Building Blocks for Nuclear Ban Treaty: NPT & Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice
by Dr. John Burroughs, Senior Analyst, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will become binding law for participating states on January 22, 2021. Entry into force was triggered on October 24, the date marking the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, when Honduras become the 50th state to ratify the TPNW, reaching the threshold set by the treaty.
This is a signal accomplishment on the part of the 122 states, none nuclear-armed, that negotiated and adopted the TPNW in 2017, along with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which provided expert advice, and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a civil society initiative that won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
Together, the negotiating states, the ICRC, and ICAN took responsibility for creating a path toward the global elimination of nuclear weapons, essentially because the world’s most powerful states – all nuclear armed – are failing to do so.
In an October 24 statement, UN Secretary-General António Guterres commented that the entry into force of the TPNW “is the culmination of a worldwide movement to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons. It represents a meaningful commitment towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons, which remains the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations.”
The core provisions of the TPNW prohibit development, testing, possession, and threat or use of nuclear weapons. Reflecting the rise of “humanitarian disarmament,” the treaty also provides for assistance to victims of testing and use of nuclear arms and for environmental remediation of areas impacted by testing and use.
Further, the preamble observes that the “catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons cannot be adequately addressed, transcend national borders, pose grave implications for human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security and the health of current and future generations, and have a disproportionate impact on women and girls, including as a result of ionizing radiation.”
The preamble notes as well “the waste of economic and human resources on programmes for the production, maintenance and modernization of nuclear weapons.”