Nuclear abolition call is highlighted in the conference draft agreement!
With one week to go in the month-long deliberations of governments at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York, Global Wave 2015 and the Peace and Planet on Friday May 15 organised a presentation at the United Nations to promote their call for governments to agree to a plan for the prohibition and complete elimination of nuclear weapons.
The UN event:
- highlighted the 7 million signatures on the nuclear abolition petition Peace and Planet presented to the President of the NPT Review Conference on April 26,
- discussed the connections between nuclear abolition and other core human security issues (such as climate change, poverty, unemployment, war and human rights),
- re-stated the importance of governments agreeing to a concrete plan to abolish nuclear weapons,
- reported on youth actions for nuclear abolition, and
- showed videos and photos from Global Wave actions around the world.
Previously, in the opening weeks of the NPT Conference, Peace and Planet presented to one of the main plenaries, tweeted photos and videos of Global Wave actions from countries as the foreign ministers or other representatives of those countries spoke, met informally with government representatives to advocate for nuclear abolition, and presented to a number of side events.
The majority of governments at the conference support the nuclear abolition call, and are promoting the abolition of nuclear weapons in the deliberations and in the disarmament section of the draft outcome document.
The draft disarmament section calls on nuclear weapon States to take immediate steps to reduce nuclear stockpiles (page 7, para 5), end modernisation of nuclear weapons (page 7, para 6), reduce the role of nuclear weapons (para 7), and remove of all nuclear weapons from high alert levels (para 9). The draft also calls on States to engage in an inclusive process within the United Nations to explore and develop the legal framework to achieve and maintain a nuclear weapon free world.
Launch of Global Wave 2015 at Peace and Planet rally in New York
UNFOLD ZERO, a partner campaign to Peace and Planet, held a side-event on Thursday, outlining the ways in which the abolition of nuclear weapons can be, and is being, facilitated and supported through various UN bodies and initiatives.
These include promotion of a nuclear weapons convention by the UN General Assembly and the UN Secretary-General, putting legal pressure on the nuclear weapon States through the International Court of Justice, hosting deliberations and negotiations through a UN General Assembly process, deciding to hold a high-level conference on nuclear disarmament (similar to a UN Summit), criminalising nuclear weapons through the International Criminal Court, and building public engagement and support through the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
There is still one week to go in the NPT Review Conference. The nuclear weapon States are already opposing some of the draft text. And even if the text is adopted, it does not mean that the nuclear weapon States will implement it quickly. They have, for example, done very little to implement the more modest agreements from the 2010 NPT Review Conference – leading the Marshall Islands to launch cases in the International Court of Justice against the nuclear armed States challenging the lack of implementation of disarmament obligations.
However, civil society actions including Global Wave and Peace and Planet have definitely had a positive impact at this important international conference, challenging the nuclear weapons states and giving support to the non-nuclear States.
**************************************
For more information see:
- List of Global Wave 2015 actions around the world and links to photos of these;
- Playlist of Global Wave 2015 videos;
- World Map of Global Wave actions;
- News stories of interesting actions.