tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/ican-44536/articlesICAN – The Conversation2017-12-14T09:21:53Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/889732017-12-14T09:21:53Z2017-12-14T09:21:53ZAustralia’s snub to Nobel Peace win is major break from ambiguous nukes policies of past<p>The Australian government under Malcolm Turnbull has been less than ecstatic about the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). The <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/malcolm-turnbull-wont-congratulate-australias-first-nobel-peace-laureate-because-he-supports-nukes-20171010-gyxwdg.html">failure</a> to congratulate Melbourne-based ICAN has come under <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-10/nobel-peace-prize-australian-government-accused-of-shame-job/9244194">much criticism</a> from anti-nuclear activists. </p>
<p>Following the country’s <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/nobel-peace-prize-ican-nuclear-weapons-donald-trump-labour-un-a8100986.html">NATO allies</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-10/nobel-peace-prize-australian-government-accused-of-shame-job/9244194">behaving as if</a> the whole episode never happened is in line with recent policy utterances, however. Canberra’s latest <a href="https://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2017/jb_mr_171123.aspx">Foreign Policy White Paper</a>, released in November, says the country’s 60-year alliance with the US is “a choice we make how best to pursue our security interests” and “is central to our shared objective of shaping the regional order”. </p>
<p>There has not always been such a black-and-white split between activists and Australian politicians. Successive governments have waxed and waned considerably. At a time when nuclear tensions are running particularly high between the US and North Korea, the difference with the current administration is striking. </p>
<h2>Atomic Australia</h2>
<p>When the UK and US <a href="http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/ManhattanProject/Quebec.shtml">agreed to</a> collaborate on atomic weapons in 1943 through the Manhattan Project, Australia and other British dominions were explicitly cut out. The Americans wanted to control nuclear knowledge for exploitation after the war, and wanted the research to proceed with the utmost secrecy. </p>
<p>When Washington decided <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/co-operation-competition-testing.htm">to go it alone</a> in 1946, it gave Australia an opening. The British proceeded in the early 1950s to develop their own bomb, and decided to concentrate the effort in Australia because of its uranium and apparently wide empty spaces. </p>
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<span class="caption">Sir Mark Oliphant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.epa.eu/human-interest-photos/people-photos/nobel-peace-prize-2017-concert-photos-53952960">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>This had much to do with celebrated Australian physicist <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/7033">Mark Oliphant</a>. As a professor of physics at the University of Birmingham in the UK, it was he who had first told <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/j-robert-oppenheimer">J Robert Oppenheimer</a>, leader of America’s Manhattan Project, that it was possible to make an atomic bomb from only a few pounds, not tons, of uranium. </p>
<p>When Britain and America began collaborating in 1943, Oliphant moved to California as a leading contributor. He saw at first hand the US’s desire to monopolise nuclear know-how, <a href="http://dado.msk.ru/rlib/utf8/494471.html">writing privately</a> about how Britain had been “sold down the river”. </p>
<p>When British-Australian testing was getting underway in 1950, Oliphant returned to his homeland to take a senior physics post at the new Australian National University in Canberra. He was quoted in the press saying his department would focus on nuclear energy rather than weapons and would not do secret work “within the laboratory itself” unless it became necessary.</p>
<p>The 1950s saw Anglo-Australian tests for nuclear ballistic missiles at Woomera in South Australia, in parallel with atomic tests elsewhere in the country in preparation for a British hydrogen bomb. Yet the effort was short-lived: after the joint project <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ws7w90">successfully detonated</a> a hydrogen bomb in the central Pacific in 1957, Britain was soon <a href="http://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/56_4.pdf?_=1316627913">brought back</a> into the nuclear fold by the US. </p>
<p>Australia was relegated to supplying uranium and hosting listening posts to Asia for the Americans, in exchange for promises of nuclear protection. It has performed the same role ever since. </p>
<h2>View from Canberra</h2>
<p>In the intervening years, Canberra has never strayed from this overarching alliance. When you look at the details, however, the Australian view is far from straightforward. I’ll look at some former prime ministers in a moment. First a few words on Oliphant from research I expect to be published next year. He seems to almost personify these conflicting feelings. </p>
<p>During his time in Canberra, Oliphant came to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1349058/Professor-Sir-Mark-Oliphant.html">describe himself</a> as a “belligerent pacifist”. He is quoted in several press reports from the early 1950s calling for a world government to avert the need for nuclear weapons. He <a href="http://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.1387592">joined</a> the Pugwash movement of leading scientists against nuclear weapons in 1957. This is quite a contrast to comments he made to the London Recorder in 1949:</p>
