ICAN's new report exposing who fund's nuclear arms production
10th January 2012
Watch this great new video about why we need to ban all nuclear weapons now!
Nuclear Abolition Day- 25th June
10 May 2011
Making nuclear weapons illegal
16 March 2011
Scrap nukes- invest in education
15 December 2010
The African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone- an example for the Middle East
6 December 20105 March 2012
Perpetuating Uncertainty: Trident and the Strategic Defence and Security Review
27 October 2010
New 'Million Pleas' initiative
27 October 2010
Letter hand-in to No.10 and Nuclear Abolition Day
9 June 2010
The UK and the NPT- Rhetoric, Simulations and Reality
1 June 2010
Threats to the nuclear establishment- the UK and a Nuclear Weapons Convention
17 May 2010
ICAN-UK patron Bishop Stephen Cottrell on the urgent need to ban nuclear weapons
30 April 2010
ICAN-UK Spring Update
23 April 2010
ICAN Vice-Chair Rebecca Johnson on the NPT Review Conference
11 February 2010
ICAN-UK December Update
23 December 2009
Bruce Kent on a Nuclear Weapons Convention
23 November 2009
New ICAN-UK website launched at CND International Conference
10 Novemeber 2009
Discussing a Nuclear Weapons Convention
14 October 2009
US cancels Missile Defense in Eastern Europe
27 September 2009
Organisations worldwide urge UN Security Council to go to zero on nuclear weapons
14 September 2009
Fatal flaw at heart of Brown's nuclear roadmap
9 September 2009
New online Trident database launched
18 August 2009
Hiroshima marks nuclear attack
6 August 2009
Trident submarine deal delayed
17 July 2009
Voters want Britain to scrap all nuclear weapons, ICM poll shows
13 July 2009
Clegg says no to Trident renewal
16 June 2009
Foreign Affairs Committee Calls for Clarity on a Nuclear Weapons Convention
16 June 2009
ICAN delegates attend NPT PrepCom in New York
19 May 2009
UK's Nuclear Arsenal - Time to Disarm
10 March 2009
New Website Focuses on Climatic Consequences of Nuclear War
2 March 2009
Ban the bomb? Ask the generals
26 February 2009
USA using AWE Aldermaston for its Nuclear Warhead Programme
9 February 2009
Peace Women defeat UK Ministry of Defence in Freedom to Protest case
5 February 2009
US Candidates, Should Anything Trigger Use of Nukes?
26 February 2009
Anniversary of First British Nuclear Test
9 December 2008
IPPNW Student Conference: Target Earth
9 December 2008
UN Head Supports Nuclear Weapons Convention
9 December 2008
ICAN-UK Patrons
8 December 2008
Non-proliferation commission meets in Sydney
21 October 2008
ICAN-UK gratefully acknowledges the support of the Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation and the Poola Foundation (Tom Kantor Fund).
Our
Members
Medact is the UK affiliate of IPPNW and co-ordinates a group of UK NGOs to take the ICAN campaign forward. ICAN-UK's Core Members are:
About ICAN
ICAN-UK was set up in 2007 to raise awareness of the need for a comprehensive nuclear weapons abolition treaty and build popular support for the government to begin work on such a multilateral agreement.
ICAN-UK works with leading NGOs to promote negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention through education, parliamentary lobbying and nonviolent action.
ICAN's aims
Aim 1
The negotiation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention
The abolition of nuclear weapons is achievable through a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC). The majority of United Nations member states call for immediate negotiation of such a treaty, which would prohibit the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat, or use of nuclear weapons.
A NWC would provide for the elimination of nuclear weapons in much the same way comparable treaties have banned landmines and chemical and biological weapons.
The UK Government should pursue multilateral negotiations with a view to concluding a Nuclear Weapons Convention by the year 2020 to ensure the elimination of nuclear weapons world wide.
Aim 2
No new nuclear weapons
The UK (and other nuclear weapon states) must immediately stop upgrading, modernizing, and testing new nuclear weapons such as Trident.
