ICAN delegates attend NPT PrepCom in New York

Delegates from ICAN and parent organisation IPPNW have returned from the Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee (NPT PrepCom) in New York, addressing the need for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
 
This was a crucial meeting ahead of the 2010 NPT Review Conference (RevCon). Attending the PrepCom were Australian Chair of ICAN, Asscociate Prof. Tilman Ruff, along with ICAN Board Members Dr Ruth Mitchell and Dimity Hawkins.
 
Tilman, with nuclear disarmament activist John Hallam, represented the official Australian delegation, while Ruth worked with ICAN's Dimity Hawkins, analysing, reporting back, and sharing information and strategies with other anti-nuclear groups from around the world.
 
Delegates from ICAN Australia and IPPNW Sweden, NPT PrepCom, 2009 Delegates from ICAN Australia and IPPNW Sweden For the daily PrepCom updates from ICAN's Dr Ruth Mitchell see ICAN's blog page or contact: dimity@icanw.org
 
The NPT, with its several flaws (including lack of a timeline for disarmament, and permitting the major weapons nuclear states the right to dual-use nuclear technologies), has been all our world has had to help address the still-present threat of nuclear war from the current arsenal of 26,000 weapons - an all too-real threat to all life, to our global climate, to food crops, industries, and economies.
 
Hence, nuclear weapons must be abolished, with steps of verification in place - a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. There is no other sure, safe option. A Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) would be that treaty, a draft of which has been tabled with the United Nations.