50 nations sign treaty to shun nuclear arms

UNITED NATIONS — Fifty countries on Wednesday signed a treaty to ban nuclear weapons, a pact that the world’s nuclear powers spurned but supporters hailed as a historic agreement nonetheless.

“You are the states that are showing moral leadership in a world that desperately needs such moral leadership today,” Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said as a signing ceremony began.

The treaty needed 50 ratifications to take effect among the nations that back it. Countries that didn’t sign Wednesday will still be allowed to do so.

The deal bars those countries from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing or otherwise acquiring, possessing or stockpiling nuclear weapons “under any circumstances.”

Seven decades after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan during World War II — the only time nuclear weapons have been used in combat — there are believed to be about 15,000 of them in the world. Amid rising tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that the threat of a nuclear attack is at its highest level since the end of the Cold War.

Supporters of the pact say it’s time to push harder toward eliminating atomic weapons than nations have done through the nearly 50-year-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Under its terms, non-nuclear nations agreed not to pursue nukes in exchange for a commitment by the five original nuclear powers — the U.S., Russia, Britain, France and China — to move toward nuclear disarmament and to guarantee other states’ access to peaceful nuclear technology for producing energy.

In July, more than 120 countries approved the treaty to ban nuclear weapons, despite opposition from nuclear-armed countries.

The U.S., Britain and France said the prohibition wouldn’t work, and U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said it would instead disarm those nations while emboldening “bad actors.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has called the treaty “wishful thinking” that is “close to irresponsible.” The nuclear powers have suggested instead strengthening the nonproliferation treaty, which they say has made a significant dent in atomic arsenals.

Brazil was the first country to sign on to the ban Wednesday, followed by nations from Algeria to Venezuela.