Nuclear Weapons Abolition Is Now International Law!
Published on November, 09 2020
The Disarm/End Wars Issue Committee raised a glass together on October 25 to celebrate the TPNW treaty becoming international law after Honduras became the 50th country to ratify it.
By Ellen Thomas
Co-chair, Disarm/End Wars Committee
November 2020
On October 25th, on their monthly zoom conference call, the Disarm/End Wars Committee raised a glass together to celebrate that Honduras was the 50th country to ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), making the treaty international law on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations (October 24, 1945). The treaty goes into effect on January 22, 2021.
ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons which includes WILPF, reported on its website:
This is a historic milestone for this landmark treaty. Prior to the TPNW’s adoption, nuclear weapons were the only weapons of mass destruction not banned under international law, despite their catastrophic humanitarian consequences. Now, with the treaty’s entry into force, we can call nuclear weapons what they are: prohibited weapons of mass destruction, just like chemical weapons and biological weapons.
ICAN’s Executive Director Beatrice Fihn welcomed the historic moment. “This is a new chapter for nuclear disarmament. Decades of activism have achieved what many said was impossible: nuclear weapons are banned,” she said.
It’s time to once again ask people to sign the WILPF US Ban Treaty Petition to the Senate, and to sign the letter to Representatives asking for co-sponsorship of HR-2419, the “Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act,” both of which are posted online. Paper and online petitions to both the Senate and House are accessible at http://prop1.org.
There are currently eight co-sponsors, who are (in order of signing on) Representatives James McGovern (MA), Ilhan Omar (MN), Barbara Lee (CA), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX), Jan Schakowsky (IL), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Andy Levin (MI), and Carolyn Maloney (NY), joining Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), who has introduced the legislation every session since 1994 after the successful DC Initiative 37 won an election in 1993.
Send a Love Letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
On October 1, 2020, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres tweeted, “On this International Day of Non-violence, I reiterate my call for a global ceasefire. Making this a reality before the end of the year would ease suffering, help lower the risk of famine & create space for negotiations towards peace. Now is the time to intensify our efforts.” His first call for a global ceasefire was on March 23, 2020.
Robin Lloyd of the Burlington, Vermont Branch created a “Love Letter” to thank the Secretary-General for his call for a global ceasefire, which she is circulating in Burlington and plans to mail, along with some Vermont maple syrup, to his office at the United Nations (405 East 42nd Street, New York, NY, 10017) by Armistice Day, November 11, the 102nd anniversary of the end of World War I.
World BEYOND War is keeping a running total and list of countries that have signed on to the Global Ceasefire.
Here is the text of Robin’s “Love Letter” in case you are inspired to follow her example –
To Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres:
We the undersigned, heartily support your
call for a Global Ceasefire
and we share your concern:
A third wave of the coronavirus is encircling the world.
Hospitals are overburdened.
The coffers of cities and states are depleted
Millions are without work or resources
With you, we demand that national armies,
rebel forces, and insurgencies
put down their guns, their drones, and their tomahawk missiles
and commit their knowledge and energy to helping the world
survive this crisis.
We offer our solidarity. Thank you.
Disarm/End Wars Webinars, Future and Recent
Margaret Kimberley, left, and Joy Ada Onyesoh, right.
AFRICOM and Human Rights in Africa – On December 4, 2020, at 11 am PT, 2 pm ET, 7 pm Nigerian time, thanks to the hard work of Theresa El-Amin, Leah Bolger, and Robin Lloyd, there will be an amazing lineup of speakers about the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM).
The webinar will feature first-hand reports from WILPF women describing what effects AFRICOM is having on their respective nations: Joy Onyesoh, the President of WILPF International, will speak about Nigeria; Sylvie Ndongmo, the Africa Region representative of WILPF, will speak about Cameroon; Marie-Claire Faray, currently living in the UK, will speak about the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Christine Odera, Commonwealth Youth Peace Ambassador Network – Kenya Country Coordinator (CYPAN), will speak about Kenya.
Other featured speakers include writer and author Margaret Kimberley, representing the Black Alliance for Peace, and their initiative: Out of Africa: Shut Down AFRICOM; and investigative journalist Amanda Sperber, who has reported widely on Somalia.
World BEYOND War has volunteered to host the zoom meeting, since they can accommodate 1,000 callers. Arrangements have been made to live-stream the event on the WILPF US Facebook page, as was done on October 22nd. A more detailed announcement will be sent out by eAlert.
“75 Years at the United Nations with WILPF” – On October 22, 2020, Ray Acheson of Reaching Critical Will and Genevieve Riccoboni of PeaceWomen, WILPF International’s delegates to the UN, joined Robin Lloyd, Cherrill Spencer, and 30 others to discuss the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom’s work with the United Nations since its founding on October 24, 1945.
This webinar has been posted in two parts at the WILPF US YouTube channel: Part 1 – opening remarks by Robin Lloyd, a review of the history of WILPF and the UN in 1945 by Cherrill Spencer, and descriptions by Ray Acheson and Genevieve Riccoboni of the amazing work that they are doing; and Part 2: questions and answers by the 30 other participants in the webinar.
The WILPF US YouTube Channel Needs Subscribers!
We’ve been working on the WILPF US YouTube channel, making it more user-friendly and adding playlists. You may have noticed that the current link for the channel is long and complex. We can change the name of it to youtube.com/channel/wilpfus once we have 100 subscribers to the WILPF US channel, so we’re hoping that EVERYBODY will subscribe! An advantage for you is that you will receive notice when a new video has been uploaded. In the meantime, though, we have made it easy to find via bit.ly/wilpfus-youtube.
Three of the playlists are shown in this image:
- Action webinars (currently consisting of the monthly zoom events produced during the commemorations of the 75th anniversary of the United Nations and of nuclear weapons):
- Social media trainings: Zoom (for beginners and for organizers) and TikTok, so far; and
- Most recent videos, to make it easier to find them.
There are other playlists as well, which include: “Branch videos”, “WILPF US history”, “Triennial Congress” (the Disarm workshop in 2017), and “nuclear-free future campaigns” (between 2016 and 2019). The videos listed in the “Triennial Congress” and the “nuclear-free future campaigns” playlists are of WILPF-sponsored events that have been linked from other YouTube channels.
If you know of any YouTube videos that you think should be added to these playlists, please send the links to Ellen Thomas, with ‘For WILPF US YouTube!’ in the subject line.
(Some older WILPF videos that haven’t been uploaded to YouTube, such as Peace Train to Beijing, and Truth and Reconciliation: Can it work in the U.S.?, can be found at https://www.greenvalleymedia.org/wilpf)
