The humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons (HINW)

[From this page, you can access the key documents from all three HINW conferences, and a large number of civil society resources and commentaries, including those produced by IPPNW, ICAN—the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement.]

The emerging movement to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons based upon a fact-based understanding of their humanitarian impact represents our best chance in decades to achieve a nuclear weapons-free world. A deepening appreciation of the precise short- and long-term horrors that nuclear weapons inflict on human health and well-being has motivated a growing number of States and civil society supporters to demand that more urgent and more effective steps be taken to ban and eliminate these weapons in order to prevent their use.

IPPNW’s new campaign kit makes the humanitarian case for banning and eliminating nuclear weapons

At the 2015 NPT Review Conference, 159 States signed a Joint Statement on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons, asserting their firm belief that “awareness of the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons must underpin all approaches and efforts towards nuclear disarmament,” and that “the only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons will never be used again is through their total elimination.”

The first intergovernmental conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons was convened in Oslo, Norway in March 2013. Follow-up conferences were held in Nayarit, Mexico in February 2014 and in Vienna, Austria in December 2014. IPPNW made substantial contributions to all three HINW conferences, which focused on the medical, environmental and social consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, including our most recent findings on the climate and famine effects of limited, regional nuclear war.

The Vienna HINW conference concluded with the “Austrian Pledge,” to “identify and pursue effective measures to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons,” and would “cooperate with all relevant stakeholders, States, International Organisations, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movements, parliamentarians and civil society, in efforts to stigmatise, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons in light of their unacceptable humanitarian consequences and associated risks.” The renamed “Humanitarian Pledge” has now been joined by more than 100 countries.

 Oslo Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons

• Conference website (presentations, statements, conference documents, streaming video)
• Chair’s Summary
• Presentation by IPPNW co-president Ira Helfand (video)
• Calling for a convention to eliminate nuclear weapons (Red Cross statement to Oslo Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, March 2013)

Nayarit Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons

• Conference summary (presentations, statements, conference documents)
• Chair’s Summary
• Presentation by Professor Alan Robock, Rutgers University
• Presentation by IPPNW co-president Ira Helfand (video)
• Presentation by Dr. Masao Tomonaga, Japanese Red Cross (video)

Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons

• Conference website (presentations, statements, conference documents, streaming video)
• Chair’s Summary
• The Humanitarian [Austrian] Pledge

Joint Statements on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons

• First Preparatory Committee, 2015 NPT Review Conference, Vienna, 2012 (16 States)
• United Nations General Assembly, October 2012 (35 States)
• Second Preparatory Committee, 2015 NPT Review Conference, Geneva, 2013 (80 States)
• United Nations General Assembly, October 2014 (155 States)

IPPNW Resources

• 2014 Nobel Peace Laureates Summit (presentation by IPPNW co-president Ira Helfand) (video)
• Banning Nuclear Weapons: The Humanitarian Facts (campaign kit)
• Nuclear Famine: two billion people at risk—global impacts of limited nuclear war on agriculture, food supplies, and human nutrition
• Global climate effects of regional nuclear war (Powerpoint presentation)
• The medical, environmental, and humanitarian consequences of nuclear war (video)
• Presentation by IPPNW co-president Ira Helfand, Oslo HINW conference (video)
• “Friends don’t let friends have nuclear weapons” (presentation by IPPNW co-president Ira Helfand, Nayarit HINW conference) (video)
• “Atomic bombing of a modern city” (presentation by Dr. Masao Tomonaga, Japanese Red Cross, Nayarit HINW conference) (video)

ICAN Resources

• “It’s time to have the courage to ban nuclear weapons” (Video statement at the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons)
• ICAN statement to the Vienna conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons
• Video statement at the Nayarit Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons
• The humanitarian imperative to ban nuclear weapons (video)
• 10 seconds is all it takes (video)
• Catastrophic Humanitarian Harm

International Red Cross Red Crescent Resources

• Working towards the elimination of nuclear weapons (2011 Council of Delegates resolution)
• Working towards the elimination of nuclear weapons: Four-year action plan
• ICRC statement to the United Nations, 2012
• Calling for a convention to eliminate nuclear weapons (Statement to Oslo Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, March 2013)
• Joint statement of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (Nayarit Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons)
• Joint statement of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) (Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons)
• The effects of nuclear weapons on human health
• Climate effects of nuclear war and implications for global food production
• Humanitarian assistance in response to the use of nuclear weapons
• Towards the elimination of nuclear weapons (video)

Other Resources

• Nuclear Abolition as a Humanitarian Imperative (13^th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, Warsaw, 2013)
• Unspeakable Suffering: The humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons (Reaching Critical Will)