G7 Hiroshima Summit should reaffirm the Nuclear Taboo Declaration of Public Conscience submitted to the G7 Summit in Hiroshima

Posted: 18th May 2023

Leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and USA, who are meeting in Hiroshima for the G7 Summit this week, should reaffirm the global norm against nuclear war and help make this norm part of accepted international law, according to a Declaration of Public Consciencereleased in conjunction with the Summit by NoFirstUse Global.
 
The Declaration – which has been endorsed by over 1000 legislators, youth, academics/experts, religious leaders and civil society leaders from around the world – refers specifically to the statement agreed by the Leaders of the G20 counties in Bali last year that “The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.” 

It calls for this stance to be enshrined as a dictate of international law in order to rule-out any initiation of nuclear war and to pave the way for the global abolition of nuclear weapons.

The Declaration also calls on the nuclear armed and allied states – which includes all members of the G7 – to implement this norm in their security policies, starting with the adoption of no-first-use commitments.
  

Presentation to the G7 Summit

NoFirstUse Global presented the Declaration of Public Conscience to the Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a meeting in Tokyo yesterday (May 17) in preparation for the G7 Summit. We are circulating it to Summit participants in Hiroshima over the next few days.

“If the 2023 G7 leaders — all of whom were at the 2022 G20 Summit — do not reiterate that the threat/use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible (or something even stronger), they will be saying, in effect, that threat/use is admissible. Music to Putin’s ears!” says Aaron Tovish(USA/Philippines), Member of the NoFirstUse Global Steering Committee speaking from Hiroshima.  “The endorsers of the Declaration of Public Conscience know better: plunging the world into nuclear war — even threatening to do so — in unconscionable.”

“The meeting of the G7 in Hiroshima is the right and appropriate time for the participants outrightly to endorse this Declaration of Public Conscience,” says Commander Robert Forsyth (Royal Navy UK, retired), a former nuclear submarine commander. “No responsible State should threaten, initiate or respond to a nuclear weapon exchange that would bring untold suffering – and possible large-scale extermination – to the peoples of this planet.“
 
“This is the moment to demand that no-first-use be made a binding mandate of international law by the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly and that every state that possesses nuclear weapons commit itself to no first use.” says Morton Halperin (USA), Senior Adviser to the Open Society Foundations and former Political Adviser to the Johnson, Nixon, Clinton and Obama administrations.
 
“World leaders have an urgent and desperate obligation to avert the danger of nuclear Armageddon by committing themselves to a binding No-First-Use of nuclear weapons,” says Uta Zapf (Germany), Council Member of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and former Chair of the German Parliament Subcommittee on Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-proliferation. “We ask NATO to take the lead in supporting this step. Not only Europe will suffer but all mankind is at stake. Don’t turn Doomsday Clock further!”
 
”The Hiroshima appointment is a historic opportunity, offered by Japan, to re-launch the disarmament and non-proliferation of atomic weapons” says Carlo Trezza (Italy), Steering Committee Member of NoFirstUse Global, former Italian Ambassador for Disarmament and former Chairman of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board for Disarmament Affairs. “A glimmer of hope has been lit in recent weeks with the proposal by the “No First Use Global” group to promote the concept of the inadmissibility of the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. World leaders are not allowed to return empty-handed from Hiroshima.”
 
“With nuclear weapons, humanity has given itself the ability to destroy itself,” says General Bernard Norlain (France), President of Initiatives pour le Désarmement Nucléaire and Former Air Combat Commander of the French Air Force. “Nuclear powers must make formal commitments and concrete actions to renounce nuclear use and threat. The nuclear powers have the survival of the planet in their hands. This overwhelming responsibility requires them neither to use nuclear weapons in any form whatsoever nor to raise the threat of them.”
 
“The future of life on Earth is far too important to be left in any one person’s hands, which is the unacceptable reality of the nuclear weapons states’ policies that allow their chief executives to initiate a nuclear war on their own authority,” states Kevin Martin (USA), President of Peace Action, the United States’ largest peace and disarmament organization with over 200,000 supporters. “Enshrining the taboo against the first use of nuclear weapons by any country’s leader into international law is a common-sense step for the security of humankind.”

“World leaders have an urgent and desperate obligation to avert the danger of nuclear Armageddon by committing themselves to a binding No-First-Use of nuclear weapons,” says Uta Zapf (Germany), Council Member of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and former Chair of the German Parliament Subcommittee on Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-proliferation. “We ask NATO to take the lead in supporting this step. Not only Europe will suffer but all mankind is at stake. Don’t turn Doomsday Clock further!”

NoFirstUse Global also plans to submit the Declaration of Public Conscience to the Preparatory Meeting of States Parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty in Vienna (August), G20 Summit in Delhi (September) and the UN General Assembly and Security Council in New York (October).

Further information and more quotes from endorsers at G7 Hiroshima Summit should reaffirm the Nuclear Taboo.