Seikyo Shimbun has generously allowed republication of their interview with Ambassador Alexander Kmentt, President of the First Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW which was held in Vienna from 21-23 June 2022. Ambassador Kmentt gave this interview to Seikyo Shimbun on 24 June 2022 and it was first published on 6 July 2022.

The nuclear scenario today appears confusing. On one hand, the nuclear taboo has held, the NPT is a near universal treaty, and nuclear weapon stockpiles are a fourth of what they were at the height of the Cold War, and yet, on the other hand, there is a perception that nuclear risks are higher than before.

In the space of just over four months, the Ukraine war has turned into an exhausting global conflict that has already left the West feeling increasingly fatigued.

A ban is not an exercise in abstract morality, but involves questions of power, most importantly how people can amass discursive power to change the rules and operation of the international system to the extent that wars of aggression became “presumed against”.

This is the text of a presentation made by Ambassador Nobuyasu Abe at a workshop hosted by Toda Peace Institute and Vienna Centre for Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, at VCDNP on Friday 24 June 2022.

This is the text of the address delivered by Ramesh Thakur at the launch of The Nuclear Ban Treaty: A Transformational Reframing of the Global Nuclear Order (Routledge, 2022) at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation on Friday, 24 June 2022.