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treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons
80 Years After US Attack on Hiroshima, Rising Threat Fuels Calls to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
The hibakusha, or survivors, "deserve to see their work vindicated and to witness the end of these inhumane, indiscriminate weapons of total destruction in their lifetime," said ICAN's leader.
Aug 06, 2025
Survivors of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and other nuclear abolitionists renewed calls for ridding the world of nukes on Wednesday, the 80th anniversary of the American attack on the Japanese city.
During the annual Peace Memorial Ceremony in Japan, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui pointed to Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which have contributed to the narrative that nuclear weapons are necessary for national defense and elevated global fears of their use.
"These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history," he said. Russia and the United States—which is arming Ukraine and Israel—have the largest nuclear arsenals. The other nuclear-armed nations are China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom.
"Despite the current turmoil at the nation-state level, we, the people, must never give up," Matsui added. "Instead, we must work even harder to build civil society consensus that nuclear weapons must be abolished for a genuinely peaceful world."
Silent prayers were held in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, marking 80 years since the atomic bombing of the city by the US on August 6, 1945.
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— Al Jazeera English (@aljazeera.com) August 6, 2025 at 6:35 AM
The mayor also urged the Japanese government to respect the wishes of hibakusha, or survivors, and join the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which was adopted in 2017 and took effect in 2021.
"The treaty not only bans nuclear weapons and all activities related to their production, deployment, and use, but also mandates that countries that joined the treaty provide support for people harmed by nuclear weapons in the past and for the cleanup of areas that were used for nuclear testing," survivor Terumi Tanaka noted Wednesday in a New York Times opinion piece.
Tanaka was 13 years old at the time of the bombing—an experience he recounted last year, while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of a group he co-chairs: Nihon Hidankyo, also known as the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers.
"Our Nobel Peace Prize sends a message to younger people that they need to be aware that we are facing an emergency—and the need to see a larger movement of young activists working to address the nuclear threat," 93-year-old Tanaka wrote Wednesday. "Even here in Japan, not enough people see this as a pressing issue."
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)—which won the Nobel Peace Prize after playing a significant role in building support for the TPNW in 2017—also used the anniversary to advocate for abolishing nuclear weapons.
ICAN executive Melissa Parke, who joined the ceremony in Japan, said in a statement that "it is not possible to come to Hiroshima and attend these solemn commemorations without being moved as well as convinced of the urgent need for nuclear weapons to be eliminated."
"The hibakusha, who were awarded last year's Nobel Peace Prize for their tenacious campaigning for the elimination of nuclear weapons, deserve to see their work vindicated and to witness the end of these inhumane, indiscriminate weapons of total destruction in their lifetime," Parke argued. "That means the nine nuclear-armed countries, most of which were represented here today, must heed their call to join the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and get rid of their arsenals."
As we mark 80 years since the atomic bombings of Japan, CND Vice-President Caroline Lucas writes from Hiroshima and asks why are nuclear powers ditching disarmament for a new nuclear arms race? Read more: www.independent.co.uk/voices/hiros...
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— Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (@cnduk.bsky.social) August 6, 2025 at 8:03 AM
In a Common Dreams opinion piece about the youth impacted by the 1945 bombings, ICAN treaty coordinator Tim Wright wrote: "The fact that children would suffer the greatest harm of all in the event of a nuclear attack against a city today should have profound implications for policymaking in nuclear-armed states and spur action for disarmament. Yet, all nine such states continue to act contrary to that objective. And the risk of a nuclear weapon being used again appears to be at an all-time high."
Common Dreams also published related opinions from Gerry Condon, a Vietnam-era veteran and former president of Veterans for Peace; Austin Headrick, public education and advocacy coordinator for Asia at American Friends Service Committee; and Ann Wright, a U.S. Army veteran who resigned from the U.S. State Department in opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Speaking at the ongoing 2025 World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, Wright noted that "there are a multitude of organizations in the United States and around the world that are working for the elimination of nuclear weapons."
"As we commemorate the lives lost and damaged by nuclear weapons 80 years ago," she said, "we commit ourselves to work harder for the elimination of these weapons, taking on our governments and the industries that make money from the construction and testing of these weapons of mass destruction."
ICAN in June released a report showing that the world's nine nuclear-armed nations spent more than $100 billion on their arsenals last year, up 11% from 2023. A few days later, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's annual yearbook warned that "a dangerous new nuclear arms race is emerging at a time when arms control regimes are severely weakened."
Those reports followed similar warnings from the experts behind the Doomsday Clock, who in January set the symbol of how close the world is to apocalypse at "89 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to catastrophe."
