NPT side-event: Nuclear-risk reduction, 90 seconds to midnight

Event Date: 1st August 2023
Location: Internet 2:15 - 3:45 pm BST

A side event at the 2023 NPT Prep Com




August 1, 3:15-4:45pm. United Nations, Vienna. Room M4 and online
How close are we to the possible use of nuclear weapons through crisis escalation, miscalculation, accident or intent?
What policies could help prevent nuclear war and gain support/traction amongst the nuclear armed and allied states?
What roles can parliamentarians and civil society play to advance such policies?
Join this diverse group of experts to learn and discuss.

Speakers:

• Ivana Nikolić Hughes (USA)
  Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
• Hans Kristensen (USA)
  Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists
• Andrei Baklitskiy (Russia/Switzerland)
  Senior Researcher in the WMD Programme at UNIDIR
• Uta Zapf (Germany)
  PNND Alumni Council Member. Former chair, Bundestag Committee on nuclear weapons
• Aaron Tovish (Phiippines)
  Founder, Zona Libre. Former Program Officer for Mayors for Peace Vision 2020 Campaign
• John Hallam (Australia)
  Co-Convenor, Abolition 2000 Working Group on Nuclear Risk Reduction, People for Nuclear Disarmament 

More information at the event website.Register for online participation – August 1 event

NoFirstUse working paper to the NPT Review Conference

NoFirstUse Global presented a comprehensive working paper entitled No-first use of nuclear weapons: An exploration of unilateral. bilateral and plurilateral approaches and their security, risk reduction and disarmament implications to the 2022 NPT Review Conference.

The working paper explores different types of no-first-use policies, and discusses how no-first-use policies and their full implementation could significantly reduce the risk of nuclear war and pave the way for nuclear disarmament negotiations amongst the nuclear armed and allied states. It also makes a number of recommendations to the NPT Review process that are relevant to the 2023 NPT Prep Com.

The ideas and proposals in the working paper will be discussed at the side-event Nuclear-risk reduction, 90 seconds to midnight on August 1.

NoFirstUse Global, Putin and the BRICS Summit
President Putin bows out of the Summit
Lavrov hears from NoFirst UseGlobal Coordinating Committee Members

The host of this year’s BRICS Summit, South Africa, has been spared the dilemma of Russian President Vladimir Putin entering its jurisdiction. Were he to have attended, South Africa would have been in breach of its International Criminal Court obligations if he were not arrested and sent to the Hague to stand trial for violating the rights of Ukrainian children.  

Now Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will stand in for Putin, as he did at the 2022 Bali Summit. This lends greater significance to a letter which was addressed to the Foreign Ministers of all the BRICS members in June by members of the NoFirstUse Global Steering Committee.

The letter touched on several points, but the key point was that the G20 affirmation that “The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible” needs to be upheld by BRICS. The letter pointed out that the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – have, to their benefit, already adopted policies restricting the use of nuclear weapons, and calls on them to “explicitly reaffirm the Bali stance and point the way to the wider adoption of no-first-use policies, as called for in Hiroshima by the UN Secretary General.“

The full text of the letter can be seen here. The BRICS Summit will be held in Cape Town, 22-24 August.