The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was adopted in 2017 and will enter into force in January 2021. The Treaty provides a first-ever unconditional global ban on the use of nuclear arms. Several Norwegian political parties, organisations, and individuals – including six former prime ministers, defence ministers, and foreign ministers – have voiced their support for the agreement. The government, for its part, has argued that ratification of the TPNW would contradict NATO and undermine Norway’s security and defence capability. Labour, Norway’s largest opposition party, has expressed support for Norwegian signature in the long term, but simultaneously suggested that adherence at present could reduce Norway’s access to influence and protection.
This report analyses nuclear policymaking in NATO, Norway’s role in allied cooperation, and the potential consequences of Norwegian adherence to the TPNW. The report is based on a mix of open sources, documents released from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on freedom of information requests, and six in-depth interviews with individuals with long experience from leadership positions in the Norwegian civil service and/or the Norwegian armed forces.
Nuclear weapons entered NATO strategy in the mid-1950s. In 1957, the United States suggested deploying American nuclear weapons in European countries as a means of offsetting the Soviet Union’s breakthroughs in long-range missile technology and assumed conventional superiority. Norwegian policymakers rejected the offer in favour of a continuation of the “no-foreign-bases policy” adopted in 1949.
Numerous experts and policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have since the 1950s suggested that NATO’s “nuclear umbrella” lacks credibility. While politicians further south in Europe sought to bypass this credibility problem by accepting the deployment of thousands of highly “usable” US tactical nuclear weapons, Norwegian policymakers opted for a policy of détente. This policy was maintained for much of the Cold War period. Norwegian strategists and politicians believed close operational links to the United States’ nuclear war planning would make Norway a more likely target for Soviet nuclear weapons while at the same time fuelling a security dilemma in the High North.
NATO’s nuclear policy has since the 1970s been marked by two countervailing trends. On the one hand, the military role of nuclear weapons in the alliance’s practical defence planning has been substantially reduced. On the other, the political role of nuclear weapons as symbols of allied power and unity has been increased. This latter trend culminated in 2010, when allied leaders for the first time adopted a strategic concept defining NATO as a “nuclear alliance”. At the same time, the 2010 Strategic Concept also called on NATO members to help create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons.
Norwegian governments and political parties have at several points in time sought to foster disarmament, arms control, and changes to NATO posture through participation in formal and informal groupings within and outside of the alliance (Scandilux, NATO-5, various groupings seeking a reduction of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, etc.). This diplomatic activity, which has largely been limited to calling on the nuclear-armed states to change their ways, has had little effect.
The likely consequences of Norwegian adherence to the TPNW are contested. Norwegian authorities have suggested that ratification would conflict with allied cooperation in NATO, but it is not clear exactly how or why. Ratification would not obviously trigger significant legal consequences or changes to existing military practice. The TPNW will admittedly prohibit Norway from explicitly calling on the United States or other nuclear-armed states to use nuclear weapons on Norway’s behalf. Yet this possibility is largely of theoretical interest. The sources interviewed in the context of this study agreed that the United States, Britain, and France would almost certainly refrain from using their nuclear weapons unless their own and most vital national security interests were threatened. The nuclear part of the NATO security guarantee is in this view not credible and therefore of little value as a deterrent.
The main obstacle to Norwegian signature of the TPNW is political. The major powers – both within NATO and outside – do not want their nuclear weapons to be delegitimised in international affairs. In addition, the current security environment, perceived by many as particularly difficult, have led policymakers to value NATO unity even more highly than they did one or two decades ago. Norwegian adherence to the TPNW is likely to trigger political reprisals from allies, but it is disputed how serious these will be. Their extent will likely depend on timing, and on whether the most influential members of NATO are keen to make an issue out of the TPNW. The major powers in NATO do not have an interest in loosing Norway or other strategically located partners as allies. 
NATO’s most important forum for nuclear policymaking is the consensus-oriented North Atlantic Council. Consultations on nuclear policy also take place in the Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) and its subsidiary organs, the NPG Staff Group and High Level Group (HLG). There is little if any evidence that Norway has ever enjoyed meaningful influence on the nuclear-armed states’ policies within these forums. Norway’s influence on the NATO nuclear powers’ policies is already exceedingly low, and will thus not be significantly reduced by adherence to the TPNW or an exit from the NPG and its subsidiary organs. 
A potential negative consequence of adherence to the TPNW and attendant exit from the NPG and its subsidiary organs is that Norwegian authorities lose access to expertise and insight on nuclear threats. After all, some of the nuclear expertise within the Norwegian state apparatus is currently linked to Norway’s participation in the NPG and its subsidiary organs. To ameliorate this, any decision to adhere to the TPNW and exit the NPG should be accompanied by a conscious decision to retain Norwegian expertise on issues of nuclear policy, strategy, and security. The experts interviewed for this study identified three central nuclear threats to Norway in the current security environment: (1) Norway as the site of “limited” nuclear war; (2) use of nuclear weapons as a result of accidents or misunderstandings; (3) attacks and escalation around the Russian North Fleet at the Kola peninsula. Adherence to the TPNW would likely have relatively insignificant impact on these threats in the short term.
Read the full report (in Norwegian) here.

