STEADY PROGRESS, STRONG HEADWINDS: MARKING THE SECOND ‘BANNIVERSARY’ OF THE TREATY ON THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
January 22, 2023
Peace Quest Breton (PQCB) today joins anti-nuclear campaigners around the world in celebrating the second anniversary of the entry-into-force of the 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the ‘Ban Treaty’ outlawing the possession, development, testing, production, manufacture, transfer and stationing of nuclear weapons. In addition, the treaty is a landmark example of humanitarian disarmament, with trailblazing language on ‘victim assistance and environmental remediation’ and ‘international cooperation and assistance,’ provisions designed to redress the grave, intergenerational harms caused by nuclear use, testing, and production, often by colonial powers on indigenous territory.
As a Canadian peace group, we call on this country – a member of the world’s only nuclear armed military alliance, NATO – to renounce its unnecessary and demeaning ‘dependence’ on these obscene, genocidal weapons of mass destruction, and to join the treaty’s 68 States Parties, and 92 signatories, in declaring nuclear weapons to be not just immoral but illegal, posing a clear and present danger to all life on Earth. Even before or without taking this step, Canada should be contributing funds, resources and expertise to support TPNW-led efforts to help and heal nuclear-afflicted communities and environments.
Each ‘Banniversary’ is a time to stake stock of progress in not only banning but more importantly eliminating nuclear weapons. The current picture is mixed, with steady progress in strengthening the Ban, and growing its membership, meeting vicious headwinds of nuclear escalation and bravado. The first banniversary came a month before President Putin’s immoral and illegal invasion of Ukraine, an act of aggression clearly emboldened by Russia’s huge nuclear arsenal. While the shock of the War led two neutral countries, Finland and Sweden, to hastily join nuclearized NATO – without holding referendums – it also confirmed many governments, particularly in the Global South, in their rejection of a policy of nuclear ‘deterrence’ that is clearly failing to deter armed conflict. As the First Meeting of States Parties (1MSP) to the TPNW declared in Vienna in June 2022:
“Far from preserving peace and security, nuclear weapons are used as instruments of policy, linked to coercion, intimidation and heightening of tensions. This highlights now more than ever the fallacy of nuclear deterrence doctrines, which are based and rely on the threat of the actual use of nuclear weapons and, hence, the risks of the destruction of countless lives, of societies, and of nations, and of inflicting global catastrophic consequences.”
The 1MSP also adopted a comprehensive, 50-point Action Plan. As we mark the second banniversary, Action 16 is perhaps the most relevant, and sobering, of all:
“We have no illusions about the challenges and obstacles that lie before us in realizing the aims of this Treaty, but we move ahead with optimism and resolve. In the face of the catastrophic risks posed by nuclear weapons and in the interest of the very survival of humanity, we cannot do otherwise. We will take every path that is open to us and work persistently to open those that are still closed. We will not rest until the last State has joined the Treaty, the last warhead has been dismantled and destroyed and nuclear weapons have been totally eliminated from the Earth.
For the full text of the treaty and regular news and updates, please visit the website of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), recipients of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, https://icanw.org.
For more information on Peace Quest Cape Breton’s campaign to persuade Canada to join the Ban, please contact Sean Howard, PQCB Campaign Coordinator, at sean@peacequestcapebreton.ca.
