Mr. Chair, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The risk of use of nuclear weapons is at its highest in decades. We are alarmed by this evolution and by the lack of an urgent and focused collective response from the international community. This is the reason why the International Committee of the Red Cross has decided to speak on the cluster on Nuclear Weapons of the First Committee for the very first time.
While nuclear disarmament is a collective duty, a particular responsibility lies with States possessing nuclear weapons and States associated with nuclear weapons. Action 1 of the 2010 NPT Action Plan requires all NPT States parties “to pursue policies that are fully compatible with the Treaty and the objective of achieving a world without nuclear weapons”.
Instead, what we see today is accelerated modernization of arsenals, increasing prominence of nuclear weapons in security policies, aggressive nuclear rhetoric and threats of use, doctrinal shifts lowering the threshold for use, expanded nuclear sharing and extended deterrence arrangements, and changes to national legislation in non-nuclear-weapon States to allow stationing or transit of nuclear weapons.
For the ICRC, the only effective response to this dangerous trend is to put the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons back at the heart of all debates and decisions related to nuclear weapons. This is the key both to reducing the risk of use of nuclear weapons right now, and to resuming real progress towards nuclear disarmament.
Let us learn from the past and always remember the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945: they reduced the two cities in ashes in seconds and killed tens of thousands instantly. Shadows of vaporized people are still visible today on walls. Japanese Red Cross Society hospitals are still treating thousands of survivors for long-term health effects.
In this regard, the ICRC welcomes the establishment by the United Nations General Assembly of the Independent Scientific Panel on the Effects of Nuclear War, and the decision of the World Health Assembly to update the World Health Organization reports on the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons. We urge States to vote in favor of this Committee resolutions dealing with the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons.
And it is for this reason also that the ICRC, along with the wider International Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, actively supports the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The failure, again, of the NPT Review Conference to adopt a consensus outcome document in May this year only emphasizes the need for States to persist with an even greater determination in their nuclear disarmament efforts.
More than half of the Member States of the United Nations have expressed support for the TPNW, by joining or signing it - a concrete step towards fulfilling the disarmament obligations under Article VI of the NPT; filling the last gap in the international legal regime prohibiting weapons of mass destruction; and achieving the total elimination of nuclear weapons.
In this regard, the first Review Conference of the TPNW this December provides the international community an opportunity to achieve positive progress towards nuclear disarmament this year, despite the difficult circumstances. State Parties will develop and further strengthen the Treaty, building a global norm against their possession and contributing to victim assistance and environmental remediation. We encourage TPNW States Parties to seize this opportunity and all other States to participate in a collaborative spirit.
As the President of the ICRC said, “The complete elimination of nuclear weapons is an unwavering priority for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. We will continue to work tirelessly to strengthen the membership of the TPNW and its implementation, and to promote complete nuclear disarmament, until the goal of a peaceful world free from nuclear weapons becomes reality”.
Thank you for your attention.
