122 nations OK treaty banning nuclear arms

U.S., other armed countries boycott U.N. meeting and ‘historic’ vote

More than 120 countries approve the first-ever treaty to ban nuclear weapons at a U.N. meeting boycotted by all nuclear-armed nations, including the U.S.

UNITED NATIONS — More than 120 countries approved the firstever treaty to ban nuclear weapons Friday at a U.N. meeting boycotted by all nuclear-armed nations.

To loud applause, Elayne Whyte Gomez, president of the U.N. conference that has been negotiating the legally binding treaty, announced the results of the “historic” vote — 122 nations in favor, the Netherlands opposed, and Singapore abstaining.

“We have managed to sow the first seeds of a world free of nuclear weapons,” Whyte Gomez said. “We (are) … saying to our children that, yes, it is possible to inherit a world free from nuclear weapons.”

“The world has been waiting for this legal norm for 70 years,” since atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 at the end of World War II, she said.

Setsuko Thurlow, who was a 13-year-old student in Hiroshima when a U.S. nuclear bomb destroyed the city, said survivors “have worked all our lives to make sure that no other human beings should ever again be subjected to such an atrocity.”

‘Disregards the realities’

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 — is supporting the treaty. Many of their allies also did not attend the meeting.

In a joint statement, the U.N. ambassadors from the United States, Britain and France said their countries don’t intend to ever become party to the treaty.

They said it “clearly disregards the realities of the international security environment” and “is incompatible with the policy of nuclear deterrence, which has been essential to keeping the peace in Europe and North Asia for over 70 years.”

The U.S., Britain and France along with other nuclear powers instead want to strengthen the nearly half-century-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the cornerstone of global nonproliferation efforts.

That pact sought to prevent the spread of atomic arms.

It requires non-nuclear signatory nations to not pursue atomic weapons in exchange for a commitment by the five powers to move toward nuclear disarmament and to guarantee non-nuclear states’ access to peaceful nuclear technology for producing energy.

All NATO members boycotted the treaty negotiations except for the Netherlands, which has U.S. nuclear weapons on its territory and was urged by its parliament to send a delegation.

No transfers, threats

Whyte Gomez, Costa Rica’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, said 129 nations signed up to help draft the treaty, which represents two-thirds of the 193 member states.

The treaty will be opened for signatures in September and come into force when 50 countries have ratified it, she said, and its language leaves the door open for nuclear weapon states to become parties to the agreement.

The treaty requires of all ratifying countries “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.