Statement by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) to the 79th session of the First Committee of the UN General Assembly
Delivered by Seth Shelden, General Counsel and United Nations Liaison, ICAN
16 October 2024
Excellencies, distinguished delegates,
At the outset, let me congratulate Ambassador Chan – a committed advocate for disarmament and friend of civil society – on her election as Chair.
ICAN also congratulates Nihon Hidankyo – the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Survivors – on the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. Hibakusha are the true experts on nuclear weapons and their catastrophic consequences. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is honoured to work closely alongside Nihon Hidankyo to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons. May they continue to guide all of us, and all of you.
Delegates,
With the Pact for the Future, UN member states decided, by consensus, to recommit to the total elimination of nuclear weapons and to “take all possible steps to prevent nuclear war.”
Today, we challenge every member state to consider what more you can do to fulfill this promise.
A major impediment is the continued promotion, by a few dozen governments, of the dangerous fallacy of “nuclear deterrence”. Even while most have agreed to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in security policies.
As states parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons declared at last year’s second Meeting of States Parties:
“The . . . attempts to justify nuclear deterrence as a legitimate security doctrine give false credence to the value of nuclear weapons for national security and dangerously increase the risk of horizontal and vertical nuclear proliferation.”
Delegates,
The death toll from nuclear conflict would be orders of magnitude greater than that of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 2025 will mark 80 years since those atrocities – and 80 years since the UN was founded to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. To fulfill that essential mission, we must eliminate nuclear weapons.
The TPNW reflects the majority view that nuclear weapons are not a legitimate means of defence, but a threat to us all.
ICAN applauds TPNW states parties and signatories, which now total half of all states, and which include five of the ten largest states by population. We celebrate last month’s ratifications by Indonesia, Sierra Leone, and Solomon Islands.
We join the President of the General Assembly in his statement to this Committee last week urging all states that have not yet ratified or acceded to the TPNW to do so without delay.
Next March, the treaty’s third Meeting of States Parties will take place in New York. We urge all states to participate, including those not yet willing to join.
Delegates,
The hibakusha of Nihon Hidankyo were children when the US detonated two atomic bombs above them.
More than 38,000 other children perished. Many more suffered, as did their descendants, in ensuing years. Please bear in mind their stories – please think of your children, and of future generations – when carrying out the work of this Committee.
As Terumi Tanaka, co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, and a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, emphasised at a press conference last Friday: all of us are future hibakusha candidates. So all of us must work together to eliminate nuclear weapons.
Before they eliminate us.
We thank you.