Campaigners Launch New Monitoring Tool to Win Ratification of Global Anti-Nuke Treaty by 2019
As U.S. President Donald Trump’s looming withdrawal from a Cold War-era nuclear deal with Russia stokes fears of a new arms race, anti-nuclear activists on Monday launched a new monitoring resource to track compliance with the historic 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which campaigners optimistically predict could come into force as early as next year.
The world’s nine nuclear-armed nations have continued to fight against it since 122 countries adopted the landmark U.N. agreement last year. So far, only 19 have ratified it, according to the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor produced by Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), a partner of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
“We’re pushing for getting 50 ratifications by the end of 2019,” ICAN executive director Beatrice Fihn told Reuters. The treaty will enter force 90 days after the 50th state ratifies it.
“We have about 25, 30 countries that say that they will be ready by the end of 2019, so it’s definitely possible,” said Fihn, whose group was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”
While there is widespread support for the TPNW, NPA’s Grethe Østern, editor of the monitor, explained that “nuclear-armed states and some of their allies are trying to prevent the ban treaty from becoming international law. But the ban treaty is well on its way to entering into force. It has broad support in all regions of the world apart from Europe.”
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