 Nuclear non-proliferation is a fundamentally European issue which is not yet part of any EU agenda
Erkki Tuomio
​https://ecfr.eu/article/it-is-time-to-end-our-reliance-on-nuclear-weapons/
Published on the 2nd November 2020, European Council on Foreign Relations

In July 2017, an overwhelming majority of the UN General Assembly adopted a landmark global agreement to ban nuclear weapons, known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Ratification by the fiftieth country took place this year, on the day the United Nations celebrated its 75th anniversary. The treaty will now enter into force in 90 days’ time. Those countries that have ratified the treaty include Austria, Ireland, and Malta – three member states of the European Union – and it is to be hoped that others in Europe will soon follow.Finland did not participate in the negotiations leading up to the treaty, and it did not vote for it. Public opinion is, however, in favour of the treaty, with one poll showing that 84 per cent of Finns would support signing up. Three parties in Finland’s coalition government also want the country to join. Foreign ministry officials have argued in hearings of the Finnish parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee that joining would weaken the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – a faulty reasoning that the Committee unanimously rejected.

It is worth quoting at length the statement published on 21 September this year by 56 former leaders and foreign or defence ministers of NATO and US ally countries, including two former NATO secretaries-general:

“The prohibition treaty is an important reinforcement to the half-century-old Non-Proliferation Treaty, which, though remarkably successful in curbing the spread of nuclear weapons to more countries, has failed to establish a universal taboo against the possession of nuclear weapons. The five nuclear-armed nations that had nuclear weapons at the time of the NPT’s negotiation — the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China — apparently view it as a licence to retain their nuclear forces in perpetuity. Instead of disarming, they are investing heavily in upgrades to their arsenals, with plans to retain them for many decades to come. This is patently unacceptable.”

It is precisely the frustration at the lack of progress with nuclear disarmament – to which the nuclear weapons states committed themselves in the grand bargain to get the non-nuclear countries to accept the NPT treaty signed in 1968 – that gave decisive impetus to the prohibition treaty. Obviously, without the participation of the nuclear weapons states, not one nuclear weapon will be dismantled. But without pressure from the non-nuclear weapons states in the form of this treaty, neither will they engage in serious efforts at disarmament. Nuclear weapons states will instead continue the present trend of modernising existing and developing new nuclear weapons systems.

The risk of accidental or miscalculated nuclear weapon use may today be even greater than at the height of the cold war

Support in NATO countries for doing away with all weapons of mass destruction is growing, as evidenced by the signatories to the statement above. This is important because one argument made in Finland and Sweden, although it is rarely made in public, for opposing joining the prohibition treaty is the displeasure the US would show at such a step, which could hinder the deepening of these countries’ partnership relations with NATO. Given the growing demand in non-nuclear NATO countries to sign the treaty this is just as spurious as the NPT argument against joining.

The time has come for all states in the world to bring an end to the misguided, illegitimate, and immoral reliance on nuclear weapons. An all-out nuclear war is a threat to human life as a whole and would immediately bring about all the disasters we are trying to avoid with our efforts to curtail climate change and implement the Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 2030.

No responsible leader disputes this. Yet we continue to conduct exercises in preparation for a nuclear war. The risk of accidental or miscalculated nuclear weapon use may today be even greater than at the height of the cold war. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is, as the statement quoted says, “a beacon of hope in a time of darkness”.

There is one nuclear weapons state in the EU (formerly two) and 21 EU member states in NATO, but nuclear weapons and related issues have never formed part of the EU’s agenda. This is a fundamentally European issue, given the likelihood that Europe would face the greatest level of destruction in the event of a conflict and because of the European preference for achieving change through rules-based processes. All EU member states should address it and join the treaty banning all nuclear weapons. Three member states in the EU have already done so; others should follow them.

Erkki Tuomioja is ECFR member and former Minister for Foreign Affairs in Finland.

• • WhatsApp
  
  In July 2017, an overwhelming majority of the UN General Assembly adopted a landmark global agreement to ban nuclear weapons, known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Ratification by the fiftieth country took place this year, on the day the United Nations celebrated its 75th anniversary. The treaty will now enter into force in 90 days’ time. Those countries that have ratified the treaty include Austria, Ireland, and Malta – three member states of the European Union – and it is to be hoped that others in Europe will soon follow.
  Finland did not participate in the negotiations leading up to the treaty, and it did not vote for it. Public opinion is, however, in favour of the treaty, with one poll showing that 84 per cent of Finns would support signing up. Three parties in Finland’s coalition government also want the country to join. Foreign ministry officials have argued in hearings of the Finnish parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee that joining would weaken the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – a faulty reasoning that the Committee unanimously rejected.
  It is worth quoting at length the statement published on 21 September this year by 56 former leaders and foreign or defence ministers of NATO and US ally countries, including two former NATO secretaries-general:
  “The prohibition treaty is an important reinforcement to the half-century-old Non-Proliferation Treaty, which, though remarkably successful in curbing the spread of nuclear weapons to more countries, has failed to establish a universal taboo against the possession of nuclear weapons. The five nuclear-armed nations that had nuclear weapons at the time of the NPT’s negotiation — the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China — apparently view it as a licence to retain their nuclear forces in perpetuity. Instead of disarming, they are investing heavily in upgrades to their arsenals, with plans to retain them for many decades to come. This is patently unacceptable.”
  It is precisely the frustration at the lack of progress with nuclear disarmament – to which the nuclear weapons states committed themselves in the grand bargain to get the non-nuclear countries to accept the NPT treaty signed in 1968 – that gave decisive impetus to the prohibition treaty. Obviously, without the participation of the nuclear weapons states, not one nuclear weapon will be dismantled. But without pressure from the non-nuclear weapons states in the form of this treaty, neither will they engage in serious efforts at disarmament. Nuclear weapons states will instead continue the present trend of modernising existing and developing new nuclear weapons systems.
  The risk of accidental or miscalculated nuclear weapon use may today be even greater than at the height of the cold war
  Support in NATO countries for doing away with all weapons of mass destruction is growing, as evidenced by the signatories to the statement above. This is important because one argument made in Finland and Sweden, although it is rarely made in public, for opposing joining the prohibition treaty is the displeasure the US would show at such a step, which could hinder the deepening of these countries’ partnership relations with NATO. Given the growing demand in non-nuclear NATO countries to sign the treaty this is just as spurious as the NPT argument against joining.
  The time has come for all states in the world to bring an end to the misguided, illegitimate, and immoral reliance on nuclear weapons. An all-out nuclear war is a threat to human life as a whole and would immediately bring about all the disasters we are trying to avoid with our efforts to curtail climate change and implement the Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 2030.
  No responsible leader disputes this. Yet we continue to conduct exercises in preparation for a nuclear war. The risk of accidental or miscalculated nuclear weapon use may today be even greater than at the height of the cold war. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is, as the statement quoted says, “a beacon of hope in a time of darkness”.
  There is one nuclear weapons state in the EU (formerly two) and 21 EU member states in NATO, but nuclear weapons and related issues have never formed part of the EU’s agenda. This is a fundamentally European issue, given the likelihood that Europe would face the greatest level of destruction in the event of a conflict and because of the European preference for achieving change through rules-based processes. All EU member states should address it and join the treaty banning all nuclear weapons. Three member states in the EU have already done so; others should follow them.
  Erkki Tuomioja is ECFR member and former Minister for Foreign Affairs in Finland.
  
