Pax Christi renews call for a world free from nuclear arms

Pax Christi International issued the following statement yesterday:

On the 8th anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (#TPNW), and in this year that marks 80 years since the bombings of #Hiroshima and #Nagasaki, Pax Christi International renews its call for a world free from nuclear arms.

We remember with sorrow the lives lost and scarred in 1945, and we honour the witness of the hibakusha, whose voices continue to call the world to conscience. The TPNW stands as a sign of hope, a commitment to life, to justice, and to the common good.

We urge all governments to reject nuclear weapons and to choose the path of peace grounded in dialogue, mutual trust, and nonviolence.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal being their total elimination.

It was adopted on 7 July 2017, opened for signature on 20 September 2017, and entered into force on 22 January 2021.

For those nations that are party to it, the treaty prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons, as well as assistance and encouragement to the prohibited activities. For nuclear-armed states joining the treaty, it provides for a time-bound framework for negotiations leading to the verified and irreversible elimination of its nuclear weapons programme.

A mandate adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 23 December 2016 scheduled two sessions for negotiations: 27 to 31 March and 15 June to 7 July 2017. The treaty passed on schedule on 7 July with 122 in favour, one against (Netherlands), and one official abstention (Singapore). 69 nations did not vote, among them all of the nuclear weapon states and all NATO members except the Netherlands.

For more information on the TPNW see: www.nti.org/education-center/treaties-and-regimes/treaty-on-the-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons/