Several visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and exchanges I had with hibakusha will remain as one of the most remarkable moments since I was appointed head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Japan in 2019.
These visits also reminded me of Dr. Marcel Junod, a doctor for the ICRC, who witnessed firsthand, a little bit more than 75 years ago, the city of Hiroshima having been “swept away by a supernatural power,” as he wrote while delivering assistance alongside the Japanese Red Cross Society.
The doctor quickly concluded that nuclear weapons must be banned outright. “Only a unified world policy can save the world from destruction,” he wrote. By 1950, an estimated 340,000 people had died from the effects of those two bombs.
HIROSHIMA Setsuko Thurlow, a revered figure in the anti-nuclear movement, marked Jan. 22 with the release in Hiroshima of a documentary film about her life and news that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons had taken effect, something she had long campaigned for.
The 89-year-old survivor of the atomic bombing of this western city who now lives in Canada is best known for her efforts on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN).
Another female expat from Hiroshima who lives in the United States helped make the movie, which is interspersed with episodes of her own family members, also hibakusha survivors.
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This treaty – the initiative of hundreds of organizations and individuals from around the world that united under the banner of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons – was ready to be signed in September 2017, after a difficult battle with the nuclear powers and their supporters, which as expected did everything possible to thwart it. No nuclear states took part in the conference that negotiated the terms of the accord, which took place at the United Nations in March and in June-July 2017.
Discussions on the treaty only began after a failed attempt by the United States to deny funding to the conference. The Netherlands, the only one of NATO’s then-29 member states to participate in the event, was also the only one of the 124 participating states to vote against the treaty. One country, Singapore, abstained. In an extraordinary gesture of protest, the U.S. and British ambassadors to the UN, as well as e
The nuclear weapons ban treaty is groundbreaking, even if the nuclear powers haven’t signed The Conversation 22, 2021 Tilman Ruff- Honorary Principal Fellow, School of Population anobal Health, University of Melbourne, The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was adopted at the United Nations in 2017 and finally reached the milestone of 50 ratifications in October.…
Activists call for Japan s participation in nuke ban treaty Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, is pictured in Geneva on Oct. 2, 2020. (Kyodo)
Activists urged Japan on Saturday to join a U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons, as they celebrated the coming into force of the 52-member pact as a boost for the global disarmament movement. The next step will be to bring the Japanese government on board with the treaty, Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said during an online event hosted by Japanese nongovernmental organization Peace Boat.