SHARE
In support of ICAN, Norwegian People’s Aid is now establishing the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor, which will be a de facto monitoring regime for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
The research programme will monitor and advance universalization and faithful implementation of the TPNW and progress towards a world free of nuclear weapons.
-The establishment of such a monitoring regime for the TPNW is urgent and crucial in order to protect and promote it, at a time when the taboo around the use of nuclear weapons is diminishing and nuclear war is a real possibility. Norwegian People’s Aid has many years of experience from similar civil-society based monitoring mechanisms, like the Landmine Monitor and the Cluster Munition Monitor, says secretary general Henriette Westhrin in Norwegian People’s Aid.
The Monitor will reinforce the legitimacy of the TPNW as a legal and political tool and end-point in nuclear disarmament efforts, towards which all states must move. It will strengthen the efforts of the majority of states that reject nuclear weapons, and contribute to the stigmatization of continued reliance on nuclear deterrence and actions that prevent progress in nuclear disarmament.
The programme will be managed by Norwegian People’s Aid, which is a central organization in ICAN’s International Steering Group, in support of ICAN and its objectives. It will form an important part of the knowledge base upon which ICAN carries out its global advocacy. Data collection and analysis will be assisted by a number of research institutes.
The Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor will measure progress related to signature, ratification, entry into force and universalization of the TPNW. It will also assess the performance of all states (signatories, States party and States not party) in relation to the provisions and norms of the TPNW, including each of the specific prohibitions contained in Article 1, the positive obligations on victim assistance and environmental remediation in Article 6, and the reporting obligations.
A comprehensive report synthesizing key developments of the adoption of the TPNW will be launched later in 2018, but preliminary findings are already available, and can be downloaded below.
The Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor will provide governments, parliamentarians, the media, think-tanks, the academic community and civil society with an accessible and trusted long-term source of well-documented information on progress made and analysis of the key challenges.
Norwegian People’s Aid’s Grethe Lauglo Østern will head up the work with the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor.