11 July, 2017
"The apparent instability of the US president highlights the danger of maintaining arsenals of nuclear weapons that constitute an existential threat to human survival and underlines the need for this treaty as the next step to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons as quickly as possible".
"This will be a historic moment and it will be the first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty to be concluded in more than 20 years", she said.
While nuclear weapons still exist, any nation that violates the above conditions will now be in breach of global and humanitarian law and should be considered a pariah state and ultimately on the wrong side of history. Representatives of 129 non-nuclear nations including the International Red Cross and the Holy See have worked together and made clear through this treaty that they will no longer be held hostage or bullied by the nuclear nations.
"This will be a historic moment", Costa Rica's ambassador, Elayne Whyte Gomez, the president of the United Nations conference on the treaty, said on the eve of the adoption.
Following Wednesday's final review of the text after almost three weeks of intense negotiations, Whyte Gomez said she was "convinced that we have achieved a general agreement on a robust and comprehensive prohibition on nuclear weapons".
The Philippines has joined 121 other nations in adopting a legally binding treaty that will prohibit the manufacture and use of nuclear weapons.
Like for the Mine Ban Treaty and the Convention on Cluster Munitions, activism by civil society was crucial to bring about the will of states to undertake the negotiations, and for their success.
The treaty was adopted by a vote of 122 in favour with one country the Netherlands voting against while Singapore abstained.
The treaty will be open for signature to all States at UN Headquarters in NY on 20 September 2017, and enter into force 90 days after it has been ratified by at least 50 countries.
A Treaty Is Reached to Ban Nuclear Arms.
The United States and other nuclear powers instead want to strengthen and reaffirm the almost half-century-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the cornerstone of global nonproliferation efforts. This treaty has become the legal basis for the United States and the world community to place sanctions on Iran and North Korea for developing nuclear weapons; after all, both nations had ratified the treaty.
She asked if anyone thought North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons, stressing that North Koreans would be "cheering" a nuclear ban treaty - and Americans and others would be at risk.
"The treaty represents an important step and contribution towards the common aspirations of a world without nuclear weapons", the spokesperson for Secretary-General António Guterres said following its adoption.
The adopted Treaty bans nuclear weapons and establishes a framework to mount an effective legal, political, economic, and social challenge to the concept, policies, and practices of nuclear "deterrence" and to the existence of nuclear weapons themselves in order to eliminate them and all related programs.
In December, U.N. member states overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for negotiations on a treaty that would outlaw nuclear weapons, despite strong opposition from nuclear-armed nations and their allies who refused to participate in the talks. Moreover, the administration should work with the Senate to get it to ratify the CTBT and landmine treaties and continue to work with the global community to enforce the existing treaties banning these illegal weapons.
