Antinuclear

Mexico Conference towards ending nuclear weapons launches ICAN’s new report

Learning from history March 1 marks 60 years since the Bravo nuclear test on Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands. ICAN Australia From 1946 until 1996, more than 315 nuclear test explosions were conducted in the Pacific Islands by France, Britain and the United States. The Bravo nuclear test of 1954 was the largest ever conducted by the US, yielding a force 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Radioactive fallout travelled across 11,000 square kilometres and many communities in the Pacific still cannot return to their home islands due to radioactive contamination.

ICAN has produced a report entitled Banning Nuclear Weapons: a Pacific Islands Perspective, which was distributed at the recent Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Nayarit, Mexico, and can be downloaded here. Report author Nic Maclellan also has an article here on Inside Story. Speaking of history, for an enthralling piece of poetry performed by Marshallese poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, click History Project.

The end of the Mexico Conference was nothing short of exhilarating, as the Conference Chair summed up the meeting with this:

“The broad-based and comprehensive discussions on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons should lead to the commitment of States and civil society to reach new international standards and norms, through a legally binding instrument.
It is the view of the Chair that the Nayarit Conference has shown that time has come to initiate a diplomatic process conducive to this goal…
It is time to take action. The 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks is the appropriate milestone to achieve our goal. Nayarit is a point of no return.”

As the dust settles on Mexico, we’re looking forward to a challenging year ahead coaxing the Australian Government onto the right side of history. Get in touch if you want to help us get there.

Now for your post-Conference reading:
– Nuclear Weapons: it’s high time for Australia to be bold and call for a ban – David Donaldson, The Guardian.
– Report from the Nayarit Conference – Ray Acheson, Beatrice Fihn, and Katherine Harrison.

March 1, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News