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ICAN and Peace Boat are coordinating a global civil society working group on nuclear disarmament in preparation for the G7 Summit in Hiroshima. For the first time ever, heads of state from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as high level representatives from the European Union, will visit Hiroshima, Japan, 19-21 May 2023. They cannot dare to leave without a plan to end nuclear weapons.
The upcoming G7 meeting in Hiroshima is an opportunity for those leaders of nuclear armed or nuclear endorsing states to prevent a global catastrophe by outlining a strategy for achieving nuclear disarmament with all other nuclear-armed states. Anything less will be unacceptable given the current dangerous moment we are in.
The Government of Japan assumed the G7 Presidency on 1 January 2023.
Japanese Prime Minister Kishida has deliberately chosen the first city to suffer a nuclear attack to put international peace and security at the centre of the leaders’ agenda. Russia’s nuclear saber-rattling must focus their minds on removing the greatest threat to peace and security – nuclear weapons.
And the broad civil society network, the “G7 Civil Society Coalition on G7 Summit 2023”, was established to coordinate the civil society engagement around the G7 process, also called the C7.
The C7 process is accompanied by several Working Groups (Climate and Environmental Justice; Economic Justice and Transformation; Global Health; Humanitarian Assistance & Conflicts; Nuclear Disarmament, and; Resilient Democracies) which will develop policy recommendations for key topics that will later form the basis for lobbying activities and the C7 Communiqué. This document will be presented to G7 governments in order to provide an international civil society perspective and influence the G7 outcomes and commitments.
Susi Snyder who is coordinating this effort for ICAN said “We believe that the risk of nuclear conflict is now as high as it has ever been. The G7 cannot remain silent on this issue, and neither shall we.”
ICAN and Peace Boat will serve as international and domestic coordinators of the nuclear disarmament working group, and we invite relevant organisations to contribute to the development of recommendations to be presented to the G7.
For more information, or to join the working group see the C7 website here: https://civil7.org/get_involved/