Producing new nuclear weapons undermines the goal of non-proliferation, and violates the legal obligations of the nuclear weapon states under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to negotiate disarmament in good faith.
The five original nuclear weapon states made an “unequivocal undertaking” at the NPT Review Conference in 2000 to “accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament”.
The hypocritical claim that nuclear weapons are valuable instruments of policy and power projection in some hands but are intolerable threats when owned by others must be abandoned.
Aim 3
No use of nuclear weapons
To prevent the use of nuclear weapons and to ensure that any nuclear attack by anyone for any purpose would be treated as a crime against humanity.
Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones, which shrink the geographical space in which nuclear weapons can play a role, should be expanded globally.
The goverment should also adopt domestic and foreign policies which fulfill the needs of human security.
146 Countries say YES
to a NWC now
Only 27 countries say NO
Thank-you!
Over 40,000 signatures
to our petition.
No Trident Replacement -
Yes to a Nuclear Weapons
Convention (NWC)
It was presented during the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations in New York and to a representative of the UK Government at the United Nations.
Our
Patrons
ICAN-UK is pleased to announce the following have all agreed to be patrons supporting our work to bring about a Nuclear Weapons Convention:
Mairead Maguire,
Nobel Laureate
The Baroness Susan Miller of Chilthorne Domer
Air Commodore Alistair Mackie
Professor Mary Kaldor
Bishop Malcolm McMahon,
RC Bishop of Nottingham
Keith Patrick Cardinal O’Brien,
Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh
Anas Altikriti,
Cordoba Foundation President
Rt Rev. Stephen Cottrell,
Bishop of Reading
Bishop Thomas McMahon,
RC Bishop of Brentwood
Dr Rebecca Johnson,
Co-founder of the Acronym Institute
Professor Robert Hinde,
Emeritus Royal Society Research Professor of Zoology
Rodney Bickerstaffe,
former general secretary of UNISON
ICAN act
UK Campaign Actions
1
Write to your MP and ask them to sign EDM 1987 on a Nuclear Weapons Convention:
ICAN-UK needs your help to get more MPs to support a global ban on nuclear weapons.
Since November 2007, over 180 MPs have signed Early Day Motions supporting a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC).
The majority of these are either Labour or Liberal Democrat MPs.
So far, only three Conservative MPs are pro-NWC and none voted against replacing Trident in 2007. However, since the economic crisis, a new cross-party debate has begun over whether Trident is affordable and desirable.
ICAN-UK is calling on the Government to show real leadership by scrapping Trident and entering multilateral negotiations towards the verifiable global abolition of nuclear weapons. We therefore need people to write to their MPs and lobby them to support a NWC by signing
EDM 1987.
Please let us know if you receive a reply from your MP or about any other progress you make.
Click here to use CND's online lobbying
tool to find out who your MP is and to email them.
This month, a group of like-minded countries, committed to the speedy achievement of a world free of nuclear weapons, put forward a call for action to the United Nations.
After decades of deadlock there is now an opportunity for the world's leaders to take action to abolish nuclear weapons globally.
However, the attempt to kick-start global disarmament is being blocked by a small group of countries, including the UK, who are addicted to nuclear weapons.
The time has come to demand that our leaders stop making excuses. They must live up to their legal obligation to abolish all nuclear weapons. We no longer want to live with the threat of nuclear devastation. We want a world free of nuclear weapons now!
1.
Watch the action video!
2. Click and your call for a nuclear ban will be delivered directly to Foreign Minister William Hague via twitter.
3. Write to William Hague demanding that the UK supports a global ban on nuclear weapons now!
Email: William Hague haguew@parliament.uk or write to him at House of Commons, London,
SW1A 0AA.
3
Cut Trident- Not Public Services
Write to Lib Dem Defence Minister Nick Harvey
Click
here to find out more about CND's new campaign where you can:
1.
Write to Nick Harvey - asking him to include non-replacement of Trident and nuclear disarmament in his Alternatives Review.
2. Ask your MP to sign EDM 1924 Trident Review.
Affirm your belief that any use of nuclear weapons would be a crime under international law.
