" As the world mobilises in response to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, we cannot afford to lose sight of the other global challenges that threaten all of us, including the worsening planetary climate emergency and the ongoing threat of catastrophic nuclear war."
More than 80 civil society organizations, concerned with nuclear disarmament, issued a joint statement to the States Parties of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) on May 11th, 2020. The Statement urges the government members of the NPT, especially the nuclear-armed states and their allies, to take serious steps to fulfill their obligations to nuclear disarmament under article VI of the NPT and join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), also known as the Nuclear Ban Treaty.
IFOR supports this initiative and is one of the endorsers of the Joint NGO Statement, which will be emailed to all Member States of the NPT, in view of the fact that the 2020 NPT Review Conference -previously scheduled at the UN in New York from April 27th to May 22nd 2020- was postponed to next spring due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
As reported by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, there are currently more than 14,000 nuclear weapons around the world, 9 nuclear armed states and about 32 nuclear weapons endorsing states.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. Original text of the NGOs JOINT STATEMENT
2. More info on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty are available at https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/
3. More info on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Treaty http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/tpnw/text