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Nuclear Weapons Convention

2007

In 2007, the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War released an updated version of the Nuclear Weapons Convention, in a publication called Securing Our Survival: The case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention

1997

The launch in April of 1997 of a model Nuclear Weapons Convention, drafted by a consortium of lawyers, scientists, physicians, former-diplomats and disarmament specialists and activists, made concrete and tangible what had been only academic and illusory for many years. The text was enthusiastically examined by NGOs, diplomats and submitted by Costa Rica to the United Nations as a discussion document (A/C.1/52/7).

The purposes of the model Nuclear Weapons Convention include demonstrating the feasibility of a framework approach to the elimination of nuclear weapons, and encouraging governments to enter into nuclear disarmament negotiations. Another purpose is to educate and engage the public in the progress towards nuclear disarmament. The process of designing and debating a nuclear weapons convention is useful in a number of ways:

1. it can help identify policies that are inconsistent with the goal of nuclear disarmament;
2. it can help overcome some of the barriers that make nuclear abolition appear utopian;
3.it can help prepare societies for the day when political will to begin negotiations emerges.