United Nations  Disarmament Week 24-30 October

 

Since its founding, the United Nations has sought the global elimination of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear weapons pose a unique and existential threat to humanity due to their unparalleled destructive power. One nuclear weapon can destroy a whole city, potentially killing millions, and jeopardizing the natural environment and lives of future generations through its long-term catastrophic effects. Although nuclear weapons have only been used twice in warfare—in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945—about 13,080 reportedly remain in our world today and there have been over 2,000 nuclear tests conducted to date. Pursuing a world free of nuclear weapons is the best protection against such dangers but achieving this goal has been a tremendously difficult challenge.

Various bodies of the United Nations, including the General Assembly and Security Council, work to advance international peace and security through the pursuit of the elimination of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, the regulation of conventional arms, and ensuring responsible innovation and use of advances in science and technology. The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), first established in 1983, supports these bodies, the Secretary-General, Member States and civil society groups in pursuing these goals. The Office promotes:

  • Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation;
  • Strengthening of the disarmament regimes in respect to other weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological weapons;
  • Disarmament and arms control efforts in the area of conventional weapons, such as landmines, cluster munitions, the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, and the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, as well as through increasing transparency via the UN Register of Conventional Arms;
  • Ensuring responsible innovation and use of advances in science and technology and addressing emerging weapon technologies such as autonomous weapon systems.

Canada must commit to ending the threat of nuclear annihilation by signing and ratifying the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. On January 22, 2021 the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) came into force. Elizabeth May, Parliamentary Leader of the Green Party of Canada, joined former Ambassador for Disarmament and retired Parliamentarian, the Hon Douglas Roche, Senator Marilou McPhedran and as well as Members of Parliament from the Liberal, Bloc and New Democratic Parties to call for Canada to sign and ratify the treaty.
“Canada led the way on the Ottawa Process to ban landmines – even though we do not manufacture or use landmines. In the same way, as a non-nuclear weapons state, we must work to eliminate nuclear weapons,” said Ms. May. “Recent years have seen a major increase in military nuclear spending by nuclear weapons states as the former US administration and current Russian government retreated from the promise of the Gorbachev-Reagan era. Now is the time for Canada to step up and join this landmark treaty.

 

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