Today, we put nuclear weapons in the same category as other unacceptable weapons. You can read ICAN's statement on this historic moment here.
It has been a really amazing day, and I just want to thank you all again for the outpouring of support from people.
Together, we are making this treaty work!
Beatrice
Beatrice Fihn
Executive director
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Australia must sign the prohibition on nuclear weapons: here’s why
September 20, 2017 11.30am AEST
Protesters outside the Trump Tower in New York earlier this year. Reuters
Author
Tilman Ruff
Associate Professor, International Education and Learning Unit, Nossal
Institute for Global Health, School of Population and Global Health,
University of Melbourne
Disclosure statement
Tilman Ruff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive
funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this
article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the
academic appointment above.
Partners
University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The
Conversation AU.
On Wednesday a historic ceremony will take place in the UN General
Assembly – the opening for signature of the Treaty on the Prohibition
of Nuclear Weapons.
The treaty will enter into force 90 days after 50 countries have
ratified it. More than 40 are expected to sign today, and more will
sign over the coming weeks and months. As it was adopted by a vote of
122 to one, it can be expected that close to 100 countries will sign
before year’s end and it will enter into force in 2018.
The agreements is long overdue. It is 72 years since the nuclear
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 71 years since the first
resolution of the newly formed UN General Assembly called for “the
elimination from national armaments of the atomic weapons”.
It comes at a time of deeply disturbing resurgent nuclear threats and
risks of nuclear war, which are considered by most experts – such as
the 15 Nobel laureates among the custodians of the Doomsday Clock – to
be as high as they have ever been.
It will provide the first comprehensive and categorical prohibition of
the world’s most destructive weapons. The treaty makes clear that the
catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of these weapons
means they can never be used again, and consequently should be
eliminated. It affirms that as the risks concern the security of all
humanity, all countries share this responsibility.
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Read more: Three good reasons to worry about Trump having the nuclear codes
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Countries that join the treaty must not develop, test, produce,
possess, transfer, receive, station, deploy, use or threaten to use
nuclear weapons. There are provisions outlining a pathway for those
that have nuclear weapons now, had them in the past, or host nuclear
weapons, if they can verify they are rid of their nuclear weapons,
related programs and facilities.
The treaty is carefully crafted to complement other disarmament
treaties, in particular the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Not only is the content of the nuclear weapons treaty historic, but
the process of its genesis has also transformed the moribund nuclear
disarmament landscape. For the first time, a nuclear disarmament
treaty has been led by the countries without the weapons, and has an
unequivocal humanitarian basis.
The level of involvement of civil society was unprecedented,
particularly Japanese hibakusha(those who survived the atomic bombs)
and nuclear test survivors, including from Australia.
The UN was used for the first time in 21 years to negotiate a nuclear
disarmament treaty, because it’s most inclusive and democratic forum,
the General Assembly, is able to adopt substantive measures by vote.
This is in stark contrast to the NPT conferences and the Conference on
Disarmament, which are paralysed by a requirement for consensus.
The treaty was able to be completed from negotiating mandate to
adoption in eight months, with only four weeks of actual negotiations.
This was because of a widespread determination to seize this landmark
opportunity on the part of many states, who were more willing to put
aside parochial agendas than I have ever witnessed in a nuclear forum
over the past 35 years.
Protestors hold banners during a protest condemning Australia’s
absence at current nuclear weapons treaty negotiations. AAP
Fierce opposition came from nuclear-armed and nuclear-dependent
countries (including Australia), as a US document to its NATO allies
demonstrates. Strong political and economic pressure exerted on many
countries by the US, UK, France and Russia, despite peeling off some
smaller and weaker countries, proved ineffective.
Pressure on countries not to sign, most publicly US Secretary of
Defence James Mattis’ admonition to Sweden, will likely ramp up.
However, the treaty is a triumph of the interests of common humanity,
and is not going away.
The dangerous brinkmanship and extreme threats traded between Donald
Trump and Kim Jong-un are only the latest explicit threats to use
nuclear weapons by a succession of leaders, including Theresa May,
Vladimir Putin, and leaders in India and Pakistan.
Relations between the US and Russia are at their worst in 30 years,
with a resurgent Cold War escalating. Relations between the US and
China are at their lowest point in decades. Pakistan and India are
expanding their nuclear arsenals faster than anywhere else. Both sides
are implementing deployments and policies for early use of nuclear
weapons if war erupts.
________________________________
Read more: Kim Jong-un’s nuclear ambition: what is North Korea’s endgame?
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North Korea’s escalating development and testing of both nuclear
weapons and long-range ballistic missiles demonstrate that any
determined nation can develop both.
The fundamental problem is what South African ambassador Abdul Minty
described as “nuclear apartheid”, with the countries possessing
nuclear weapons busy modernising and determined to retain them, rather
than fulfil their obligation to disarm. This is an inevitable driver
of nuclear proliferation.
As former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said:
There are no right hands for the wrong weapons.
No human should have the power to end the world in an afternoon. If
nuclear weapons are retained they will eventually be used. The crisis
relating to North Korea, for which there is no military solution,
highlights again that our luck could run out any day.
The countries that have foresworn biological and chemical weapons now
need to do the same for nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition
of Nuclear Weapons provides a credible pathway to the verified,
time-bound elimination of weapons posing the most acute existential
threat to people everywhere.
All countries – including North Korea, the US and Australia – should
join the treaty.
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