshima, the first image that comes to mind is of my four-year-old nephew, Eiji – his little body transformed into an unrecognizable melted chunk of flesh. He kept begging for water in a faint voice until his death released him from agony.

To me, he came to represent all the innocent children of the world, threatened as they are at this very moment by nuclear weapons. Every second of every day, nuclear weapons endanger everyone we love and everything we hold dear. We must not tolerate this insanity any longer.

Through our agony and the sheer struggle to survive – and to rebuild our lives from the ashes – we hibakusha became convinced that we must warn the world about these apocalyptic weapons. Time and again, we shared our testimonies.

But still some refused to see Hiroshima and Nagasaki as atrocities – as war crimes. They accepted the propaganda that these were “good bombs” that had ended a “just war”. It was this myth that led to the disastrous nuclear arms race – a race that continues to this day.

Nine nations still threaten to incinerate entire cities, to destroy life on earth, to make our beautiful world uninhabitable for future generations. The development of nuclear weapons signifies not a country’s elevation to greatness, but its descent to the darkest depths of depravity. These weapons are not a necessary evil; they are the ultimate evil.

On the seventh of July this year, I was overwhelmed with joy when a great majority of the world’s nations voted to adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Having witnessed humanity at its worst, I witnessed, that day, humanity at its best. We hibakusha had been waiting for the ban for seventy-two years. Let this be the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.

All responsible leaders will sign this treaty. And history will judge harshly those who reject it. No longer shall their abstract theories mask the genocidal reality of their practices. No longer shall “deterrence” be viewed as anything but a deterrent to disarmament. No longer shall we live under a mushroom cloud of fear.

To the officials of nuclear-armed nations – and to their accomplices under the so-called “nuclear umbrella” – I say this: Listen to our testimony. Heed our warning. And know that your actions are consequential. You are each an integral part of a system of violence that is endangering humankind. Let us all be alert to the banality of evil.

To every president and prime minister of every nation of the world, I beseech you: Join this treaty; forever eradicate the threat of nuclear annihilation.

When I was a 13-year-old girl, trapped in the smouldering rubble, I kept pushing. I kept moving toward the light. And I survived. Our light now is the ban treaty. To all in this hall and all listening around the world, I repeat those words that I heard called to me in the ruins of Hiroshima: “Don’t give up! Keep pushing! See the light? Crawl towards it.”

Tonight, as we march through the streets of Oslo with torches aflame, let us follow each other out of the dark night of nuclear terror. No matter what obstacles we face, we will keep moving and keep pushing and keep sharing this light with others. This is our passion and commitment for our one precious world to survive.

December 10, 2017
Beatrice Fihn: Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) received the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo on December 10, 2017.

Your Majesties,
Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee,
Esteemed guests,

Today, it is a great honour to accept the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of thousands of inspirational people who make up the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Together we have brought democracy to disarmament and are reshaping international law.
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We most humbly thank the Norwegian Nobel Committee for recognizing our work and giving momentum to our crucial cause.

We want to recognize those who have so generously donated their time and energy to this campaign.

We thank the courageous foreign ministers, diplomats, Red Cross and Red Crescent staff, UN officials, academics and experts with whom we have worked in partnership to advance our common goal.

And we thank all who are committed to ridding the world of this terrible threat.
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At dozens of locations around the world – in missile silos buried in our earth, on submarines navigating through our oceans, and aboard planes flying high in our sky – lie 15,000 objects of humankind’s destruction.

Perhaps it is the enormity of this fact, perhaps it is the unimaginable scale of the consequences, that leads many to simply accept this grim reality. To go about our daily lives with no thought to the instruments of insanity all around us.

For it is insanity to allow ourselves to be ruled by these weapons. Many critics of this movement suggest that we are the irrational ones, the idealists with no grounding in reality. That nuclear-armed states will never give up their weapons.

But we represent the only rational choice. We represent those who refuse to accept nuclear weapons as a fixture in our world, those who refuse to have their fates bound up in a few lines of launch code.

Ours is the only reality that is possible. The alternative is unthinkable.

The story of nuclear weapons will have an ending, and it is up to us what that ending will be.

Will it be the end of nuclear weapons, or will it be the end of us?

One of these things will happen.

The only rational course of action is to cease living under the conditions where our mutual destruction is only one impulsive tantrum away.
__

Today I want to talk of three things: fear, freedom, and the future.

