The Treaty of Tlatelolco is the conventional name given to the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is embodied in the OPANAL (the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, Spanish Acronym)).

Meeting in the Tlatelolco district of Mexico City on 14 February 1967, the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean drafted this treaty to keep their region of the world free of nuclear weapons. Whereas Antarctica had earlier been declared a nuclear-weapon-free zone under the 1961 Antarctic Treaty, this was the first time such a ban was put in place over such a vast, populated area.

Alyn Ware from Abolition 2000 has recently circulated the following message

Dear Abolition campaigners

Attached is the Declaration on Disarmament adopted on 20 August by the governments of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States which includes support for the UN Open Ended Working Group and also for a global treaty to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons (i.e. a nuclear weapons convention).

Key paragraphs include:

‘the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), having met on August 20, 2013…’;

Highlighted the full validity of the Declaration of the 33 Member States of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL), adopted in September 2011, reaffirming, inter alia, the urgent need to advance towards the primary goal of nuclear disarmament and achieve complete and general elimination of nuclear weapons, and in this regard, agreed to join the efforts of the International Community in making progress towards the negotiation of a universal and legally binding instrument banning nuclear weapons…

Recognized the work of the Open-ended Working Group established by Resolution A/RES/67/56 of the United Nations General Assembly, with the mandate to put forward proposals to foster multilateral negotiations on nuclear disarmament, as well as the proposals and contributions made in this Group by the CELAC Member Countries…

The full BUENOS AIRES, CELAC DECLARATION ON NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT can be read here. http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/1413460/618681356/name/BUENOS%20AIRES%2C%20CELAC%20DECLARATION%20ON%20NUCLEAR%20DISARMAMENT%20FINA