June 12, 2022

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

The first Meeting of States Parties to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which came into force in January 2021 will take place for three days from June 21 in Vienna, Austria with 61 signatories participating. In the three-day meeting, all UN member states are invited. Parliamentarians of all nations and civil society representatives, including antinuke activists, are also invited to the meeting as formal members. Amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, discussions in the meeting on ways to achieve progress for nuclear disarmament and to use the TPNW as leverage to eliminate the crisis of nuclear war will attract the world’s attention.

Article 1 of the TPNW prohibits the use or the threat of use of nuclear weapons. The first TPNW conference is expected to send a message that the international community is uniting to prevent nuclear-armed states from using their weapons.

Russia’s Putin administration is rattling its nuclear saber, ignoring the devastating consequences implied in the use of nuclear weapons. This indicates that the abolition of nuclear weapons is the only way to remove dangers of nuclear weapons.

The TPNW bans nuclear weapons and makes them illegal. In addition, its Article 4 stipulates a course of action to be taken by both nuclear haves and have-nots to eliminate nuclear weapons. The treaty’s power and normative nature will be enhanced with the increase in the number of countries supporting and joining the TPNW. In order to achieve this, how to promote joint efforts with civil societies should become an important theme on the three-meeting agenda.

Nations participating in the TPNW conference will include the NATO members of Germany and Norway as observers. The Japanese government, however, refuses to participate in the meeting under the pretext of its reliance on the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Japan’s act is indeed shameful being the only A-bombed country in the world. The Prime Minister Kishida Fumio administration should at least take part in the meeting as an observer and call for the non-use and the total elimination of nuclear weapons by appealing to the world Japan’s firsthand experience with the inhumane nature of the use of such weapons.

Japan’s participation in the TPNW will definitely serve as a driving force for strengthening international opinion to prevent the use of nuclear weapons. It is urgently necessary to vote into power a government in Japan willing to abandon the nuclear deterrence theory and join the antinuke UN treaty.