By the very admission of those who possess them, the real utility of nuclear weapons is in their ability to provoke fear. When they refer to their “deterrent” effect, proponents of nuclear weapons are celebrating fear as a weapon of war.

They are puffing their chests by declaring their preparedness to exterminate, in a flash, countless thousands of human lives.

Nobel Laureate William Faulkner said when accepting his prize in 1950, that “There is only the question of ‘when will I be blown up?’” But since then, this universal fear has given way to something even more dangerous: denial.

Gone is the fear of Armageddon in an instant, gone is the equilibrium between two blocs that was used as the justification for deterrence, gone are the fallout shelters.

But one thing remains: the thousands upon thousands of nuclear warheads that filled us up with that fear.

The risk for nuclear weapons use is even greater today than at the end of the Cold War. But unlike the Cold War, today we face many more nuclear armed states, terrorists, and cyber warfare. All of this makes us less safe.

Learning to live with these weapons in blind acceptance has been our next great mistake.

Fear is rational. The threat is real. We have avoided nuclear war not through prudent leadership but good fortune. Sooner or later, if we fail to act, our luck will run out.

A moment of panic or carelessness, a misconstrued comment or bruised ego, could easily lead us unavoidably to the destruction of entire cities. A calculated military escalation could lead to the indiscriminate mass murder of civilians.

If only a small fraction of today’s nuclear weapons were used, soot and smoke from the firestorms would loft high into the atmosphere – cooling, darkening and drying the Earth’s surface for more than a decade.

It would obliterate food crops, putting billions at risk of starvation.

Yet we continue to live in denial of this existential threat.

But Faulkner in his Nobel speech also issued a challenge to those who came after him. Only by being the voice of humanity, he said, can we defeat fear; can we help humanity endure.

ICAN’s duty is to be that voice. The voice of humanity and humanitarian law; to speak up on behalf of civilians. Giving voice to that humanitarian perspective is how we will create the end of fear, the end of denial. And ultimately, the end of nuclear weapons.
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That brings me to my second point: freedom.

As the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the first ever anti-nuclear weapons organisation to win this prize, said on this stage in 1985:

“We physicians protest the outrage of holding the entire world hostage. We protest the moral obscenity that each of us is being continuously targeted for extinction.”

Those words still ring true in 2017.

We must reclaim the freedom to not live our lives as hostages to imminent annihilation.

Man – not woman! – made nuclear weapons to control others, but instead we are controlled by them.

They made us false promises. That by making the consequences of using these weapons so unthinkable it would make any conflict unpalatable. That it would keep us free from war.

But far from preventing war, these weapons brought us to the brink multiple times throughout the Cold War. And in this century, these weapons continue to escalate us towards war and conflict.

In Iraq, in Iran, in Kashmir, in North Korea. Their existence propels others to join the nuclear race. They don’t keep us safe, they cause conflict.

As fellow Nobel Peace Laureate, Martin Luther King Jr, called them from this very stage in 1964, these weapons are “both genocidal and suicidal”.

They are the madman’s gun held permanently to our temple. These weapons were supposed to keep us free, but they deny us our freedoms.

It’s an affront to democracy to be ruled by these weapons. But they are just weapons. They are just tools. And just as they were created by geopolitical context, they can just as easily be destroyed by placing them in a humanitarian context.
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That is the task ICAN has set itself – and my third point I wish to talk about, the future.

I have the honour of sharing this stage today with Setsuko Thurlow, who has made it her life’s purpose to bear witness to the horror of nuclear war.

She and the hibakusha were at the beginning of the story, and it is our collective challenge to ensure they will also witness the end of it.

They relive the painful past, over and over again, so that we may create a better future.

There are hundreds of organisations that together as ICAN are making great strides towards that future.

There are thousands of tireless campaigners around the world who work each day to rise to that challenge.

There are millions of people across the globe who have stood shoulder to shoulder with those campaigners to show hundreds of millions more that a different future is truly possible.

Those who say that future is not possible need to get out of the way of those making it a reality.

As the culmination of this grassroots effort, through the action of ordinary people, this year the hypothetical marched forward towards the actual as 122 nations negotiated and concluded a UN treaty to outlaw these weapons of mass destruction.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons provides the pathway forward at a moment of great global crisis. It is a light in a dark time.

And more than that, it provides a choice.

