More than 120 nations were yesterday expected to adopt the first-ever treaty to ban nuclear weapons, despite a boycott by all nuclear-armed nations, including the US, which has pointed to North Korea’s escalating nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Costa Rican Ambassador to the UN Elayne Whyte Gomez, who is president of the UN conference that has been negotiating the legally binding treaty, on Thursday told reporters that “we are on the verge of adopting the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons.”
“This will be a historic moment and it will be the first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty to be concluded in more than 20 years,” Whyte Gomez said.
“The world has been waiting for this legal norm for 70 years,” since the use of the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 at the end of World War II, she said.
Whyte Gomez said she hoped the treaty would be adopted by consensus, but she said the rules of procedure for the conference also allowed for a vote.
In December last year, UN member states overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for negotiations on a treaty that would outlaw nuclear weapons, despite strong opposition from nuclear-armed nations and their allies, who refused to participate in the talks.
Whyte Gomez said 129 countries signed up to take part in drafting the treaty, which represents two-thirds of the UN’s 193 member states.
However, all nuclear states and NATO members have boycotted the negotiations, except for the Netherlands, which has US nuclear weapons in its territory and was urged by its parliament to send a delegation to the negotiations.
Following Wednesday’s final review of the text after nearly three weeks of intense negotiations, Whyte Gomez said she was “convinced that we have achieved a general agreement on a robust and comprehensive prohibition on nuclear weapons.”
“I am really confident that the final draft has captured the aspirations of the overwhelming majority of those participating in the conference, including civil society,” she said.
The final draft treaty requires all countries that ratify “never under any circumstances to develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”
It also bans any transfer or use of nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices and the threat to use such weapons.
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