Global Outlook

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) that will enter into force in January 2021 bans nuclear weapons by outlawing a number of practices. These include possessing nuclear weapons, developing, testing, stockpiling, transferring, using, threatening to use, encouraging and stationing them. To understand why the ban on nuclear weapons is a watershed moment in history that will bring about a psychological shift in how people think about nuclear weapons, we have to understand what it means to outlaw something.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) unnecessarily has become a bitter bone of contention between the non-nuclear-weapon States (NNWS) supporting this treaty and most of the nuclear-armed States and US allies in defence arrangements underpinned by US nuclear weapons. The opponents of the TPNW have raised a number of concerns and shortcomings relating to the TPNW. This short paper responds to some of these.

Amid the nightmare of a global pandemic and the crumbling pillars of nuclear arms control, the leadership of one of the few stars in the nuclear firmament still shining bright is due for vote in Vienna on 25–27 November.

The fiftieth ratification by Honduras a few weeks ago that will soon bring the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons into effect is a momentous occasion. It does not eliminate a single nuclear warhead, but it strengthens the principle that nuclear weapons are ethically indefensible and contrary to international law.

On October 24, 75 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Honduras became the 50th country to ratify the nuclear ban treaty. It will enter into force on January 22.

In a subtle diplomatic move, the Government of Canada has ceased its opposition and now “acknowledges” the reason for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which will enter into force on January 22, 2021. The new treaty, which has been ratified by 50 states, has been denounced by the Trump administration and also rejected by NATO.