A choice between the two endings: the end of nuclear weapons or the end of us.

It is not naive to believe in the first choice. It is not irrational to think nuclear states can disarm. It is not idealistic to believe in life over fear and destruction; it is a necessity.
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All of us face that choice. And I call on every nation to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

The United States, choose freedom over fear.
Russia, choose disarmament over destruction.
Britain, choose the rule of law over oppression.
France, choose human rights over terror.
China, choose reason over irrationality.
India, choose sense over senselessness.
Pakistan, choose logic over Armageddon.
Israel, choose common sense over obliteration.
North Korea, choose wisdom over ruin.

To the nations who believe they are sheltered under the umbrella of nuclear weapons, will you be complicit in your own destruction and the destruction of others in your name?

To all nations: choose the end of nuclear weapons over the end of us!

This is the choice that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons represents. Join this Treaty.

We citizens are living under the umbrella of falsehoods. These weapons are not keeping us safe, they are contaminating our land and water, poisoning our bodies and holding hostage our right to life.

To all citizens of the world: Stand with us and demand your government side with humanity and sign this treaty. We will not rest until all States have joined, on the side of reason.
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No nation today boasts of being a chemical weapon state.
No nation argues that it is acceptable, in extreme circumstances, to use sarin nerve agent.
No nation proclaims the right to unleash on its enemy the plague or polio.

That is because international norms have been set, perceptions have been changed.

And now, at last, we have an unequivocal norm against nuclear weapons.

Monumental strides forward never begin with universal agreement.

With every new signatory and every passing year, this new reality will take hold.

This is the way forward. There is only one way to prevent the use of nuclear weapons: prohibit and eliminate them.
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Nuclear weapons, like chemical weapons, biological weapons, cluster munitions and land mines before them, are now illegal. Their existence is immoral. Their abolishment is in our hands.

The end is inevitable. But will that end be the end of nuclear weapons or the end of us? We must choose one.

We are a movement for rationality. For democracy. For freedom from fear.

We are campaigners from 468 organisations who are working to safeguard the future, and we are representative of the moral majority: the billions of people who choose life over death, who together will see the end of nuclear weapons.

Thank you.

December 10, 2017
Nobel Peace Prize for ICAN’s Nuclear Weapon Ban Is Spot On

This article was originally published by The Hill.

The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize does not go to a politician or political leader. In fact, it does not single out any individual. Rather, it goes to a campaign, the International Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), composed of more than 450 civil society organizations in some 100 countries around the globe. It goes to a broad base of civil society organizations working in coalition to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.

In this sense, the award goes to the extraordinary people (“We, the People…”) throughout the world who have stepped up to end the threat to all humanity posed by the nearly 15,000 nuclear weapons still remaining on the planet.

In announcing the award to ICAN, the Norwegian Nobel Committee stated, “The organization is receiving the award for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”

ICAN was launched in 2007. It worked with many of the world’s countries in organizing three conferences on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war. These meetings took place in Oslo, Norway (2013), in Nayarit, Mexico (2014) and in Vienna, Austria (2014). At the Vienna conference, Austria offered a pledge to the countries and civil society representatives in attendance. When it was opened for signatures to other countries, it became known as the “Humanitarian Pledge.” The pledge has now been formally endorsed by 127 countries.

After laying out the threats and dangers of nuclear weapons in the Humanitarian Pledge, the pledge concluded: “We pledge to cooperate with all relevant stakeholders, States, international organizations, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movements, parliamentarians and civil society, in efforts to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons in light of their unacceptable humanitarian consequences and associated risks.”

In 2016, the United Nations General Assembly agreed to an ICAN-supported resolution to negotiate a treaty outlawing nuclear weapons. These negotiations took place in March, June and July of 2017 at the United Nations in New York. On July 7, 2017, 122 countries adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This treaty banning nuclear weapons was opened for signatures on September 20, 2017. So far, 53 countries have signed the treaty and three have ratified it. It will enter into force 90 days after the 50^th country deposits its ratification of the treaty with the United Nations.

ICAN has accomplished a great deal in moving the world forward toward banning and eliminating nuclear weapons. It has helped states articulate the dreadful humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons use. In doing so, it has worked with survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and also with countries that suffered from nuclear testing, such as the Marshall Islands.

ICAN also spearheaded the drafting and adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and is currently working on getting countries to sign and ratify the treaty so that it can enter into force.

