INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Nine countries in the world possess 26,000 nuclear weapons. Thousands are primed to be launched on warning within minutes. Each directly threatens global security and human survival. A single nuclear bomb, if dropped on a city, could kill millions of people. They are the only weapons capable of destroying the planet in a matter of hours.

The abolition of nuclear weapons is possible, necessary and increasingly urgent. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a global grassroots movement, initiated by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and launched internationally at a meeting of parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2007.

We are calling on governments to negotiate a binding Nuclear Weapons Convention - a comprehensive treaty to ban nuclear weapons and ensure their elimination. At least 127 countries – including China, India, Pakistan and North Korea – support such a treaty. We have already outlawed chemical weapons, biological weapons, landmines and cluster munitions. Now we must turn our attention to banning nuclear weapons.

Many former and current political leaders are now calling on the nuclear weapon states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, and some military leaders assert that nuclear weapons have no military use. In 1996, the International Court of Justice concluded that “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

Scientists, who worked on the Manhattan Project to produce the first three atomic bombs, introduced the Doomsday Clock in 1947 to alert the world of the prospect of nuclear war. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to a nuclear catastrophe. On 17^th January 2007, the minute hand was moved from seven to five minutes to midnight.

We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not only are governments refusing to get rid of their nuclear weapons, but they are also building new ones and lowering the threshold for their use. Nuclear weapons must be abolished before they abolish us.

The key to success is you. All people, from every part of the globe, must join forces to demand the abolition of nuclear weapons. No task is more urgent than this.

International Campaign To Abolish Nuclear Weapons

www.icanw.org