  The European Council on Foreign Relations does not take collective positions. ECFR publications only represent the views of its individual authors.
  
  AUTHORErkki Tuomioja
  
  WhatsApp

In July 2017, an overwhelming majority of the UN General Assembly adopted a landmark global agreement to ban nuclear weapons, known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Ratification by the fiftieth country took place this year, on the day the United Nations celebrated its 75th anniversary. The treaty will now enter into force in 90 days’ time. Those countries that have ratified the treaty include Austria, Ireland, and Malta – three member states of the European Union – and it is to be hoped that others in Europe will soon follow.
Finland did not participate in the negotiations leading up to the treaty, and it did not vote for it. Public opinion is, however, in favour of the treaty, with one poll showing that 84 per cent of Finns would support signing up. Three parties in Finland’s coalition government also want the country to join. Foreign ministry officials have argued in hearings of the Finnish parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee that joining would weaken the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – a faulty reasoning that the Committee unanimously rejected.
It is worth quoting at length the statement published on 21 September this year by 56 former leaders and foreign or defence ministers of NATO and US ally countries, including two former NATO secretaries-general:
“The prohibition treaty is an important reinforcement to the half-century-old Non-Proliferation Treaty, which, though remarkably successful in curbing the spread of nuclear weapons to more countries, has failed to establish a universal taboo against the possession of nuclear weapons. The five nuclear-armed nations that had nuclear weapons at the time of the NPT’s negotiation — the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China — apparently view it as a licence to retain their nuclear forces in perpetuity. Instead of disarming, they are investing heavily in upgrades to their arsenals, with plans to retain them for many decades to come. This is patently unacceptable.”
It is precisely the frustration at the lack of progress with nuclear disarmament – to which the nuclear weapons states committed themselves in the grand bargain to get the non-nuclear countries to accept the NPT treaty signed in 1968 – that gave decisive impetus to the prohibition treaty. Obviously, without the participation of the nuclear weapons states, not one nuclear weapon will be dismantled. But without pressure from the non-nuclear weapons states in the form of this treaty, neither will they engage in serious efforts at disarmament. Nuclear weapons states will instead continue the present trend of modernising existing and developing new nuclear weapons systems.
The risk of accidental or miscalculated nuclear weapon use may today be even greater than at the height of the cold war
Support in NATO countries for doing away with all weapons of mass destruction is growing, as evidenced by the signatories to the statement above. This is important because one argument made in Finland and Sweden, although it is rarely made in public, for opposing joining the prohibition treaty is the displeasure the US would show at such a step, which could hinder the deepening of these countries’ partnership relations with NATO. Given the growing demand in non-nuclear NATO countries to sign the treaty this is just as spurious as the NPT argument against joining.
The time has come for all states in the world to bring an end to the misguided, illegitimate, and immoral reliance on nuclear weapons. An all-out nuclear war is a threat to human life as a whole and would immediately bring about all the disasters we are trying to avoid with our efforts to curtail climate change and implement the Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 2030.
No responsible leader disputes this. Yet we continue to conduct exercises in preparation for a nuclear war. The risk of accidental or miscalculated nuclear weapon use may today be even greater than at the height of the cold war. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is, as the statement quoted says, “a beacon of hope in a time of darkness”.
There is one nuclear weapons state in the EU (formerly two) and 21 EU member states in NATO, but nuclear weapons and related issues have never formed part of the EU’s agenda. This is a fundamentally European issue, given the likelihood that Europe would face the greatest level of destruction in the event of a conflict and because of the European preference for achieving change through rules-based processes. All EU member states should address it and join the treaty banning all nuclear weapons. Three member states in the EU have already done so; others should follow them.
Erkki Tuomioja is ECFR member and former Minister for Foreign Affairs in Finland.

The European Council on Foreign Relations does not take collective positions. ECFR publications only represent the views of its individual authors.

AUTHORErkki Tuomioja

It wasn’t a hard question to answer: “Would WeMove members chip in to back activists pushing the Polish government to declare a climate emergency?” We knew it would be a yes - but we didn’t realise how much those protests would achieve.
A few days after the people-powered protests ended, the result was in: they were a huge success. Politicians from different political parties spoke up to back the protesters’ demands, and the media was full of debate on climate change.
Protestors made the most of the opportunity to convince the government to act. People turned up in their thousands. They even closed down a major road in Warsaw. Some of Poland’s most influential media rushed to cover the story of the protests. And WeMove members’ donations helped make it happen, paying for the things the protestors needed to get the job done.

