Advocacy Update: From Hiroshima to Geneva, Takeaways from the 2024 NPT Conference

Event Description

Governments with nuclear weapons still resist disarmament. The treaty meant to restrain them is reviewed in a cycle of meetings that few citizens ever see. This August 2024 advocacy update was the second in a revived series from Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS). Held on the anniversary of Hiroshima, it opened by remembering the bombing of Nagasaki three days later. It also recalled CGS’s founding link to ending nuclear war.

Alyn Ware reported from the 2024 preparatory conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Governments met at the United Nations in Geneva from 22 July to 2 August 2024. Ware led the discussion on what the meeting means for nuclear disarmament advocacy.

Ware explained the treaty’s basic bargain. He also explained its three pillars: disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear technology. He then described three appeals that he and his colleagues presented to the meeting. A parliamentary appeal was signed by more than 80 legislators. An interfaith appeal was endorsed by 80 faith-based organizations and 180 leaders. A common security statement was backed by 170 organizations. CGS supported the interfaith and parliamentary appeals.

Side events covered common security, a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Northeast Asia and nuclear disarmament in the Summit of the Future. Another drew lessons for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. Participants then discussed how to involve legislators, and how to hold community conversations like the one piloted on Cape Cod. They also discussed questions to put to candidates in the U.S. election.

Speakers

• Alyn Ware, World Future Council and Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament; also Program Director, World Federalist Movement Institute for Global Policy, who attended the preparatory conference as a consultant to CGS
• Rebecca A. Shoot, Executive Director, Citizens for Global Solutions (host)

Titles are as of the event date.

Policy Focus

Nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and the NPT review cycle ahead of the 2026 review conference. Ware argued that nuclear-armed states will not disarm until the conflicts behind deterrence are addressed. Those conflicts, he said, call for diplomacy and bodies like the International Court of Justice. He also urged a time-bound plan to eliminate nuclear weapons by 2045, the UN’s 100th anniversary. And he called for a U.S. pledge never to use nuclear weapons first.

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