Fueling fears of such a catastrophe, U.S. President Donald Trump said last Friday that he "ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions" in response to "highly provocative statements" by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council.
During Trump's first term, he withdrew the United States from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia—after which the Kremlin declared a self-imposed moratorium on the deployment of those missiles. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced Monday that it will no longer abide by its rules, citing recent moves by the U.S. and its allies.
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The Movement Continues for a Nuclear-Free World
As we commemorate the lives lost and damaged by nuclear weapons 80 years ago, we commit ourselves to work harder for the elimination of these weapons.
Aug 06, 2025
Thank you for the opportunity to speak at the 2025 World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs.
I bring you greetings and solidarity from civil society movements in the U.S. who have been working diligently for a nuclear-free world against a U.S. government that is intent on spending huge amounts of money on “modernizing” its nuclear weapons.
As this is the commemoration of horrific deaths and wounding of hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago in 1945, as an American citizen, I offer my profound apologies to the families of those killed in Japan—Japanese, Koreans, and other nationalities including the U.S. prisoners of war who were there. And to Marshallese and U.S. “downwinders” who suffered from U.S. testing of atomic and nuclear weapons, for the criminal actions of my government in using these weapons of mass destruction. I also apologize to the Vietnamese delegation at the conference for the U.S. dropping millions of gallons of Agent Orange and leaving tons of unexploded ordnance in Vietnam.
The knowledge that the horrific weapons would be used to kill and maim innocent civilians as a strategy to end the war was brutal, reckless, and without any sense of humanity.
80 years later, we are battling our governments as they continue to spend trillions of dollars to “improve, upgrade, modernize” these weapons.
80 years later, we now know the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the testing of these terrible weapons in Nevada in the United States, the Marshall Islands, the Russian Federation, Mururoa, French Polynesia, Australia, and Algeria have resulted in the legacy of genetic medical conditions for the generations that have followed those who were initially exposed to the radiation emanating from the testing of nuclear bombs.
Most of the test sites were on the lands of Indigenous peoples and far from the capitals of the testing governments. Large swathes of land remain radioactive and unsafe for habitation, even decades after test sites were closed.
Slow Ratification of the TPNW
And yet, 80 years later, we are battling our governments as they continue to spend trillions of dollars to “improve, upgrade, modernize” these weapons that have now been banned by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which opened for signature at the United Nations on September 20, 2017 and entered into force on January 22, 2021.
We know the statistics. By the end of 2024, a total of 94 nations have signed the TPNW, but only 73 have signed and ratified the treaty. There are currently 21 signatory countries that have signed but NOT ratified the TPNW, countries in which their citizens must put pressure on their governments.
Citizen pressure must be put on the 44 nations that, incredibly, OPPOSE the treaty including the nine nuclear weapons countries: the U.S., Russian Federation, France, United Kingdom, China, India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan. Fifteen other nations are undecided on whether to accept or reject the treaty.
U.S. States and Cities Say No to Nuclear Weapons
The state legislatures of 5 out of 50 states in the United States—California, Oregon, New Jersey, Maine, and Rhode Island—have passed resolutions in support of the TPNW. Five large counties in the U.S. have passed resolutions in support of the TPNW, including the city and county where I live, Honolulu, Hawaii, as well as the city and county of San Francisco, and two counties in Maryland next to Washington, D.C.
Dozens of cities across the country, including Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., have also appealed to the U.S. government to sign and ratify the TPNW. In 2021, New York City resolved to pursue the divestment of public funds from nuclear weapons makers in response to the TPNW’s entry into force.
Japanese-American Rep. Jill Tokuda Cosponsors Stop the Nuclear Arms Race Resolution
In 2025, in the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress, Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii) introduced House Resolution 317 “Urging the United States to lead the world back from the brink of nuclear war and halt and reverse the nuclear arms race.”
Unfortunately, the resolution has only 28 sponsors or cosponsors out of 435 members of the House of Representatives, all from the Democratic Party, none from the Republican Party, meaning we have much work to do in the U.S. Congress.
About House Resolution 317, Jill Tokuda, my congressional representative in Hawaii who is a cosponsor of the resolution and who is Japanese American, one of only four Japanese Americans in the U.S. Congress, stated:
As a Japanese American, my heritage is deeply tied to the devastating impact of nuclear weapons and the atrocities of war. This resolution is about our moral imperative to achieve nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. It is not only a call for peace, but a commitment to ensuring that such tragedies are never repeated. This resolution represents a vital step toward a safer, more just world.