Visit the World Court Project's
website to register your name.
The World Court Project's work is based on the 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons.
This builds on treaty obligations, the severe restrictions international law places on nuclear weapons and their incompatibility with universal moral norms.
Bombs No More is an exciting new ICAN project that provides people with the opportunity to transform a nuclear bomb into something peaceful.
ICAN’s goal is to collect thousands of postcards of "disarmed bombs" from across the world to show government leaders that there’s strong public support for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Entries will be judged by Nobel Peace Prize winners and displayed at the United Nations.
Bombs No More supplements the Learn Peace education program and is an exciting opportunity for everyone to get involved in the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons.
You can order these
blank postcards by emailing:
info@icanw.org.
This website is the property of the UK chapter of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Useful Websites
United Kingdom
ICAN Learn
The Problem
There are approximately 23,000 nuclear weapons in existence. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, just 50 of today’s nuclear weapons could kill 200 million people.
Nuclear weapons are illegal, immoral and genocidal; they can destroy our cities, health, global climate, water catchments and our food chain, and they routinely deplete funds and attention from achieving human security. They are the ultimate weapons of terror.
Today's real security threats are climate change, environmental degradation, poverty, hunger, terrorism and crime. Nuclear weapons budgets and policies make most of these problems much worse because they divert enormous financial and technical resources from where they are really needed. In addition, the development of nuclear weapons directly adds to environmental degradation, and breeds mistrust rather than cooperation between nations.
The Solution
A Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) is a proposed treaty to ban nuclear weapons and ensure their elimination. Countries are legally required to negotiate such a treaty, and experts have already produced a draft text. They argue that a NWC is more likely to succeed than a series of fragmented and inconsistent approaches to nuclear disarmament.
In 2007 ICAN coordinated the redrafting of the model NWC and launched Securing Our Survival (SOS): The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
The UK's Role
The government says that it supports multilateral nuclear disarmament and has acknowledged that a Nuclear Weapons Convention may be required at some time in the future. In May 2010, the UK joined the 189 member states of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), calling ‘on all nuclear-weapon States to undertake concrete disarmament efforts’ and affirming that ‘all States establish the necessary framework to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons.’
The UK Government also plans to renew its Trident nuclear arsenal, as supported by a House of Commons vote in 2007. Until this position is overturned, it is unlikely that the UK could take a lead on nuclear disarmament
SUPPORT DISARMAMENT AND DIPLOMACY, SCRAP TRIDENT
For a decade there has been all-party support for the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston to work on verifying disarmament and nuclear warhead dismantlement. Instead, Aldermaston is now being refurbished to design and build more modern nuclear weapons costing billions of pounds. This is because the government is pushing forward with its nuclear rearmament plans, including four new submarines to carry Trident missiles into the 2050s.
START NEGOTIATIONS IN GOOD FAITH NOW
ICAN-UK calls on the government to honour and implement Britain’s existing commitments under the NPT and international law. The UK must stop hiding behind the false claims that nuclear weapons provide security and deterrence. The UK’s nuclear weapons only increase insecurity and drive proliferation. We therefore demand that Trident be scrapped and call on the government to join progressive non-nuclear nations in paving the way for a Nuclear Weapons Convention by 2020.
FAQs
Who has nuclear weapons?
There are five officially declared nuclear weapon states in the world: the USA, Russia, UK, France and China. These states are signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Three more states, Israel, India and Pakistan, have developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty framework.
North Korea (DPRK) claims to have a nuclear weapons capability. It withdrew from the NPT in 2003 and has since tested two nuclear devices, one in 2006 and one in 2009. Iran has a nuclear power programme – a number of states allege this hides a nuclear weapons programme.
Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Turkey, as part of their membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) have several hundred US nuclear weapons based on their soil.
For more information on nuclear weapons visit the
CND website.
Why should the UK scrap its nuclear weapons?
Nuclear weapons fuel proliferation, do not keep the peace, are hugely expensive, undemocratic, acutely dangerous, unusable, indiscriminate and illegal.
