Antinuclear

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

No more bombs’ says anti-nuclear advocate Smart Planet By Lieu Thi Pham | December 15, 2011, MELBOURNE — Australian Tim Wright is the Director for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a global grassroots movement for the total elimination of nuclear weapons through a legally binding, verifiable Nuclear Weapons Convention.

Wright, a 26-year-old law graduate, was employed by ICAN in New York in 2010 to implement its global strategy in the lead-up to, and during, the historic Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. He was instrumental in coordinating the first day of action for a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons, with more than 80 demonstrations taking place in 30 countries.

SmartPlanet catches up with Wright to get an update on the campaign.

SmartPlanet: Please tell us more about ICAN’s mission and who your supporters are.

Tim Wright: Our campaign’s central objective is a treaty banning nuclear weapons. Last year we helped to persuade more than 130 governments to call for negotiations to begin on such a treaty at the United Nations (UN). We expect work to start within the next few years. Most governments support a treaty to ban nuclear weapons — 145 out of 193 UN-represented countries — along with the Red Cross and UN Secretary-General. There are already treaties that outlaw other weapons that the international community has deemed inhumane such as chemical weapons, land mines, biological weapons and cluster bombs. At the height of the Cold War there were more than 70,000 nuclear weapons. Today there are about 20,000, but that’s still 20,000 too many. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/global-observer/-8216no-more-bombs-says-anti-nuclear-advocate/1225

December 16, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized