Nuclear treaty comes into force

UNITED NATIONS: The first treaty to ban nuclear weapons has entered into force, hailed as a historic step to rid the world of its deadliest weapons but strongly opposed by the world’s nucleararmed nations.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is now part of international law, culminating a decadeslong campaign aimed at preventing a repetition of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War 2.

But getting all nations to ratify the treaty requiring them to never own such weapons seems daunting, if not impossible, in the current global climate.

When the treaty was approved by the UN General Assembly in July 2017, more than 120 approved it.

Ten Pacific countries including New Zealand are among 51 state parties to have ratified it, while 86 nations have signed the treaty.

But none of the nine countries known or believed to possess nuclear weapons — the United States, Russia, Britain, China,

France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel — supported it and neither did the 30nation Nato alliance.

Japan, the world’s only country to suffer nuclear attacks, also does not support the treaty, even though the aged survivors of the bombings in 1945 strongly push for it to do so.

Japan on its own renounces use and possession of nuclear weapons, but the Japanese government has said pursuing a treaty ban is not realistic with nuclear and nonnuclear states so sharply divided over it. — AP