ICAN stands in stark contrast with those national leaders and their allies who possess nuclear weapons and have been unwilling to give up their claim on them for their own perceived national security. But ICAN is on the right side of history, because those with nuclear weapons threaten the future of civilization, including their own populations.

ICAN well deserves the Nobel Peace prize. The campaign is effective. It is youthful. It is hopeful. It is necessary. May the Nobel Peace Prize propel it to even greater accomplishments. And may it awaken people everywhere to the threat posed by nuclear weapons, and the need to ban and eliminate them.

David Krieger is a founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The Foundation has been a partner organization of ICAN since 2007.

October 25, 2017
Local Group Part of Nobel Peace Prize-Winning Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Santa Barbara – On October 6, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), a non-partisan, non-profit organization founded in Santa Barbara in 1982, has been an active member of ICAN since its inception a decade ago.

NAPF President David Krieger said, “This is an immense honor for the hundreds of ICAN partner organizations and campaigners around the world who have worked tirelessly for a treaty banning nuclear weapons, which was finally adopted this year. I am particularly happy for the hibakusha – survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – who have dedicated their lives to the abolition of nuclear weapons.”

Rick Wayman, NAPF’s Director of Programs, took an active role in ICAN’s efforts during the negotiations of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations earlier this year. As part of ICAN’s diverse international team of campaigners, Rick assisted with lobbying countries to support strong language in the treaty, as well as with amplifying ICAN’s message in the media and social media.

Wayman said, “The recognition by the Nobel Committee of ICAN’s outstanding work is well-deserved. Achieving the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has been a collaborative effort that involved bold strategy, lots of hard work, and even some fun. There remains much work to be done to finally achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons, particularly in the United States, which continues to maintain thousands of nuclear warheads. I hope that this Nobel Peace Prize will awaken many more people around the world to the urgent need to work for the abolition of nuclear weapons. We can, and will, achieve this goal.”

A statement from ICAN about the award is here. More information about the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is here.

If you would like to interview David Krieger or Rick Wayman, please call +1 805 696 5159.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders. Founded in 1982, the Foundation is comprised of individuals and organizations worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations. For more information, visit www.wagingpeace.org.

October 6, 2017
Nuclear Weapons – The Time for Abolition is Now

This article was originally published by Common Dreams.

Nuclear weapons present the greatest public health and existential threat to our survival every moment of every day. Yet the United States and world nuclear nations stand in breach of the 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty which commits these nations to work in good faith to end the arms race and to achieve nuclear disarmament. Forty eight years later the efforts of the nuclear nations toward this goal is not evident and the state of the world is equally as dangerous as it was during the height of the Cold War and arguably more dangerous with current scientific evidence on the catastrophic effects of even limited regional nuclear war.

This year’s presidential campaign has once again done little to focus on the dangers of nuclear weapons focusing more on who has the temperament to have their finger on the button with absolutely no indication of any understanding of the consequences to all of humanity by the use of these weapons even on a very small scale. In addition to tensions between Russia and the U.S. in Ukraine and Syria, there is a real danger of nuclear war in South Asia which could kill more than 2 billion people from the use of just 100 Hiroshima size weapons.

The rest of the world is finally standing up to this threat to their survival and that of the planet. They are taking matters into their own hands and refusing to be held hostage by the nuclear nations. They will no longer be bullied into sitting back and waiting for the nuclear states to make good on empty promises.

At the United Nations this past week, 123 nations voted to commence negotiations next year on a new treaty to prohibit the possession of nuclear weapons. Despite President Obama’s own words in his 2009 pledge to seek the security of a world free of nuclear weapons, the U.S. voted “no” and led the opposition to this treaty.

Rather than meet our obligations under international law, the U.S has proposed by stark contrast to begin a new nuclear arms race spending $1 trillion dollars over the next 30 years to modernize and rebuild every aspect our nuclear weapons programs. A ‘jobs’ program to end humanity. Each of the nuclear nations is expected to do the same in rebuilding their weapons programs continuing the arms race for generations to come.

The myth of deterrence is the guise for this effort when in fact deterrence is the principle driver of the arms race. For every additional weapon my adversary has, I need two and so on and so on to our global arsenals of 15,500 weapons.

