International Meetings On Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Countries that have ratified and signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to meet at the UN to strengthen the ban

Geneva 30 January 2025

Background on the TPNW

The TPNW was adopted by 122 countries in 2017 and came into force in 2021. It now has the support of 140 states in UN General Assembly votes and half of UN members have already signed, ratified or acceded to the treaty. ICAN is the civil society coordinator for the treaty.

The states parties, or members, of the treaty held their first meeting in Vienna in 2022, where they took two significant actions. In light of Russia’s nuclear threats following its invasion of Ukraine, they condemned any and all threats to use nuclear weapons in terms that have since been echoed by the G20 and individual leaders, including President Xi, Chancellor Scholz and then NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg.  The meeting also agreed the Vienna Action Plan to implement the treaty and this year’s meeting will hear the progress the countries are making on that.

In 2023, the states met again in New York and among the measures they agreed was to call out nuclear deterrence doctrine as a threat to human security and an obstacle to nuclear disarmament. In the words of the political declaration, they agreed: “To challenge the security paradigm based on nuclear deterrence by highlighting and promoting new scientific evidence about the humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons and juxtaposing this with the risks and assumptions that are inherent in nuclear deterrence.”

Why cover the meeting?

The meeting, known in UN parlance as 3MSP, matters because it will be the only treaty venue where there will be multilateral action on nuclear disarmament in 2025, given progress under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been stalled since 2010. Urgent action is needed to eliminate nuclear weapons given the threat that they could be used in conflict is at its highest since the Cold War due to Russia’s nuclear threats around its invasion of Ukraine, the conflict involving nuclear-armed Israel in the Middle East and continuing, acute nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula.

What will come out of the meeting?

In addition to reporting on what they have done to implement the Vienna Action Plan, countries will strengthen the treaty with decisions on high stakes matters such as how nuclear deterrence threatens the security of TPNW states, who are a global majority, the treaty verification regime and assistance to victims of the use and testing of nuclear weapons which will boost the implementation and impact of this young treaty.

ICAN has these specific expectations from the meeting:

• More states will sign and ratify the TPNW this year, encouraged by the leadership of the states that are already members.  Currently 98 states have ratified or signed the treaty which is approximately the same number as the Non-Proliferation Treaty had at the same stage in its life. The 73 states parties have also been urging nuclear-armed states and their allies to, at the minimum, start engaging with the TPNW by being observers at this meeting, following the example of NATO members Belgium, Germany, Norway and The Netherlands, as well as Australia, which all observed previous meetings of TPNW states.
• The meeting will move forward on the proposed trust fund to support survivors of the use and testing of nuclear weapons use and to pay for the clean up of the remaining contamination from nuclear testing around the world.
• The meeting will issue a strong condemnation of nuclear deterrence as a threat to all countries, the modernisation of weapons systems, and the new nuclear arms race.
• The outcome will continue a strong intersessional process, one in which concrete work towards nuclear disarmament is taking place.

Nuclear Ban Week actions

Alongside the UN meeting, ICAN will be hosting and coordinating a series of events for the accompanying Nuclear Ban Week across New York City and elsewhere, bringing together parliamentarians, scientists and campaigners, including members of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize-winners, Nihon Hidankyo, from all over the world to demand an end to nuclear weapons and show their support for the TPNW as the established, practical legal path to achieve this.

1. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) bans countries from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. It also prohibits them from assisting, encouraging or inducing anyone to engage in these activities.

About ICAN

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of non-governmental organizations in one hundred countries promoting adherence to and implementation of the United Nations nuclear weapon ban treaty. This landmark global agreement was adopted in New York on 7 July 2017. The campaign was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2017, for its “groundbreaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition” of nuclear weapons. More information about ICAN can be found at: www.icanw.org