It is a myth that Trident provides a deterrent against threats to the UK. General Sir Hugh Beach has thus argued that “Britain cannot claim to have derived any direct security benefit from the possession of nuclear weapons”. For example, “British nuclear weapons did not deter Argentina from attempting to annex the Falkland Islands in 1982, nor did they help Britain to recover them.”
Are the UK's nuclear weapons illegal?
By continuing to possess nuclear weapons, Britain is failing to comply with its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which it signed in 1968. Under the NPT Britain has committed itself to disarm, with Article VI stating that signatories will pursue: “negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament”.
In 1996 the International Court of Justice ruled that any threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the principles and rules of international humanitarian law and directed the powers to implement their Article VI commitments by starting, and bringing to a conclusion, negotiations on the elimination of nuclear weapons.
Furthermore, in 2006, Greenpeace obtained an “independent, authoritative legal opinion” from a top international lawyer which indicated that “replacing or renewing Britain's Trident nuclear weapons system is inconsistent with international law”.
What should the UK Government do to
advance global nuclear disarmament?
The UK could set the pace within international treaty meetings by agreeing not to replace Trident, then removing its Trident submarines from patrol and storing the warheads safely ashore. This would represent a truly responsible use of Trident and inspire confidence in the non-proliferation process, making a NWC possible.
What is the UK Government's position on a
Nuclear Weapons Convention?
Despite the government's support for the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world, the UK is currently resisting calls for it to back a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
In response to a written question from
Elfyn Llwyd (PC), Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis clarified the UK's stance as follows: "At the moment we believe it would be premature to press for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which [would] be unlikely to make any headway and would distract attention from efforts to bolster the NPT. We do nonetheless believe there may be a role for a Nuclear Weapons Convention in the future when the time comes to establish a final ban".
However, eminent figures in the disarmament community such as Jayantha Dhanapala (President of Pugwash) have repudiated the Foreign Office's arguments that a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) would undermine the NPT, instead describing a NWC as "the simplest and most direct route" to a nuclear weapons free world.
What would a Nuclear Weapons Convention
look like?
The Model NWC contains detailed provisions for national implementation and verification; establishes an international agency responsible for enforcement and dispute settlement; and indicates procedures for reporting and addressing violations. Comparison is made with the existing treaties banning entire categories of weapons such as the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Mine Ban Treaty.
Why call for a Nuclear Weapons Convention now?
In December 2006 at the UN General Assembly, 125 governments- including nuclear armed China, India and Pakistan- called upon states to immediately fulfil their nuclear disarmament obligations 'by commencing multilateral negotiations leading to an early conclusion on a NWC prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination'.
Also, in April 2009, the
European Parliament approved - with a majority of 177 votes to 130- an amendment introducing the "
Model Nuclear Weapons Convention" and the "Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol" as concrete tools to achieve a nuclear weapons free world by 2020.
Not only do a majority of states want a NWC; opinion polls demonstrate that a majority of citizens- including those of Nuclear Weapon States (NWS)- also overwhelmingly want a nuclear-weapons free world. Recent polls have shown that the British public supports a global treaty banning nuclear weapons:
of those polled in the UK by YouGov in January 2007 agreed that "International Conventions are in force banning chemical and biological weapons. The UK government should support a similar convention to ban nuclear weapons."
of those polled in the UK by Angus Reid Global Monitor in October 2007 supported eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world through an enforceable agreement.
of those polled in the UK by WorldPublicOpinion.org in December 2008 favoured a plan for totally eliminating nuclear weapons according to a timeline.
of those polled in the UK by ICM in July 2009 want Britain to scrap nuclear weapons altogether rather than replace Trident.
How would a Nuclear Weapons Convention relate to
other international agreements?
The Model NWC does not undermine existing nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regimes, and verification and compliance arrangements. It would complement, enhance and build on the Non-Proliferation Treaty, International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation International Monitoring System and bilateral agreements between Russia and the United States. In some cases the NWC may add to the functions and activities of such regimes and arrangements. In other cases, the NWC would establish additional complementary arrangements.
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