United Nations adopts resolution to prohibit nuclear weapons in 2017

27 October 2016, New York

On 27 October, the United Nations adopted a resolution to negotiate a legally
binding treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons in 2017.
123 states voted in favour of the resolution in the First Committee of the UN
General Assembly, which deals with issues related to disarmament and
international security. 68 states voted against, and 16 abstained.
The adoption of this resolution represents a meaningful advancement towards
the elimination of nuclear weapons, said Ray Acheson, Director of the
disarmament programme of the Womens International League for Peace and
Freedom (WILPF). It also represents a revolt of the vast majority of states
against the violence, intimidation, and injustice perpetuated by those supporting
these weapons of mass destruction.
WILPF, the oldest womens peace organization in the world, is a member of the
International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear
Weapons (ICAN), the leading civil society coalition advocating for a ban on
nuclear weapons. Noting decades of activism against nuclear weapons around
the world, Ms. Acheson argued that the pursuit of a treaty to prohibit nuclear
weapons is transformative.
By stigmatising nuclear weapons through legally codifying their prohibition, a
treaty banning nuclear weapons will help facilitate nuclear disarmament, she
suggested. It will be an essential legal tool to help compel nuclear-armed states
to disarm by creating legal, political, economic, and social disincentives for the
possession of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons remain the only weapons of mass destruction not yet outlawed
in a comprehensive and universal manner, despite their well-documented
catastrophic humanitarian and environmental impacts. Five of the nine nucleararmed states1 are legally obligated to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, under the
1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Instead, however, all nucleararmed states are investing billions of dollars in modernizing their nuclear
forces.
Thus it has been non-nuclear-armed states leading the process for a nuclear
weapon ban treaty. A total of 57 states co-sponsored the resolution in the
General Assembly, with Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, Nigeria, and South Africa
taking the lead in drafting the resolution.
This treaty will not eliminate nuclear weapons overnight, explained Ms.
Acheson. But prohibitions of weapon systems have in the past proven to be
essential to their elimination, from biological and chemical weapons to
The China, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, United
Kingdom, United States possess nuclear weapons. Of these China, France, Russia, UK, and US are
NPT states parties.
1

antipersonnel landmines and cluster munitions. Its past time nuclear weapons
were subjected to the same type of prohibition under international law.
Negotiations are set to take place 2731 March and 15 June7 July 2017 in New
York. WILPF is calling for all states to participate constructively in the
negotiations, but warns that the participation of any particular state or group of
states must not be considered requisite for success. Any process to ban nuclear
weapons must be open to all and blockable by none, and inclusive of civil society.
Contact
Ray Acheson, ray@reachingcriticalwill.org, 212-682-1265
More information at www.reachingcriticalwill.org or www.icanw.org