Disarming Our Planet

The very first resolution passed by the United Nations, in January 1946, called for the elimination of atomic weapons.  The bedrock treaty for the control and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force in 1970 and...

This week's post in Disarming Our Planet is a statement by Mr Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, reposted here from the ICRC's website as an appeal to States, global leaders, and citizens. The International Committee...

How do you ever get the membership of the United Nations to sit down and talk about disarmament and even set off a large enough public response to have a significant downsizing of nuclear arsenals as a result? All we need is another Homer Jack. “And who is he?” you ask....

Toxic weapons made of chemicals are nothing new. They’ve been around for thousands of years as poisoned arrows, lethal smoke, or noxious fumes, but -- following their use-- they were eventually considered too cruel and unfair for ”civilized battle,” and efforts were made to ban...

The following is a summary of a paper delivered by a UN staff member to a meeting of Non-Governmental Organizations at the United Nations. The portions in italics were added by this blogger. One of the most important norms related to international peace and security created...

Content warning: this post includes graphic descriptions of the effects of the nuclear bomb dropped in Hiroshima that may be traumatic for some readers. We feel it is important to read these stories in order to capture the real human impact of nuclear weapons. ...

On July 7, 2017 a United Nations Conference approved a new treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Adopted by a vote of 122 for, 1 against, 1 abstention, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons requires that parties to the treaty “undertake never under any circumstances to...

Recent reports about the use of chemical weapons in Syria in 2017 and the international responses help demonstrate the way that international law works. A treaty to ban the use of chemical weapons officially became international law in 1997 when the minimum number of countries (...

Despite the commendable efforts by activists in past years to disarm our world, why then do we live in an armed world which could be utterly destroyed with the pressing of a few buttons? Perhaps the fear of nuclear war we are now experiencing will prompt a return to the sanity...

Welcome to Disarming Our Planet. This new addition to the UUA International Blog is devoted to building our knowledge of disarmament efforts then and now, with the goal of helping to create a more peaceful world with much fewer weapons. As the UN Charter indicates, there is...

On Sunday October 1st, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history took place in Las Vegas where 59 people were killed and over 500 people were injured. This was the 273rd mass shooting to take place in 2017. The question that everyone seems to ask after a horrific...

Current Australian gun laws, introduced in 1996, as well as their clear effects on suppressing gun-related violence, are frequently cited by gun control advocates in the USA. These laws and their effects were achieved in the wake of the Port Arthur shooting, when a lone, white,...

In October 2016, the United Nations General Assembly voted to begin negotiations on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This critically important treaty calls for a complete ban of the use, production, possession, testing, and transfer of nuclear weapons. The...

On Friday, July 7th, 2017, 122 countries approved a new treaty to ban the use, testing, production, and possession of nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is a legally-binding and long overdue treaty to promote nuclear disarmament around the world....

Negotiations are underway at the United Nations to ban nuclear weapons.  That is a remarkable statement. Last October, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to begin negotiations in 2017 on “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons,...

Unitarian Universalists and other people of faith gathered in April 2017 for a whirlwind 3-day conference in New York City. The Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office’s annual Intergenerational Spring Seminar this year was centered on the theme “Arm in Arm: Interfaith...

On the morning of August 6, seventy years after the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb, I was in Hiroshima. I entered sacred time and space in a ceremonial ritual at a place called “The Mound”—said to contain remains of the 70,000 people incinerated in the blast.  A Buddhist monk...