Statement to Commemorate the 1st Anniversary of the TPNW
Statement to Commemorate the 1st Anniversary of the TPNW
Today marks the first anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) coming into force. As of today, 86 countries have signed it, with 59 having ratified it.
76 years ago, the city of Hiroshima was annihilated by the US Military attack. Casualties were not only Japanese, but there were many people from abroad exposed to radiation and were killed: those from the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan, both colonized by Japan, Chinese forced to work in Japan, American POWs, and Southeast Asians studying in Japan due to Japan’s policy. Direct exposure to radiation was caused when the bomb was detonated, but even after that, residual radiation affected people who entered the city after the bombing. Radioactive fallout reached those caught in Black Rain more than 30 kilometers from the hypocenter. Estimated fatalities at the end of the year 1945 numbered approximately 140 thousand, followed by deaths from leukemia and cancers until the present day. Nagasaki was bombed three days later and suffered similar damage.
In March 1954, a Japanese tuna fishing boat (Lucky Dragon No. 5) was exposed to radiation emitted from a hydrogen bomb test (1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima Bomb) at Bikini Atoll approx. 160km from the atoll. This incident triggered the movement in Japan against A- and H-bombs by hibakusha who rose up saying, “We know through experience that we must save humans from this crisis.” One result of the movement was medical care to Hiroshima and Nagasaki hibakusha started twelve years after the bombing.
In July 2017, the TPNW was adopted at the United Nations conference and was enacted on January 22nd, 2021. Nuclear weapons are now illegal by international law. This helped people around the world understand the inhumane consequences of nuclear weapons suffered by A-bomb hibakusha and nuclear victims throughout the world as well.
However, the five nuclear powers delivered a joint statement on January 3rd this year that a nuclear war cannot be won, without any mention of when and how to reduce more than the current 13,000 nuclear weapons, and when and how they will perform and complete their duty of nuclear disarmament (Article VI of the NPT). Since there has been a definite agreement among the member states to conclude the duty in previous Review Conferences, the TPNW is ‘an important treaty that could be regarded as a final passage to a world without nuclear weapons’ (Prime Minister Kishida), and as such, the nuclear weapon states cannot be excused from their duty to sign and ratify the Treaty.
We oppose the nuclear weapon states delaying the abolition of such weapons. We demand that the Government of Japan sign and ratify the Treaty immediately. We must also make a joint effort with global hibakusha who wish to see a world without nuclear weapons.
January 22, 2022
Shuichi Adachi
President
Hiroshima Alliance for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (HANWA)
※この英文は2022年1月22日HANWAより発出された「核兵器禁止条約発効１年にあたっての声明」の英訳です。