Fed up with this inaction and doublespeak, the non-nuclear nations of the world have joined the ongoing efforts of the world’s NGO, health and religious communities in demanding an end to the madness. Led by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a global partnership of 440 partners in 98 countries, the International Red Cross, the world’s health associations representing more than 17 million health professionals worldwide along with religious communities including the Catholic Church and World Council of Churches they are calling for a treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.

The effort to ban nuclear weapons has several parallels to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines led by Jody Williams, recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. This effort was dismissed and called utopian by most governments and militaries of the world when it was launched by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in 1992 only to succeed in 1997 through partnerships, public imagination and political pressure resulting in the ultimate political will. The nuclear ban movement has been vigorously fought by the nuclear nations trying desperately to hold onto their weapons and pressuring members of their alliances to hold the line.

Unfortunately these weapons and control systems are imperfect. During the Cold War there were many instances where the world came perilously close to nuclear war. It is a matter of sheer luck that this scenario did not come to pass by design or accident. Our luck will not hold out forever. Luck is not a security policy. From a medical and public health stance based on our current evidence-based understanding of what nuclear weapons can actually do, any argument for continued possession of these weapons by anyone in untenable and defies logic. There is absolutely no reasonable or adequate medical response to nuclear war.

As with any public health threat from Zika, to Ebola, Polio, HIV, prevention is the goal. The global threat from nuclear weapons is no different. The only way to prevent the use of nuclear weapons is to ban and eliminate them. Our future depends upon this.

President Kennedy speaking on nuclear weapons before the U.N. Security Council in September 1961 said, “The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us”. Our children’s children will look back and rightly ask why we the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons remained on the wrong side of history when it came to abolishing nuclear weapons.

November 1, 2016
Government Statements in Favor of a Nuclear Weapons Ban

The following quotes were compiled by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in July 2014.

“We join all peace-loving people in their call for a global treaty to outlaw and eliminate these instruments of human destruction.”
— Afghanistan (November 2012)

“Argentina supports the efforts of the international community to move towards the negotiation of a universal legally binding instrument banning nuclear weapons.”
— Argentina (September 2013)

“Nuclear weapons should be stigmatized, banned and eliminated before they abolish us.”
— Austria (September 2013)

“[Burundi] solemnly expresses its readiness … to further work out a robust road map or action plan on totally banning nuclear weapons.”
— Burundi (February 2014)

“Given the catastrophic consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, we must work to create a new international treaty explicitly prohibiting their use and possession, without any exceptions.”
— Chile (February 2014)

“We insist on the urgency of an international legally binding instrument that prohibits the development, production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons.”
— Colombia (May 2010)

“My delegation hopes that we are going to increase our cohesion and determination to fight for the prohibition of these weapons, which are a permanent threat to humanity.”
— Comoros (February 2014)

“[T]he humanitarian approach must be the spearhead through which we focus our efforts towards negotiations on an instrument banning nuclear weapons.”
— Costa Rica (February 2014)

“My country is open to all new initiatives that seek the prohibition of nuclear weapons.”
— Côte d’Ivoire (February 2014)

“Cuba gives special priority to nuclear disarmament and highlights the need to adopt a legally binding international instrument that completely prohibits nuclear weapons.”
— Cuba (April 2013)

“The only option is to eradicate this threat through the complete prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons.”
— Ecuador (April 2013)

“[W]e hope to deepen our understanding and develop more specific proposals for attaining concrete results, including the negotiation of an international legal instrument to abolish nuclear weapons.”
— El Salvador (February 2014)

“Nuclear weapons should be totally banned.”
— Fiji (March 2013)

“Ghana believes that among the variously advanced bases for the elimination of nuclear weapons, their humanitarian impact is the strongest and most compelling. We will continue to support this justification at any relevant forum as one of the most legitimate bases for a convention banning the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons by any state.”
— Ghana (February 2014)

“We consider it very important to create a legally binding instrument to ban nuclear weapons globally.”
— Guatemala (February 2014)

“Let us use the momentum of this conference [Nayarit] to launch a program of action to begin the process of developing a global ethical norm and a legal ban on all nuclear weapons.”
— Holy See (February 2014)

“The indiscriminate negative and calamitous impact on public health, the environment, food security, infrastructure, economic growth and sustainable development is most alarming and underscores the urgent need for a ban on these weapons.”
— Jamaica (April 2014)

