The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), signed in September 2017, is attracting new adherents. The Treaty was adopted by 122 states to a standing ovation at the UN General Assembly.
With Palestine joining the Treaty on 22 March, six UN member states and permanent observers have now ratified the TPNW. And with the parliaments of Costa Rica and Austria voting unanimously in support of the ban on 15 and 21 March respectively, the TPNW looks set to attract another two members before long.
ICAN welcomes the steady growth of the ban-treaty community and notes that the rate of ratification is of a similar speed to that of comparable legal instruments, such as the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty and the 2008 Oslo Convention on Cluster Munitions.
“It is inspiring to see responsible states standing up to the nuclear-armed states’ inflammatory rhetoric and indefinite retention of weapons of mass destruction by ratifying the TPNW”, says ICAN’s Executive Director, Beatrice Fihn. “The voices of fire and fury should not be met with silence. All states should move rapidly to join the ban treaty.”
The TPNW will enter into legal force once it has been ratified by 50 states.
