Happy new year to campaigners and partner organisations around the world! I hope you are all feeling energised and excited for the year ahead.
I’ve now been in the role of ICAN ED for 5 whirlwind months, including of course Nuclear Ban Week in NY late last year, where I had the pleasure of meeting many of you. As we move into this new year, I wanted to share some of the developments I am excited about, as well as some bigger picture questions we will have to take on, to help our campaign succeed.
First of all there is, of course, the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). We’re starting the year with some exciting news about the ratification by Sao Tome & Principe on 15 January, bringing us to 70 states parties! Not bad, for such a young treaty.
Next week, on 22 January we will celebrate the third anniversary of the coming into force of the TPNW, an opportunity to highlight the treaty’s impact to date and its continued momentum. We have already heard from a few of you about a variety of actions and events you will be organising to mark the day.
I’m personally looking forward to being in Japan during this important anniversary, to urge Japan to engage with the treaty and to demonstrate the moral leadership it is uniquely positioned to exercise as the only nation to have been attacked by nuclear weapons in war time. I will be talking about the groundbreaking nature of the treaty, its provisions regarding victim assistance and environmental remediation, as well as the strong declaration from the second meeting of states parties (2MSP) concerning the fallacy of nuclear deterrence. I will also be mentioning our divestment work that has already seen investors valued at more than $1 trillion support the TPNW. This is work we will continue to build on this year, and which will also tie into a global week of action against nuclear spending in June.
We will also hear the new time for the Doomsday Clock (currently set to 90 seconds to midnight) from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists next week. This is always a powerful opportunity to engage the media with the nuclear weapons issue, and to start conversations about how nuclear weapons relate to the other existential threats we are all facing.
I believe we need to move the global discussion around nuclear weapons out of the silos of disarmament and security and into the mainstream. Nuclear weapons are everyone’s business: they are not separate from other global concerns; they are deeply interconnected with climate change, biodiversity loss, health, human rights and development, among other things.
So let’s make both the peace and environmental movements even stronger by joining forces and thinking about the issues holistically. What is our vision for the planet? Certainly there are no nuclear weapons on a sustainable planet. This is something we will be exploring and talking about a lot more in the coming year, and I would be very interested in hearing from you all how your organisation approaches these matters.
Thank you in advance for continuing to shine your light this year in any way you can. But make sure to look after yourselves too. Remember that we are not separate from nature but a part of it. That’s why it feels so good to go for a walk in a forest or swim in the sea. As David Attenborough observed, “Nature provides our air, our food and our water and is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it”.
In being part of this movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons, together, we are defending nature and ourselves.
I am confident we will achieve great things together this year.
Sincerely,
melissa
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