Lois Barber, EarthAction’s Executive Director, is a member of the Coordinating Committee for the following important event set for April 2015. You are invited to join this global movement to make us all safer and more secure from the threat posed from the world's 16,000 nuclear weapons. Now’s the time for action.
Press Release: December 8, 2014
- International NGO Network Launches Plans for 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. Demands Fulfillment of NPT through Commencement of Negotiations for Complete Abolition of Nuclear Weapons.
Vienna and New York City -- On the occasion of the third International Conference on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons being held in Vienna, a broad international network of NGOs has announced plans for a major mobilization in the run-up to the critically important Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. The NPT Review Conference will be held at UN headquarters in New York City in April and May 2015. The Vienna conference, with more than 150 governments and 200 representatives of civil society participating, is designed to build momentum for a successful Review Conference.
Quoting the Call to Action, which was released today (see attached), Dr. Joseph Gerson of the American Friends Service Committee and a co-convener of the network said, “A nuclear weapon-free world can and must be achieved.” He continued, “The dangers of nuclear war didn’t disappear with the end of the Cold War. The United States and Russia have engaged in potentially catastrophic nuclear weapons drills during the continuing Ukraine crisis. ‘All options’ remain on the table threatening stability with Iran. In addition, the U.S. has flown simulated nuclear attacks against North Korea. Scientists now tell us that an exchange of between 50 and 100 of the world’s more than 16,000 nuclear weapons would result in a global famine leading to an estimated two billion deaths.”
Jackie Cabasso of the Western States Legal Foundation and also a co-convener of the international network, said: “The nuclear powers have refused to honor their legal and moral obligations to begin negotiations to ban and completely eliminate their nuclear arsenals. As we have seen at the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Disarmament and at the previous Conferences on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons, the vast majority of the world’s governments are demanding full implementation of the NPT. We are working with partner organizations in the U.S. and other nations to mobilize international actions to bring popular pressure to bear on the 2015 Review Conference.”
Judith LeBlanc of Peace Action, the third network co-convener, explained that “The spring 2015 Mobilization will highlight the inextricable connections between preparations for nuclear war, the environmental impacts of nuclear war and the nuclear fuel cycle, and military spending at the expense of meeting essential human needs.” The nine nuclear armed nations are spending an estimated $100 billion annually on nuclear weapons, with the U.S. planning to spend $1 trillion over the next three decades.
The Call to Action demands that “the parties to the NPT use the 2015 Review Conference to immediately, without delay, develop a time-bound framework for negotiating the elimination of their nuclear arsenals” and that the “four states outside the Treaty that have nuclear arms, India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan….join any such negotiations.” Additional demands are to address the causes of climate change, and to cut military spending to meet human needs and to create green jobs.
Ms. LeBlanc also reported that “Plans include a major international peace conference and march to the United Nations on the eve of the Review Conference, the presentation of millions of petition signatures to the Review Conference urging the abolition of nuclear weapons, creative nonviolent protests in New York and in national capitals around the world, and student and youth organizing campaigns.”
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – which entered into force in 1970 – is one of the seminal international agreements of the 20th century. Its three pillars committed the non-nuclear nations never to acquire nuclear weapons, while in exchange the nuclear powers committed in Article VI to engage in good faith negotiations to completely eliminate their nuclear arsenals. It also recognizes the right of all NPT signatories to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes – a serious flaw in the Treaty, due to the inherently dual-use nature of nuclear technology. A Review Conference is held at the United Nations every five years, providing the world’s nations an opportunity to hold one another accountable to their Treaty commitments.
The coordinating and advisory committees for the Spring 2015 Mobilization include representatives of 70 major peace, justice and environmental networks and organizations, scholars and physicists from the United States, Europe and Asia. (See www.PeaceAndPlanet.org)
For more information contact:
Judith LeBlanc (917-806-8775 in New York City) or [email protected]
Joseph Gerson (44-772-0231-0649 in Vienna) or [email protected]
Jackie Cabasso (44-7872-847093 in Vienna) or [email protected]
Image: WILPF
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