“[Jordan] joins the calls for the early start of negotiations on a legally binding instrument to ban nuclear weapons.”
— Jordan (February 2014)

“It is the conviction of Kenya that it is time states considered a legal ban on nuclear weapons, even if nuclear-armed states refuse to participate.”
— Kenya (October 2013)

“It is unacceptable that the deadliest weapons of all – nuclear weapons – are the only weapons of mass destruction not yet expressly prohibited by an international convention. A treaty banning the use, manufacture and possession of nuclear weapons is long overdue … there is a clear humanitarian imperative for us to start negotiations.”
— Kiribati (February 2014)

“A ban treaty on nuclear weapons would complement existing international law.”
— Kuwait (March 2013)

“We hope that there will be a universal treaty adopted in the near future to outlaw and eliminate all nuclear weapons.”
— Lebanon (February 2011)

“Malawi realizes the fact that it is the duty and the responsibility of states and governments to take up the humanitarian discourse, and start negotiations for a multilateral legally binding instrument that will ban the production, testing, use and stockpiling of nuclear weapons.”
— Malawi (February 2014)

“The growing support on this issue must now be translated into meaningful action towards a treaty to outlaw and eliminate nuclear weapons.”
— Malaysia (February 2014)

“I reiterate the strong support of my government for achieving a global treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.”
— Mexico (July 2013)

“One of the most urgent issues that needs to be addressed is the banning of nuclear weapons … it is high time to start negotiations.”
— Mongolia (September 2013)

“We need to move towards action … to obtain the noble goal of banning nuclear weapons.”
— Morocco (February 2014)

“[T]here is no doubt that the time has come for mankind and the international community to take the additional step of negotiating a total ban on the use of this type of weapon.”
— Nicaragua (February 2014)

“We are concerned that, till now, there is no international treaty banning these weapons of mass destruction.”
— Nigeria (February 2014)

“We are working along several different tracks to achieve the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. We are aiming at a genuine, total ban.”
— Norway (September 2011)

“Palau believes that the time has come for a new diplomatic process to negotiate a legally binding instrument to ban nuclear weapons – even if the nuclear-armed states are unwilling to join such a process. By banning nuclear weapons outright, we would devalue and stigmatize them, which is necessary if we are to succeed in eliminating them.”
— Palau (May 2014)

“We support the objective of banning nuclear weapons and eliminating them within a specified timeframe.”
— Palestine (February 2014)

“It is only through a prohibition on the use and possession of nuclear weapons that we will achieve elimination.”
— Peru (March 2013)

“The catastrophic humanitarian impact of any use of nuclear weapons underlines the urgent need for a ban on nuclear weapons.”
— Philippines (October 2013)

“We hope that we will not wait long before we celebrate a universal treaty for disarmament and the prohibition of nuclear weapons.”
— Qatar (May 2010)

“[There is an] urgent need to have a treaty banning nuclear weapons given the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons.”
— Samoa (September 2013)

“We urge states that have not yet done so to amplify the momentum and join the vast movement for a binding international convention totally banning nuclear weapons.”
— Senegal (June 2014)

“We must ban all research, testing, possession, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons.”
— Sierra Leone (March 2013)

“A world free from nuclear weapons would require the underpinning of a universal and multilaterally negotiated legally binding instrument that would ban the development, production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons and on their destruction.”
— South Africa (February 2011)

“We continue to stress that states should move forward towards total elimination and the absolute ban of the nuclear arsenal.”
— Sri Lanka (April 2013)

“Nuclear weapons should be banned completely and immediately.”
— Sudan (March 2013)

“The Swiss government is engaged in pushing for the delegitimization of nuclear weapons as a preparatory step for a ban on nuclear weapons.”
— Switzerland (October 2012)

“We join our region’s consensus on the urgent need to advance towards nuclear disarmament and the complete and general elimination of nuclear weapons, as well as towards the negotiation of a universal and legally binding instrument which prohibits their use.”
— Trinidad and Tobago (February 2014)

“Ukraine supports the early start of negotiations on … a convention on the prohibition of nuclear weapons.”
— Ukraine (September 2013)

“The strong consensus of the international community on the troubling humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons should further be highlighted to facilitate a process of disarmament based on banning the use and ownership of nuclear weapons.”
— United Arab Emirates (May 2013)

“I wish to show my full support … for a common effort to outlaw and eliminate nuclear weapons to ensure the safety of humankind around the world.”
— Vanuatu (October 2012)