Climate activists in WarsawIt’s not an easy time to be a climate activist in Poland. The country just elected a government that has a bad track record on tackling the climate threat. So, you can imagine how it felt to the protest organisers to know that money had poured in from supporters all over Europe. They might be up against it in Warsaw, but they had backers in countries all over Europe.
We can make that happen for climate activists everywhere. No matter how isolated they might be at home, we can make sure they know they have supporters ready to step in, all over our region.
This is what we’ll do until the end of the year. By then, European leaders will decide on the European Union's climate ambition for the next 10 and even 30 years. They will also choose whether we are courageous enough to recover together from the pandemic in laying the foundations of a bright, clean and green future.
Politicians might want us to believe that only they can make the big decisions on our future. But the truth is that nothing happens without people power: together, we are the ones who can convince our politicians to act, before the climate crisis gets any worse.
In solidarity,
David (London), Olga (Bologna), Jörg (Lübeck) and the WeMove Europe team
PS. With the right resources, we can back protests like the one in Poland wherever they happen in Europe. But to do that, we have to be able to plan ahead - and that means resources we can rely on. Are you able to give a one-off donation to WeMove, so we can keep supporting activists?


WeMove Europe is an independent and values-based organisation that seeks to build people power to transform Europe in the name of our community, future generations and the planet.

​https://www.icanw.org/report_73_billion_nuclear_weapons_spending_2020

​Om vi kan upphöra att kriga under en pandemi, varför kan vi inte göra det under ”vanliga förhållanden”?
Finländarna upplever nu den största krisen sedan andra världskriget. Karantäner, slutstressad vårdpersonal, hemundervisning, tålamodsprövade familjer, ökande arbetslöshet med mera.
Men inget ont som inte för något gott med sig. I ett upprop uppmanar FN:s generalsekreterare António Guterres alla stridande parter i världens konflikter till vapenvila för att möta den gemensamma fienden; coronaviruset. Guterres betonar att hälsosystemen i länder med krig redan har kollapsat och att korridorer måste öppnas för livräddande hjälp. För någon vecka sedan bekräftade 70 länder (även Finland), och ett antal ansedda humanitära organisationer, sitt stöd för uppropet. Namninsamlingen på nätet (bland annat Avaaz) visade 14 april drygt 2,2 miljoner personliga underskrifter.
Överallt i världen höjs röster för att militära medel skall omdistribueras till humanitära ändamål och konfliktförebyggande åtgärder. Trots coronakrisen uppmanar dock Natos generalsekreterare Stoltenberg medlemsstaterna att uppfylla kraven på höjda militärutgifter. Enorma summor läggs ned på modernisering av atomvapen, utveckling och produktion av nya vapen, och på massiva militärövningar omfattande atomkrigsscenarier.
World Beyond War (USA) har räknat ut att världens globala militära utgifter på 1 800 miljarder dollar årligen skulle räcka till för 17 100 000 bäddar för intensivvård, 1 995 000 respiratorer, 8 550 000 sjukskötare och 4 275 000 läkare. Vapen tillverkas för att förgöra och döda, läkare utbildas för att rädda liv. Det finns pengar – men viljan fattas!
Guterres upprop för vapenvila är ett litet steg i rätt riktning. Men för att rädda världen behövs det avsevärt större steg; vilja att omdistribuera militära budgetar, vilja till nedrustning och uppriktig konfliktlösning, förtroendeuppbyggande förhandlingar mellan öst och väst, respekt för mödosamt upprättade internationella avtal, inrättande av fredsministerier, slut på skrämselpropaganda och hotscenarier, total nedrustning av alla atomvapen.
Om vi kan upphöra att kriga under en pandemi, varför kan vi inte göra det under "vanliga förhållanden"? Det vi nu upplever under coronakrisen är rena rama rosenröda drömmen jämfört med läget efter ett "begränsat" atomvapenkrig i till exempel Kaliningrad-området. Inför Natos Defender 20-megamilitärövning, som trots pandemin pågår just nu i Baltikum och andra delar av Västeuropa, deltog USA:s försvarsminister Mark Esper i februari i ett krigsspel vid USA:s strategiska kommandohögkvarter i Nebraska där man simulerade atomvapenanvändning mot Ryssland. I ett meddelande beträffande tillfället uttryckte sig USA:s försvarsministerium så här: "Scenariot inkluderade en europeisk beredskap för att genomföra ett krig med Ryssland i vilket Ryssland beslutar att använda kärnvapen med begränsad verkan mot en plats på Natos territorium."
Svaret från Ryssland var entydigt. Alexander Sherin, viceordförande för ryska dumans försvarskommitté konstaterade i HCH news att det vore dumt av Moskva att inleda en kärnvapenattack mot europeiska länder eftersom det radioaktiva nedfallet även skulle drabba Ryssland. Sherin framhävde att orsaken till att USA så nonchalant förhåller sig till kärnvapenövningarna är att det aldrig har utspelats ett stort krig på den amerikanska kontinenten i motsats till i Europa och Ryssland.
USA:s otaliga krig har i stället utspelats utanför landets gränser. Europa ligger på betryggande avstånd från USA. De första, och hittills enda atombomberna i världen fälldes av USA långt borta i Japan. Kommer de nästa att fällas långt borta i Europa?
Peter Kuznick, direktör för institutet för nukleära studier vid American University i Washington, betonar att det inte finns något sådant som ett begränsat atomkrig. Han varnar för en eskalation som leder till den mänskliga civilisationens utplåning.
Skall Finland i dagens situation verkligen använda över tio miljarder euro på nya jaktplan och krigsfartyg som skall betjäna Nato och leda till ytterligare spänningar mellan USA och Ryssland. Skall Finland fortsätta att vara dödens hantlangare?
Ulla Klötzer, Kvinnor för fred och Kvinnor mot atomkraft

