CND has always championed the global abolition of nuclear weapon. Of course, the overwhelming majority of countries in the world agree with us and almost a hundred of them have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), a United Nations agreement which entered into force in 2021 outlawing nuclear weapons in the signatory countries.
Unfortunately, the UK government refuses to engage with the treaty, a disgrace when they purport to support multilateral disarmament. Regardless, the treaty continues to grow its support and the countries who have signed met earlier this month to discuss what’s next for the TPNW. CND wrote to the Foreign Secretary, urging him to send a delegation, but the government refused.
The 3rd Meeting of States Parties (3MSP) gathered at the UN headquarters in New York, with over a thousand participants representing civil society in attendance as well. A particularly strong delegation attended from Scottish CND, including Bill Kidd MSP. It was great to see so many young people at the conference, as it’s crucial that as a movement we understand how to connect our work for a world without nuclear weapons with a new generation.
A strong declaration was adopted at the conference, unequivocally rejecting so-called nuclear ‘deterrence’ as a legitimate security strategy and declaring, as per CND’s campaigns, that nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to the world. The conference recognised for the first time the disproportionate impact of nuclear weapons on infants and children.
The TPNW has always been cognisant of the victims of nuclear use and testing – indeed it is the first nuclear weapons treaty to include measures to support those affected. Survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as communities impacted by nuclear tests, played an important part in 3MSP, a human reminder of why we campaign against these weapons of mass destruction.
So what next for the TPNW? It currently has 94 signatories and 73 states parties, and the conference agreed that growing the treaty’s membership is a top priority. States committed to trying to bring more governments on board.
But for us in the UK, we must recognise that it is unlikely that the government will be signing the treaty any time soon. But it’s more important than ever that we grow the campaign against Trident, Britain’s nuclear weapons system, as well as all 12,000 warheads worldwide. How? At 3MSP, there was a real urgency from campaigners across the world that we have to expose the reality of the nuclear threat at this volatile international time.
Nuclear weapons don’t make us safer, they put us at risk. And it’s up to us to make that argument as loudly as we can, in the hope that when TPNW states next gather (in December 2026 to review the treaty), we have many more countries signed up and that we’re genuinely closer to our aim of a world without nuclear weapons.
(With thanks to Florian Eblenkamp, Advocacy Officer, ICAN for providing a report from 3MSP, selected parts of which have been used in this report)