“It is for our good and the good of the future generations to ban this indiscriminate weapon. Clearly, there is no benefit to humanity of having or developing nuclear weapons … We reiterate our call to completely and totally ban nuclear weapons.”
— Zambia (May 2013)

July 7, 2014
After Mexico: Why an “Ottawa Process” for a Legal Ban of Nuclear Weapons Deserves Our Enthusiastic Support

The 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), extended indefinitely in 1995 when it was due to expire, provided that five nuclear weapons states which also happened to hold the veto power on the Security Council (P-5)– the US, Russia, UK, France, and China– would “pursue negotiations in good faith” ¹ for nuclear disarmament. In order to buy the support of the rest of the world for the deal, the nuclear weapons states “sweetened the pot” with a Faustian bargain promising the non-nuclear weapons state an “inalienable right” ² to so-called “peaceful” nuclear power, thus giving them the keys to the bomb factory. ³ Every country in the world signed the new treaty except for India, Pakistan, and Israel, which went on to develop nuclear arsenals. North Korea, a NPT member, took advantage of the technological know-how it acquired through its “inalienable right” to nuclear power and quit the treaty to make its own nuclear bombs. Today there are nine nuclear weapons states with 17,000 bombs on the planet, 16,000 of which are in the US and Russia!

At the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, a new network of NGOs, Abolition 2000, called for immediate negotiations of a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons and a phase out of nuclear power. ⁴ A Working Group of lawyers, scientists and policy makers drafted a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention ⁵ laying out all the necessary steps to be considered for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. It became an official UN document and was cited in Secretary General Ban-ki Moon’s 2008 proposal for a Five Point Plan for Nuclear Disarmament.⁶ The NPT’s indefinite extension required Review Conferences every five years, with Preparatory Committee meetings in between.

In 1996, the NGO World Court Project sought an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality of the bomb. The Court ruled unanimously that an international obligation exists to “conclude negotiations on nuclear disarmament in all its aspects”, but disappointingly said only that the weapons are “generally illegal” and held that it was unable to decide whether it would be legal or not to use nuclear weapons “when the very survival of a state was at stake.”⁷ Despite the NGOs best efforts at lobbying for continued promises given by the P-5 at subsequent NPT reviews, progress on nuclear disarmament was frozen. In 2013, Egypt actually walked out of an NPT meeting because a promise made in 2010 to hold a conference on a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East (WMDFZ) had still not taken place, even though a promise for a WMDFZ was offered to the Middle East states as a bargaining chip to get their vote for the indefinite extension of the NPT nearly 20 years earlier in 1995.

In 2012, the International Committee of the Red Cross made an unprecedented breakthrough effort to educate the world that there was no existing legal ban on the use and possession of nuclear weapons despite the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from nuclear war, thus renewing public awareness about the terrible dangers of nuclear holocaust.⁸ A new initiative, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)⁹ had been launched to make known the disastrous effects to all life on earth should nuclear war break out, either by accident or design, as well as the inability of governments at any level to adequately respond. They are calling for a legal ban on nuclear weapons, just as the world had banned chemical and biological weapons, as well as landmines and cluster munitions. In 1996, NGOs in partnership with friendly nations, led by Canada, met in Ottawa, in an unprecedented circumvention of the blocked UN institutions to negotiate a treaty to ban on landmines. This became known as the “Ottawa Process” which was also used by Norway in 2008, when it hosted a meeting outside the blocked UN negotiating fora to hammer out a ban on cluster munitions.¹⁰

Norway also took up the call of the International Red Cross in 2013, hosting a special Conference on the Humanitarian Effects of Nuclear Weapons. The Oslo meeting took place outside of the usual institutional settings such as the NPT, the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and the First Committee of the General Assembly, where progress on nuclear disarmament has been frozen because the nuclear weapons states are only willing to act on non- proliferation measures, while failing to take any meaningful steps for nuclear disarmament. This, despite a host of empty promises made over the 44 year history of the NPT, and nearly 70 years after the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The P-5 boycotted the Oslo conference, issuing a joint statement claiming it would be a “distraction” from the NPT! Two nuclear weapons states did show up—India and Pakistan, to join the 127 nations that came to Oslo and those two nuclear weapons states again attended this year’s follow-up conference hosted by Mexico, with 146 nations.

