The dream of a world freed of the existence of nuclear weapons, and of the resulting existential threat to humanity and to all life on planet Earth, is an inalienable element of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Revived for a brief shining moment by U.S. President Barack Obama in Prague in 2009, it has gradually faded from view since then as the world witnessed nuclear modernization and upgrades, growth in warhead numbers, continued testing and a rise in geopolitical tensions in several high-risk theaters involving nuclear powers in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, the Korean Peninsula and the South China Sea.
But the international community did not give up hope and redoubled efforts to bring the nuclear arms race under control and point the way to nuclear abolition. An ambitious yet sharply practical agenda was outlined by the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) co-chaired by former Foreign Ministers Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi of Australia and Japan. The current global tensions with their nuclear overtones make any further progress on nuclear arms control much more challenging. But they also heighten the urgency for action.
To realize the NPT vision and remain consistent with the steps advocated by the ICNND, on Oct. 27 the First Committee of the U.N. General Assembly adopted, by the overwhelming vote of 123-38 (with 16 abstentions), Resolution A/C.1/71/L.41, which calls for negotiations on a "legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading toward their total elimination." Two conferences will be convened next year in New York (March 27 to 31 and June 15 to July 7). The resolution fulfills the 127-nation humanitarian pledge "to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons."