Don't even THINK about starting a nuclear war

Posted: 13th October 2023

* Call to UN High Level Plenary meeting to promote nuclear risk-reduction and disarmament
* Social media action at embassies of the nuclear armed states

On September 26, International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, the President of the UN General Assembly Ambassador Dennis Francis (Trinidad and Tobago) held a High-Level Plenary Meeting for leaders of the world to discuss ideas and initiatives to rid the world of the nuclear threat. “The risk of nuclear annihilation is not a chapter from our past” said Ambassador Francis as he opened the meeting. “It is a haunting reality of the present.” (Watch the full session on UNTV).

Civil society activists around the world used the International Day to call on nuclear armed statesto affirm and strengthen the norm/practice of the non-use of nuclear weapons including through adoption of no-first-use policies, and to replace nuclear deterrence with common security in order to facilitate the global abolition and elimination of nuclear weapons.

NoFirstUse Global organized a social media action for the day entitled Don’t even THINK about starting a nuclear war. This coincided in the United States with a Week of Action to Defuse Nuclear War.
  
Ambassador Dennis Francis, President of the UN General Assembly, opening the UN High Level Plenary Meeting on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons 

Prevent nuclear war and replace nuclear deterrence with common security

Civil society organizations used the occasion of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons to call on all governments to:

1. Take further action to prevent nuclear war including by adoption of no-first-use policies;
2. Replace nuclear deterrence with common security;
3. Commit to achieving the global elimination of nuclear weapons no later than 2045, the 100th anniversary of the United Nations.

See, for example, Letter from Aotearoa Lawyers for Peace to the New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control.
 
Retno Lestari Priansari Marsudi, Foreign Minister of Indonesia, speaking at the UN High Level Plenary Meeting on the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,September 26 

Don’t even THINK about Starting a Nuclear War

On September 26, members of NoFirstUse Global and other civil society organizations undertook the social media action Don’t even THINK about starting a nuclear war.

Activists took photos of themselves holding the sign ‘Don’t even think about starting a nuclear war’ outside embassies/consulates of the nine nuclear armed states.

The sign is a take-off of the no-parking sign ‘Don’t even think about parking here’. It indicates that the nuclear armed states should adhere to international law prohibiting the threat and use of nuclear weapons, just as drivers should adhere to laws about parking.

Photos of the actions at the White House and embassies of the other nuclear-armed States in Washington DC were sent earlier today to the respective embassies/consulates along with an accompanying letter which includes the calls outlined above.

Washington DC action

Below are photos of Don’t even THINK about Starting a Nuclear War signs held or positioned outside the White House and the embassies of Russia, China, UK, India, Israel, France and Pakistan. (North Korea, the other nuclear-armed State, does not have an embassy in Washington DC).