Historic Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons Opens for Signature and SGI President Urges Global Suppo
The world’s first legally-binding instrument, Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, officially opened for signature at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York on September 20.
Prior to the signing ceremony, Daisaku Ikeda, President of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), called for the early entry into force of the treaty in his article published by InDepthNews (IDN) on September 18.
In it he stressed that “Nuclear weapons can no longer be debated and determined only on the basis of any one country’s security needs. The peace of humankind as a whole and the collective right to life of all the world’s people must be the starting point—the foundation from which we work to eliminate nuclear weapons and develop a new security paradigm for the 21st century.” He also highlighted that “The essence of the issue is not the confrontation between states that possess nuclear weapons and those that do not; it is the confrontation between the threat of nuclear weapons and humanity’s right to life.”
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted on July 7 this year, prohibits the development, testing, production, manufacturing, acquiring, possessing or stockpiling of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, as well as the use of or threat to use these weapons.
SGI representatives attended the signing ceremony of the treaty as one of the civil society delegations invited by the UN, together with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and the hibakusha—survivors of the atomic bomb.
On that day, over 50 countries and regions signed the treaty, which will enter into force 90 days after at least 50 countries have ratified it.