There is transformation in the air and a shift in the zeitgeist in how nations and civil society are addressing nuclear disarmament. They are meeting in partnership in greater numbers and with growing resolve to negotiate a nuclear ban treaty which would prohibit the possession, testing, use, production and acquisition of nuclear weapons as illegal, just as the world has done for chemical and biological weapons. The ban treaty would begin to close the gap in the World Court decision which failed to decide if nuclear weapons were illegal in all circumstances, particularly where the very survival of a state was at stake. This new process is operating outside of the paralyzed institutional UN negotiating structures, first in Oslo, then in Mexico with a third meeting planned in Austria, this very year, not four years later in 2018 as proposed by the non-aligned movement of countries which fail to grasp the urgent need to move swiftly for nuclear abolition, and has not received any buy-in from the recalcitrant P-5. Indeed, the US, France and UK didn’t even bother to send a decent representative to the first high level meeting in history for heads of state and foreign ministers to address nuclear disarmament at the UN’s General Assembly last fall. And they opposed the establishment of the UN Open Ended Working Group for Nuclear Disarmament that met in Geneva in an informal arrangement with NGOs and governments, failing to show up for a single meeting held during the summer of 2013.

At Nayarit, Mexico, the Mexican Chair sent the world a Valentine on February 14, 2014 when he concluded his remarks to a standing ovation and loud cheers by many of the government delegates and the NGOs in attendance saying:

The broad-based and comprehensive discussions on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons should lead to the commitment of States and civil society to reach new international standards and norms, through a legally binding instrument. It is the view of the Chair that the Nayarit Conference has shown that time has come to initiate a diplomatic process conducive to this goal. Our belief is that this process should comprise a specific timeframe, the definition of the most appropriate fora, and a clear and substantive framework, making the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons the essence of disarmament efforts. It is time to take action. The 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks is the appropriate milestone to achieve our goal. Nayarit is a point of no return. (emphasis added)

The world has begun an Ottawa process for nuclear weapons that can be completed in the very near future if we are united and focused! One obstacle that is becoming apparent to the success of achieving a broadly endorsed ban treaty is the position of “nuclear umbrella” states such as Japan, Australia, South Korea and NATO members. They ostensibly support nuclear disarmament but still rely on lethal “nuclear deterrence”, a policy which demonstrates their willingness to have the US incinerate cities and destroy our planet on their behalf.

Achieving a ban treaty negotiated without the nuclear weapons states would give us a cudgel to hold them to their bargain to negotiate for the total elimination of nuclear weapons in a reasonable time by shaming them for not only failing to honor the NPT but for totally undermining their “good faith” promise for nuclear disarmament. They continue to test and build new bombs, manufacturing facilities, and delivery systems while Mother Earth is assaulted with a whole succession of so-called “sub-critical” tests, as these outlaw states continue to blow up plutonium underground at the Nevada and Novaya Zemlya test sites. The P-5’s insistence on a “step by step” process, supported by some of the nuclear “umbrella states”, rather than the negotiation of a legal ban demonstrates their breathtaking hypocrisy as they are not only modernizing and replacing their arsenals, they are actually spreading nuclear bomb factories around the world in the form of nuclear reactors for commercial gain, even ”sharing” this lethal technology with India, a non-NPT party, an illegal practice in violation of the NPT prohibition against sharing nuclear technology with states that failed to join the treaty.

With a follow up meeting coming in Austria, December 8-9 of this year, we should be strategic in pushing the impetus forward for a legal ban. We need to get even more governments to show up in Vienna, and make plans for a massive turnout of NGOs to encourage states to come out from under their shameful nuclear umbrella and to cheer on the burgeoning group of peace-seeking nations in our efforts to end the nuclear scourge!

Check out the ICAN campaign to find out how you can participate in Vienna.

Endnotes

1. “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament.”

2. Article IV: “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination…”

3. http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2005/npttreaty.html

4. www.abolition2000.org

5. Securing Our Survival: http://www.disarmsecure.org/pdfs/securingoursurvival2007.pdf

6. http://www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Nuclear/sg5point.shtml

7. http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=4&k=e1&p3=4&case=95

8. http://www.icrc.org/eng/war-and-law/weapons/nuclear-weapons/overview-nuclear-weapons.htm

9. www.icanw.org

10. http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/treatystatus/

May 27, 2014