The resolution urges the United States to:
- Engage in good-faith negotiations with all nuclear-armed states to halt the buildup of nuclear arsenals and pursue verifiable, time-bound reductions;
- Conclude new arms control agreements with Russia and engage China on nuclear risk reduction;
- Renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first;
- End the Cold War-era “hair trigger alert” posture;
- Rein in the production of new nuclear warheads and delivery systems;
- Preserve the moratorium on nuclear testing;
- Protect radiation-impacted communities and workers through full remediation, compensation, and expanded healthcare, including an expanded Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA); and
- Plan a just economic transition for workers and communities dependent on the nuclear weapons industry.
U.S. Organizations Sending Greetings
There are a multitude of organizations in the United States and around the world that are working for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
They send their greetings to colleagues here in Japan and around the world as they continue their work in the U.S. Congress, in the states and cities and counties of the United States.
From June 8-11, 2025, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability’s (ANA) held its 38th annual D.C. Days to advocate in the U.S. Congress for safer nuclear weapons and waste policies.
ANA includes 30 organizations concerned with the local and national consequences of nuclear weapons and waste policy decisions. During the week of advocacy in the U.S. Congress, meetings were held with 80 members of Congress or their staff.
Referencing the Trump administration’s goal of eliminating waste in the federal government through the draconian measures taken by the Department of Government Efficiency, ANA published a new resource, “What about WASTE? 80 Years of Nuclear Waste” as a part of this year’s effort in the U.S. Congress.
The Nevada Desert Experience continues its annual spring Sacred Peace Walk from the Atomic Tests Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, 60 miles out to the Nuclear Test site on Western Shoshone land. The site was the primary testing location of American nuclear devices from 1951 to 1992. Around 928 announced nuclear tests occurred there; 828 tests were underground and 100 were atmospheric tests.
In another initiative for public awareness of the bloated U.S. military budget and nuclear weapons program, Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream in June 2025 initiated a $2.3 million, 2-year advocacy project called “Up in Arms.” The campaign is to reduce U.S. military spending, particularly on nuclear weapons; to make cutting the Pentagon budget a debate in the 2026 elections; and to bring a national focus onto nuclear dangers and the necessity of disarmament.
The International People’s Tribunal on the 1945 U.S. Atomic Bombings continues to bring international attention, and hopefully justice, to the Japanese and Korean victims and survivors of the effects of the horrific U.S. atomic bombs used in 1945.
The Lakenheath Peace Camp held in May 2025 at the U.S. Air Base in Lakenheath, U.K. focused on stopping nuclear weapons being sent again by the U.S. to be housed on U.K. soil.
NO to NATO events were held in June in The Hague, Netherlands to protest the 5% increase for NATO countries in national spending for military at the expense of social programs for the people and to alert the world to the dangers of the use of nuclear weapons in any conflict.
The International Peace Forum in Brussels, Belgium also in June 2025 focused on the increased militarization in Europe and the necessity of eliminating nuclear weapons.
The annual STOPP RAMSTEIN camp and demonstration, held in June at the largest U.S. air base in Europe, underscored the need to challenge the continuing U.S. dominance in European security issues and the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla attempted to sail two ships in May and June to break the Israeli genocide and the illegal Israeli naval blockade of Gaza, the complicity of the U.S. and other countries in the genocide, and the refusal of Israel to acknowledge its nuclear weapons.
Individuals Continue to Take Action to Bring Attention to Ending Nuclear Weapons
In 2024-2025, 81-year-old U.S. citizen Susan Crane spent 230 days in prison in Germany for cutting a fence into Büchel Air Force Base, climbing atop earthen bunkers used to store both nuclear weapons and German Tornado fighter jets to protest the stationing of American nuclear weapons in Germany, and for refusing to pay a fine. For three decades, Crane protested nuclear weapons in the U.S. and in Europe. She’s poured her own blood on a nuclear destroyer and taken a hammer to warplanes. In total, she said she’s served around seven years in prison.
Büchel Air Force Base trains German soldiers to drop hydrogen bombs on behalf of the United States as part of NATO's nuclear sharing arrangements.
Susan van der Hijden from the Netherlands and Gerd Buntzly from Germany were both in prison in Germany starting in June 2024 for similar actions at the Büchel Air Force Base.
Four U.S. peace activist have been incarcerated in Germany over protests at the Büchel Air Base: John LaForge; Dennis DuVall; Susan Crane; and Brian Terrell, a long-time Catholic Worker and human rights activist from Maloy, Iowa who works with the Nevada Desert Experience and served 15 days in the Wittlich Prison south of Cologne, from February 26 to March 12, 2025.
