The Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) established late last year by the UNGA for ‘taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations’ recently concluded the second of its three 2016 sessions. Several aspects of its work warrant reflection as the dust...
Nuclear Weapons
Barack Obama will be first sitting US President to visit Hiroshima
Barack Obama is to visit Hiroshima this month - the first serving US president to travel to the Japanese city since it was hit by a US nuclear bomb in 1945. by BBC Asia The visit will be part of an Asian trip from 21-28 May that will also take in Vietnam. The...
Security and humanitarian implications of relying on nuclear weapons for deterrence, and effective legal alternatives
Dr Johnson’s statement on risk at the UN OEWG Geneva – 2nd May 2016
Thank you Mr Chairperson, I am speaking on behalf of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, which is also a steering group partner in ICAN. I would like to thank Dr Patricia Lewis for her very thoughtful analysis of risk, and also Ireland for introducing the...
MoD admits flying nuclear materials between US and UK
Campaigners highlight safety risks after defence minister admits there have been 23 such flights in the last five years by Rob Edwards via The Guardian Materials used in nuclear weapons have been flown between the UK and the US 23 times in the last five...
Britain’s boycott of the UN multilateral nuclear disarmament talks
via OpenDemocracy With opposition to Trident growing, the British government has refused to join this week's UN multilateral nuclear disarmament talks on practical measures to build global security without nuclear weapons. As thousands gather to...
Dangerous and Inhumane: UK Nuclear Policy and Humanitarian Nuclear Ban Strategies by Rebecca Johnson
Dangerous and Inhumane: UK Nuclear Policy and Humanitarian Nuclear Ban Strategies by Rebecca Johnson Chapter 9 in Andrew Futter (ed.), The United Kingdom and the Future of Nuclear Weapons, Rowman & Littlefield, 2016 To download this PDF please click on the link...
Acronym’s UN working paper on Deterrence
This working paper on "Security and humanitarian implications of relying on nuclear weapons for deterrence, and effective legal alternatives" was written by Rebecca Johnson and published by the United Nations Open-Ended Working Group on taking forward multilateral...
A Silent Battle of Power
The United Nations General Assembly adopts countless resolutions on nuclear weapons, every year. But this year something was different. At the UN headquarters in New York, a significant battle over nuclear weapons took place. by Beatrice Fihn via Huffpost Politics...
The Austrian Pledge to Ban Nuclear Weapons
by Dr Rebecca Johnson Driven by “the imperative of human security for all", Austria pledged at the HINW conference to work to "stigmatise, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons in light of their unacceptable humanitarian consequences and associated risksâ€....