En god nyhet är att Barcelona den 19 februari anslöt sig till ICAN Cities Appeal. Setsuko Thurlow, överlevare från Hiroshima, överlämnade diplomet till borgmästaren Ada Colau. Av 41 ledamöter i stadsfullmäktige hade 37 röstat för!
Hon deltog också i det spanska parlamentet den 26 februari, vid ett möte om FN-konventionen, där en parlamentarisk grupp bildades för att jobba för en signering/ratificering. Varför är Spanien så viktigt i detta sammanhang? Spanien kan vara det första Nato-land som faktiskt ansluter sig till konventionen. I det avtal som Spanien slöt med Nato år 1986 skrevs två artiklar in som förbjuder produktion och användning av kärnvapen och andra massförstörelsevapen. Partiet Unidas Podemos som nu ingår i en regeringskoalition med Socialistpartiet kan få sin vilja igenom i den här frågan.
På fotot från det spanska parlamentet ovan är Setsuko Thurlow den med en röd halsduk.
https://www.pressenza.com/2020/03/spain-and-the-treaty-on-the-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons-event-in-the-spanish-congress/  

Övriga spanska städer som anslutit sig är: Binissalem, Cadiz, Canovelles, Coruña,
Ferrol, Granollers, La Garriga, Masllorenç, Vallromane och Zaragoza
Hela listan på https://cities.icanw.org/list_of_cities#h_480729527911576258164599

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) includes a comprehensive set of prohibitions on participating in any nuclear weapon activities. These include undertakings not to develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile, use or threaten to use nuclear weapons. The Treaty also prohibits the deployment of nuclear weapons on national territory and the provision of assistance to any State in the conduct of prohibited activities. States parties will be obliged to prevent and suppress any activity prohibited under the TPNW undertaken by persons or on territory under its jurisdiction or control. The Treaty also obliges States parties to provide adequate assistance to individuals affected by the use or testing of nuclear weapons, as well as to take necessary and appropriate measure of environmental remediation in areas under its jurisdiction or control contaminated as a result of activities related to the testing or use of nuclear weapons.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted by the Conference (by a vote of 122 States in favour ( with one vote against and one abstention) at the United Nations on 7 July 2017, and opened for signature by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 20 September 2017. It will enter into force 90 days after the fiftieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession has been deposited.