From time to time, there is news about the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and we will try to post it here in a timely manner. But in the spirit of true confession, the best place to get the most current news about the Treaty is on the ICAN site: www.icanw.org.
Here’s some recent information:
As of March 2022, 89 nations have signed the Treaty and 60 have ratified or acceded to the Treaty. Those 60 are called states parties. The last state to join the Treaty was Cote d’Ivoire on March 24, 2022.
The Treaty includes a provision for the First Meeting of States Parties to be held one year after the Treaty enters into force. That meeting will happen in Vienna, Austria. It was scheduled for January 2022, but it was bumped into the future by covid considerations, first rescheduled for March, it was bumped again. It is now scheduled for June 21-23, 2022.
The FMSP will be a three day meeting, expected to highlight the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons use and testing and to discuss concrete steps that can be taken to implement provisions of the Treaty.
In a surprising development, Norway and Germany have announced they will attend the FMSP. This represents the first break in the solid front presented by nuclear armed states and their allies (in this case, NATO); until this announcement the refusal to acknowledge the Treaty was almost universally adhered to, with the exception of some mention in a couple of European parliaments.
ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, is the official liaison for non-govermental organization (NGO) participation in the FSMP.