CND Vice-President Rebecca Johnson contemplates what next for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is on 22 January 2026. This ground-breaking treaty, which prohibits the use, possession, production and deployment of nuclear weapons and requires concrete actions on the verified elimination of all nuclear arsenals, has 99 signatories so far – more than half the world!
After entry into force was achieved, the UN coordinated three decision-making Meetings of States Parties, which brought together governments and relevant national and international civil society activists and organisations, ranging from ICAN and the Red Cross to the Nuclear Truth Project and CND.
The TPNW took ‘ban the bomb’ hopes and turned them into a practical and proven legal instrument that has already developed a practical toolbox for preventing nuclear use and debunking claims that nuclear weapons are safe or useful for deterrence. As the prospects for a meaningful 11th nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in April-May look quite dim, we need to use the Banniversary to celebrate the TPNW and educate people about its prohibitions and provisions.
This year will be crucial. The very first TPNW Review Conference will be chaired by South Africa from 30 November to 4 December. It will review the Vienna Action Plan, discuss further practical steps to implement and verify disarmament, and support victim assistance and environmental remediation for communities affected by nuclear use and testing.
ICAN activists around the world will mark this ‘Banniversary’ with meetings, demonstrations, events, social media and letters to governments, mainstream local and national media. Our toolbox includes Don’t Bank on the Bomb divestment campaigns, Cities Appeals and Parliamentarians for the TPNW. See ICAN’s website for more information.
We live in perilous times. Climate breakdown and nuclear weapons are the greatest threats to humanity’s survival. The 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia and heavy use of bombs and drones in the war on Gaza have enabled nuclear-armed states to openly spend big billion pound budgets on more weapons while stealing from social and development budgets that support real human security needs.
Growing out of peace movements, the TPNW strategy was successful in harnessing human rights and international humanitarian law to change Cold War narratives about nuclear deterrence. As any form of nuclear war would cause catastrophic humanitarian consequences, it is an inalienable human right and responsibility of all of us to abolish nuclear weapons.
In this era of dangerously armed and unscrupulous leaders, we must highlight how antiviolent movements have changed the world already. Thousands of nuclear weapons were verifiably destroyed when SS20s and nuclear-armed cruise and ballistic missiles were banned by the 1987 INF Treaty. Many nuclear and military bases closed after the Cold War ended. In a London meeting of Pugwash in 2004, former Soviet President Gorbachev gave credit to the Greenham Women and peace movements of Europe.
In campaigning for the TPNW we are highlighting practical solutions as well as political and military dangers. Preventing the use of nuclear weapons requires that we protest the use of heavy bombing on Palestinian towns and neighbouring countries in the Middle East and North Africa. As military-industrial profiteers benefit from warmongering by nuclear-armed governments, more people in Britain and across the world are talking about nuclear weapons and war. It’s our job to point out that nuclear possession does not bring safety or deterrence. Nuclear possession is mainly used to project military power, impunity and freedom of action for unscrupulous leaders to violate international laws and commit genocide and crimes against humanity. We need to hold Britain, the other nuclear-armed governments, and pro-nuclear enablers to account.
We need to turn fears into hope. As rival nuclear-armed leaders and partners carry on with illegal military actions, reckless nuclear threats and unscrupulous wars, we need to show how this UN treaty is fundamental for tackling climate breakdown, opposing genocide, and halting dangerous and expensive nuclear expansion.
The TPNW strategy to ‘stigmatize, ban and eliminate’ nuclear weapons was an effective game-changer. Now is the time to highlight the crippling costs of nuclear weapons, and make people understand how this treaty can be used to disrupt the violence of nuclear-dependent governments and policies over our lives. Ring the bells before it is too late.