International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

ICAN is a top ten finalist nominee in the MySpace Impact Awards Australia, which recognises organisations making a difference.

MySpace users please log in, vote now for ICAN here and help spread the word.

Voting is open until May 23 and you can vote only once. The prize money would make such a difference in our campaign to abolish the world's 26,000 nuclear weapons.

(ICAN congratulates Judge Weeramantry who has been a significant ICAN supporter...)

As a judge on the International Court of Justice, Judge Weeramantry wrote a lengthy dissent to the Court's Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons.

The Court found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal, but held open the possibility of legality in an extreme circumstance in which the very survival of a state was at stake.

In his dissent, Judge Weeramantry concluded that there was no instance in which the threat or use of nuclear weapons could be considered legal under international law. Judge Weeramantry's dissent in this case remains the most comprehensive and important legal opinion written on this critical issue.

By Lawrence S. Wittner

Although few people are aware of it, there has been considerable progress over the past decade toward a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons.

For many years, there had been a substantial gap between the pledges to eliminate nuclear weapons made by the signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 and the reality of their behaviour.

To remedy this situation, in 1996 the New York-based Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy - the U.S. affiliate of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms - began to coordinate the drafting of a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention. Formulated along the lines of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which entered into force in 1997, this model nuclear convention was designed to serve as an international treaty that prohibits and eliminates nuclear weapons.

The Australian Government's 2020 Summit vision includes mention of nuclear weapons, with major credit for this going to Felicity Hill, WILPF Vice President and previous ICAN employee. Jessica Morrison's contribution to on-line community GetUp also made it to the forum.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has just celebrated its first birthday.

We urge you to sign on here if you've not already done so, to show your support for the campaign, tell us of your events and how you're helping spread the word.

I can, you can, We Can Abolish Nuclear Weapons

See ICAN campaigner Tim Wright's blog on disarmament and vote on: "Is the abolition of nuclear weapons achievable within our lifetime?"

More than 600 doctors and medical students from 44 countries brought IPPNW's call for the abolition of nuclear weapons and for the prevention of war and small arms violence to India, when they gathered in New Delhi for the 18th World Congress from March 9-11.

POINT OF VIEW/ Jayantha Dhanapala:

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

The vision of a nuclear weapon-free world was most famously dismissed by the former Prime Minister of Britain, Margaret Thatcher, as a "pie in the sky." Such was the derision which greeted the disarmament scenario championed by governments, especially from the Non-aligned Movement, as well as nongovernmental organizations such as Pugwash.

It is therefore a revolutionary change to see senior officials in former U.S. Administrations combine to write - not one but two - pieces in the conservative Wall Street Journal, calling for such pie in the sky.

On March 16 ICAN joined with co-organisers the Stop the War Coalition, members of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Friends of the Earth, other non-government organisations, unions, church groups and the public for traditional Palm Sunday peace events across Australia.

Read our national round up of events here (pdf).

Happy supporters.

Over 120 women from more than 40 countries gathered in Geneva from 5-6 March 2008 to discuss 'Women, War, Weapons and Conflict Prevention'. Also discussed was the next phase of activity in putting resolution 1325 to work so that it does more than add a few sentences to speeches, more than add a few women to UN departments and peace keeping operations.

The revised Model Nuclear Weapons Convention (UN/62/650) for "General and complete disarmament" is now accessible in the six UN languages on the UN Documents website: www.un.org/documents.

As stated in the document, this revised model takes into account relevant technical, legal and political developments since 1997.

You can view it in the following language versions:

• English
• Arabic
• Chinese
• French
• Russian
• Spanish

Hiroshima - Ypres, January 28th 2008

At a press conference in Hiroshima, Japan, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba announced that the 2020 Vision Campaign of Mayors for Peace is successful in preparing for the Decisive Decade for Nuclear Disarmament.

by John Langmore.

'On 29 and 30 August 2007 six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads were loaded on a US Air Force plane, flown across the country and unloaded. For 36 hours no-one knew where the warheads were or even that they were missing.'

Sunday March 16 (Sat March 15 in Tas)

• Melbourne: 2pm at the State Library (corner Swanston & Latrobe Streets, city).

Download the poster. Organised by the Palm Sunday Committee 2008.

Read our report of the national events here (pdf).

Endorsed by ICAN, the Peace Organisation of Australia, the Justice and International Mission of the Uniting Church, Nuclear Free Australia and the Stop the War Coalition.