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Photo: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Presenters:
| Dr. John Burroughs is Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy in New York City, the UN Office of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms. He represents LCNP in Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review proceedings, the United Nations, and other international forums, including the 2017 UN negotiations on a nuclear ban treaty. His publications include contributor, “Unspeakable suffering - the humanitarian impact of nuclearweapons” (2013), and author, “The Legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: A Guide to the Historic Opinion of the International Court of Justice” (1998). He has additionally published articles and op-eds in journals and newspapers including the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the World Policy Journal, and Newsday. | Jackie Cabasso is Executive Director of Western States Legal Foundation in Oakland, California. A leading voice for nuclear abolition, she has been involved in nuclear disarmament, peace and environmental advocacy locally, nationally and internationally for more than 35 years. She was a “founding mother” of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons in 1995. Since 2007, she has served as North American Coordinator for Mayors for Peace. She currently serves as National Co-convener for United for Peace and Justice. Jackie received the International Peace Bureau’s 2008 Sean MacBride Peace Award, and Agape Foundation’s 2009 Enduring Visionary Prize. | |
On December 22, 2016, President-elect Trump tweeted: “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes”.
On July 7, 2017, at the United Nations, the majority of the world’s countries adopted a historic treaty to prohibit the possession, development, testing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. The vote, by 122 to 1, unambiguously demonstrates that most of the world has indeed come to its senses regarding nuclear weapons. The treaty opens for signature on September 20 at United Nations headquarters in New York, during the High-Level Segment of the 72 nd Session of the UN General Assembly, where heads of state, foreign ministers and other representatives of governments are expected to publicly sign the treaty. Fifty countries must sign and ratify the treaty for it to enter into force.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons represents the total repudiation of nuclear deterrence by most of the states that don’t possess or rely on nuclear weapons. But the US and the eight other nuclear-armed states boycotted the negotiations, along with Japan, Australia, South Korea and all but one of the 28 NATO member states (The Netherlands) – all countries under the US nuclear umbrella. In a joint statement following the vote, the US, France and the United Kingdom declared: “We do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to [the Treaty].” Meanwhile, nuclear tensions have risen to levels not seen for decades.
While the Ban Treaty negotiations were taking place in the United Nations, two floors up in the same building, in an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, the United States was threatening military action against North Korea, in response to its July 4 missile test.
We must keep both realities – the promise of the Ban Treaty and growing dangers of nuclear war – fully in mind as we develop strategies to accomplish the urgent goal of a world without nuclear weapons.
What does the Ban Treaty mean in our sharply divided world? How can we best utilize it in the United States to stigmatize nuclear weapons and delegitimize the doctrine of nuclear deterrence? How can we move from prohibition to
disarmament?
Click Here to watch a short interview with Jackie Cabasso at the United Nations on July 7, 2017, immediately following the historic vote on the Ban Treaty.
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