Stigmatize. Prohibit. Eliminate.
Those three words from the Humanitarian Pledge are the benchmarks of the four-year initiative that has made the ban treaty negotiations—which open today at the UN in New York—a reality.
The international conferences in Oslo, Nayarit, and Vienna were all about stigmatization. The medical, environmental, and humanitarian evidence presented at those conferences by IPPNW, the ICRC, climate scientists, UN relief agencies, and the leading international federations representing doctors, nurses, and public health professionals, went a long way toward accomplishing that objective. Read more…
IPPNW honors legacy of Bob Mtonga
The Dr. Robert Mtonga Memorial Scholarship
for peace through health
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPPNW) announces the establishment of the Dr. Robert Mtonga Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship was created to honor Dr. Mtonga’s memory and to carry forward his tireless work for peace, disarmament and health. Read more…
A new race for nuclear “superiority”?
The Trump tweet heard round the world. Meaning what, exactly?
If Robert Monroe has the ear of Donald Trump, US aspirations to seek a world without nuclear weapons, however ambivalent and distant they may have been under President Obama, could very quickly be replaced by an unrestrained quest for nuclear superiority.
Robert who? Read more…
The irrepressible Bob Mtonga
I needed all day for this to sink in. Getting past it will take a lot longer than that. Bob Mtonga was one of the most optimistic, dedicated, and irrepressible peace activists I’ve ever known. Nothing could get him down. Not all the armed violence in the world, not the need to scrape together whatever resources he could find in order to attend all the meetings everyone wanted him at, not the countless times he was rerouted from one airport to another and back again because immigration agents just make it so damn difficult for Africans to travel internationally. He’d eventually get where he was going, and would arrive with a smile on his face, and, if it was freezing cold (or just moderately warm, which is the same thing by Zambian standards), he’d borrow a pair of gloves and a scarf and maybe a sweater and proceed to warm everyone else up with his charismatic presence and an inexhaustible supply of proverbs, most of which I swear he made up on the spot to sound like ancient African wisdom. Read more…
Impact of war on civilian lives cannot be ignored
Australian troops in Iraq in 2005
The newly-declassified study, “The Australian army and the war in Iraq 2002 – 2010”, by Dr Albert Palazzo of the Directorate of Army Research and Analysis, and the recent report by Fairfax’s David Wroe of some of its major findings, have made a valuable contribution to debate (such as it is) about the disastrous decision by John Howard to take Australia into that war. One of the principal findings—that Howard’s motive, contrary to all the evolving pretexts that were on offer, was to strengthen our alliance with the US—comes as no surprise, given the paucity of other reasons for his decision that stacked up to scrutiny at the time. The report should reinforce the grave questions that exist about the nature of our alliance with the US, whether we have learnt anything, and the possibility of a current or future PM doing precisely the same thing given the opportunity. Read more…
The accession of Donald Trump to the US presidency brings us face-to-face with a question that many have tried to avoid since 1945: Should anyone have the right to plunge the world into a nuclear holocaust?
Trump, of course, is an unusually angry, vindictive, and mentally unstable American president. Therefore, given the fact that, acting totally on his own, he can launch a nuclear war, we have entered a very perilous time. Read more…
“Nuclear weapons are simply too dangerous to exist”
IPPNW Co-President Ira Helfand and PSR Board member Robert Dodge have two very important letters in today’s New York Times, calling for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons, and questioning whether we can continue to avoid a catastrophic nuclear war during the Trump administration.
Dr. Helfand notes that the election of Donald Trump has “demolished a critical underpinning of nuclear deterrence policy: the requirement that the arsenals of the nuclear-armed states would be controlled by responsible leaders. It is time to acknowledge that these weapons are simply too dangerous to exist.”
Dr. Dodge challenges the “unexamined assumption” by the Times editorial board “that all presidents have had and should have the authority to launch a nuclear attack. It is unlikely that this president or any modern president has any idea what the consequences of a nuclear attack would be. None have been asked when they would unleash such an attack ending life as we know it.”
Helfand also called on the US to support ban treaty negotiations that begin next month at the United Nations.
[The following statement from 21 Nobel Peace Laureates was released at the conclusion of the 16th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Bogota, Colombia.]
Co-president Ira Helfand (top row, center) at the 16th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, where 20 Laureates joined IPPNW in calling for a new treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.
On March 27, negotiations will commence at the United Nations for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. As Nobel Peace Laureates we applaud the UN General Assembly for convening this negotiating conference, fully support its goals, and urge all nations to work for the speedy conclusion of this treaty in 2017 and for its rapid entry into force and implementation. Read more…
IPPNW welcomes China’s call to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons; urges leadership at UN treaty negotiations
Chinese president Xi Jinping: “Nuclear weapons … should be completely prohibited.”
IPPNW welcomes the statement by Chinese President Xi Jinping that “nuclear weapons … should be completely prohibited and destroyed over time to make the world free of them.” President Xi’s remarks, made during a speech on January 18 at the United Nations in Geneva, were consistent with China’s long-standing official support for nuclear disarmament, and come as the UN is preparing to convene negotiations on a new treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.
China gave a positive signal at the UN General Assembly last month, unlike its other P5 partners, when it abstained from, rather than voting against, a resolution authorizing negotiations for a treaty banning nuclear weapons. The resolution was carried by a majority of over three to one. China can now show real leadership by declaring its intention to participate in the negotiating conference for the ban treaty opening this March, with the goal of making the complete prohibition of nuclear weapons an unequivocal international norm. By doing so, China would not only take an important practical step toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, it would also send a strong signal to the other eight nuclear-armed states that their objections to the negotiations and their criticisms of the treaty itself are misplaced, and that their massive reinvestments in nuclear warheads, delivery systems, and infrastructure are dangerous and contradictory to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. The obligation to achieve that goal is spelled out in Article VI of the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and the International Court of Justice has unanimously said that all States, whether or not they possess nuclear arms, have an obligation under international law to negotiate nuclear disarmament.
IPPNW urges China to act upon President Xi’s timely and important policy statement by sending a delegation to the opening session of the ban treaty negotiating conference in March, with clear instructions to participate in good faith and in cooperation with the non-nuclear-armed states leading this historic process.
A peace agenda for the new administration
The looming advent of the Trump administration in Washington threatens to worsen an already deeply troubling international situation. Bitter wars are raging, tens of millions of refugees have taken flight, relations among the great powers are deteriorating, and a new nuclear arms race is underway. Resources that could be used to fight unemployment, poverty, and climate change are being lavished on the military might of nations around the world―$1.7 trillion in 2015 alone. The United States accounts for 36 percent of that global total.
Given this grim reality, let us consider an alternative agenda for the new administration―an agenda for peace. Read more…
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IPPNW peace and health blog 