In June 2025, Veterans For Peace members held a 40-day fast at the United Nation and the U.S. and Israeli missions to the U.N. in New York City to stop the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza as well as for a nuclear free world.
Pledge to Continue Working for the End of Nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction
As we commemorate the lives lost and damaged by nuclear weapons 80 years ago, we commit ourselves to work harder for the elimination of these weapons, taking on our governments and the industries that make money from the construction and testing of these weapons of mass destruction.
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War Profiteers Benefit as Nuclear Weapons Spending Soared Above $100 Billion Last Year
New analysis reveals that global nuclear weapons spending "could feed all of the 345 million people currently facing the most severe levels of hunger globally, including starvation, for nearly two years."
Jun 13, 2025
The world's nine nuclear-armed nations spent more than $100 billion on their atomic arsenals last year—up 11% from 2023—with the United States accounting for both the largest share and biggest increase in expenditures, a report published Friday by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons reveals.
The new ICAN analysis identifies a $9.9 billion increase in global nuclear weapons spending in 2024, with the U.S.—the only country to ever carry out a nuclear attack on another nation—spending $56.8 billion, more than the combined expenditures of the eight other countries with nukes. In addition to the U.S., Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea have nuclear arsenals. The $5.3 billion annual spending increase by the U.S. was also more than any other nuclear power.
All that spending on doomsday weapons padded the profits of major arms makers. According to the report:
In 2024, at least twenty-six companies working on nuclear weapons development and maintenance held significant contracts for their work. These companies earned at least $43.5 billion in the year and hold at least $463 billion in outstanding contracts. In 2024, new contracts worth around $20 billion were awarded to these companies. The companies identified in this report paid lobbyists in France and the United States more than $128 million to represent their interests last year. They also had 196 meetings with high-level U.K. officials including 18 with the prime minister's office in 2024.
"Nuclear-armed countries could have paid the United Nations' budget 28 times with what they spent to build and maintain nuclear weapons in 2024," the report states. "They could feed all of the 345 million people currently facing the most severe levels of hunger globally, including starvation, for nearly two years."
Noting that "98 countries have signed, ratified, or acceded" to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), ICAN—which was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its work on the landmark accord—asserted that "it is up to each government, and the citizens of that country, to decide which path they will choose."
ICAN asserted that the stakes are higher than at any time in a generation.
"With two major wars involving nuclear-armed states in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as nuclear tensions escalating between India and Pakistan and on the Korean Peninsula, the risk that nuclear weapons could be used in combat is widely regarded as the highest it has been since the Cold War and possibly ever," the group warned Friday in a separate statement. "In response, the nuclear-armed states are clinging to the doctrine of deterrence which is based on brinkmanship and the threat to use nuclear weapons, exacerbating the risk of conflict."
Susi Snyder, ICAN program coordinator and report co-author, said Friday that the global crisis of nuclear proliferation and out-of-control spending can be solved, but that "doing so means understanding the vested interests fiercely defending the option for nine countries to indiscriminately murder civilians."
"The good news," she added, "is a majority are going in another direction. Ninety-eight states, supported by over 700 civil society organizations, have either signed, ratified, or directly acceded to the... TPNW that came into force four years ago."
This year's ICAN report highlighted the "hidden costs" of nuclear weapons.
"It's an affront to democracy that citizens and lawmakers in countries that boast of their democratic credentials are not allowed to know that nuclear weapons from other countries are based on their soil or how much of their taxes is being spent on them," ICAN policy and research coordinator and report co-author Alicia Sanders-Zakre said. "It is time for these democratically elected leaders to heed the call of their people to remove nuclear weapons from their countries and work for their total elimination."
Responding to the report, Oliver Meier, policy and research director at the European Leadership Network, a London-based think tank, said, "At a time when better transparency and accountability of nuclear weapon states range high on the agenda of many non-nuclear weapon states, the absolute secrecy and lack of engagement on the costs of Russian and NATO nuclear sharing arrangements are an anachronism."
"In democratic societies, legislators and other stakeholders must have opportunities to review these arrangements, including relevant expenditure," he added.
The day before ICAN published the report, Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, was joined by retired military officers and national security experts in Washington, D.C. for the launch of Up In Arms, a four-year campaign "to bring common sense to the Department of Defense and the country's budgetary bottom line."
"There will be no peace, there will be no security, until we start using our resources to provide for the needs of our people at home and around the world," said Cohen. "And we have the money to do it, at no additional taxpayer expense. If we take half the money budgeted for the Pentagon and invested in the things people need and want, the American Dream can become a reality again."
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