We’ve heard throughout the day about rising nuclear threats – how nuclear-armed states are placing us and all that we love at risk of annihilation. I’d like to deliver a message of hope – what we can do, based on what we have done, to get rid of these atrocious weapons once and for all. This dark picture would cause some to throw up their hands and suggest that there is nothing to be done towards nuclear disarmament in 2026. That we simply must wait for more favorable security conditions to come about and in the meantime surrender to the inevitable arms race.
But we can’t afford to be hopeless when there are still more than 12,000 nuclear weapons in the world today, and we know that the use of any one of those weapons would have catastrophic consequences. We cannot afford to be so naive as to believe that an academic theory called nuclear deterrence will keep us safe forever from these weapons of mass destruction.
While there have always been those who argued that nuclear weapons were indispensable for their own security, there has also always been a challenge to this argument.
People and countries have stood up and achieved progress on nuclear disarmament in times of the highest tensions.
The Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement which started in the 1970s united Indigenous peoples from across the Pacific and resulted in multiple countries declaring themselves nuclear-free, including Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, and the adoption of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone in 1985.
During the Cold War, protestors in Europe were instrumental in bringing about the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, for example, brought hundreds of women to a permanent peace camp and thousands of protesters, over several years, to protest the UK’s decision to store U.S. nuclear missiles there.
In Kazakhstan, the Nevada-Semipalatinsk Antinuclear Movement’s strong protests led to cancelled tests and the closure of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, at the time one of the Soviet Union’s major nuclear testing sites, after two million people signed a petition. Protesters in Kazakhstan stood in solidarity with other individuals impacted by nuclear testing around the world, from Nevada to the Pacific.
Activists at the heart of the nuclear weapons enterprise in the United States and the Soviet Union spoke about the impacts of nuclear weapons and advocated for a ban on nuclear testing. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for their advocacy. And then the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was adopted in 1996, leading to the modern day global moratorium on nuclear testing.
Let’s not forget that the NPT itself was negotiated thanks to the leadership of non-nuclear-armed states, like Ireland, and Article VI exists only due to the concerted advocacy of the non-aligned movement.
Most recently, an international movement, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, that today counts more than 700 partner organizations in more than 110 countries worked with the overwhelming majority of governments to negotiate the first globally applicable treaty banning nuclear weapons.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted in July 2017 and entered into force in 2021. It prohibits countries from engaging in any nuclear weapons activity. A country that possesses nuclear weapons may join the treaty, so long as it agrees to destroy them in accordance with a legally binding, time-bound plan, within 10 years. Similarly, a country that hosts another country’s nuclear weapons on its territory may join, so long as it agrees to remove them within 90 days.
Countries are obliged to provide assistance to survivors of the use and testing of nuclear weapons and to take measures for the remediation of contaminated environments.
The TPNW is a bright light on the international arena, proof that the majority of the world does not believe that nuclear weapons are acceptable or legitimate and are willing to take action. Nuclear disarmament may not happen overnight, but it won’t happen because of the leadership of nuclear-armed states either. Non-nuclear armed states need to collectively put pressure on nuclear-armed states to disarm and the TPNW is one way to do so.
There is overwhelming public support for the TPNW in many countries that have not yet joined it. Polls from 2018-2021 show that majorities in nine European countries polled, from France to Germany to Italy to the Netherlands support their country joining the TPNW.
Recent data from April 2025 YouGov polls also demonstrates the majorities of those polled in seven European states do not support hosting U.S. nuclear weapons, including in current nuclear host states Germany and Italy.
The TPNW is a practical policy solution and provides an avenue to engage local governments, parliamentarians, financial institutions and others on nuclear disarmament action.
Over 500 cities, including New York, Washington D.C, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Paris, Manchester, Geneva, Canberra, Berlin, Oslo, and Toronto have publicly supported the treaty and urged their governments to join it.
Over 1,400 sitting parliamentarians around the world have committed to work to get their government to join the treaty and they are now putting forward motions, debating the treaty, asking questions to the executive branch and increasing pressure in other ways.
Fifty-six former presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, and defence ministers from 20 NATO states, along with Japan and South Korea, released an open letter in September 2020 imploring current leaders to “show courage and boldness” and join the TPNW. They warned that the risks of nuclear weapons being used, “whether by accident, miscalculation, or design”, are increasing, and described the TPNW as “a beacon of hope in a time of darkness.”
A report released just last Friday by PAX and ICAN documents the 301 financial institutions with significant financial ties to the NW industry in the past 2 years, but campaigns from Scotland to Japan are urging divestment.
These are difficult times indeed. But those of us pushing for nuclear disarmament are not alone and we have a winning strategy. In these times, we are even more motivated to work to get every country to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
We are looking forward to and preparing for the first Review Conference of the TPNW from 30 November to 4 December, where we can expect to see a strong, united condemnation of these escalating nuclear threats and further commitment to action towards a nuclear-weapon-free-world. We hope you and your governments participate – and now is the time to advocate for them to do so.
And we have no other choice. As long as nuclear weapons exist, they threaten life on earth as we know it. Placing our faith in an unproven theory like nuclear deterrence is not good enough. We need to take action to undermine the power ascribed to these weapons of mass destruction by a handful of world leaders and secure our future from the threat of mass annihilation.