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<p>The United States and United Kingdom are developing weapons designed for their own defence. They may not suit Australia’s needs if she has to defend herself. We must develop our own methods of defence and build for ourselves.</p>
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<p>Oliphant maintained some involvement in the Commonwealth nuclear project despite his focus on energy. An archived letter shows him suggesting to a colleague that he visit Woomera to view the testing in 1953, for example, although he himself was <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403921017">excluded</a> from the atom bomb tests at nearby Maralinga. He was quoted in the Australian press in 1951 expressing fears that Canberra might be considered “expendable” in its partnership with Britain if push came to shove. </p>
<p>In 1955, a government report refers to him telling government officers that atomic power plants built for energy could be converted to bombs manufacture within hours. “Australia could best be defended by nuclear weapons and that conventional forces and armaments could be cut”, he is quoted as saying. </p>
<p>Was he developing a pacifist public face while also trying to persuade Canberra to develop its own bomb? It certainly feels like it. Some Australian cabinet ministers also wanted an independent Australian nuclear deterrent in the late 1950s, though then Prime Minister Robert Menzies <a href="https://nautilus.org/apsnet/0623a-broinowski-html/">disagreed</a>. </p>
<p>Oliphant’s ambivalence is echoed in certain Australian administrations. In 1971, the Liberal prime minister, William McMahon <a href="https://nautilus.org/apsnet/0623a-broinwski-html/">scrapped plans</a> to build a nuclear reactor that could produce weapons-grade plutonium. His Labor successor Gough Whitlam then ratified the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/npt">Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968</a>, overturning previous Liberal <a href="https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au/bitstream/handle/10072/46413/78806_1.pdf?sequence=1">reluctance</a>. </p>
<p>Malcolm Fraser, another Liberal prime minister, introduced a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2011-2012/UraniumPolicy">safeguards regime</a> for exporting uranium in 1978 that included only selling it to countries that were parties to the 1968 treaty – including the Americans, of course. Fraser later became involved in founding ICAN, and <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/hawke-fraser-join-anti-nuclear-campaign-group/news-story/dd832b27726b6a7633bd016d4b910cc7">campaigned</a> against nuclear weapons alongside his successor as prime minister, Bob Hawke.</p>
<p>The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN comes at a time when the pros and antis have rarely been more polarised or the choices more difficult. When the Nobel ICAN award first made news in October, Turnbull’s office made a <a href="http://www.theage.com/victoria/nobel-peace-prize-winners-thought-it-was-a-hoax">statement</a> acknowledging the campaign group’s commitment. </p>
<p>But it concluded: “So long as the threat of nuclear attack exists, US extended deterrence will serve Australia’s fundamental national security interests.” With a rogue nuclear power nearby, in other words, this is no time for contradictory policies from Australia. It raises difficult questions about where the country goes from here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88973/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sue Rabbitt Roff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Canberra’s attitude to nuclear weapons has always been riddled with contradictions. Homegrown nuclear campaigners winning the Nobel prize have put the cat among the pigeons.Sue Rabbitt Roff, Researcher, Social History/Tutor in Medical Education, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/889402017-12-14T01:01:11Z2017-12-14T01:01:11ZInstead of congratulating ICAN on its Nobel Peace Prize, Australia is resisting efforts to ban the bomb<p>Earlier this week in Oslo, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was officially <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/46249/persuaded-122-countries-ban-nuclear-weapons/">given</a> to the <a href="http://www.icanw.org/au/">International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons</a> (ICAN), a global campaign that was launched in Melbourne in 2007.</p>
<p>ICAN lobbied to establish a special <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/70/33">UN working group</a> on nuclear disarmament, campaigned for the UN General Assembly’s December 2016 <a href="http://www.icanw.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/N1646669.pdf">resolution</a> to launch negotiations on a prohibition treaty, and was an active presence at the UN conference that negotiated the treaty.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-melbourne-activists-launched-a-campaign-for-nuclear-disarmament-and-won-a-nobel-prize-85386">How Melbourne activists launched a campaign for nuclear disarmament and won a Nobel prize</a>
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<p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull failed to congratulate the Australian faces of ICAN, adding to the growing body of evidence of his flawed political judgement.</p>
<p>There were no political downsides to phoning ICAN, noting the difference of opinion on the timing and means to effective nuclear disarmament, but warmly congratulating ICAN for the global recognition of its noble efforts to promote nuclear peace.</p>
<h2>Out of step with the global nuclear order</h2>
<p>The global nuclear order has been regulated and nuclear policy directions set by the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty</a> (NPT) since 1968. </p>
<p>The 2015 <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33521655">Iran nuclear deal</a> and North Korea’s unchecked nuclear and missile delivery <a href="http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/north-korea-working-on-an-advanced-version-of-an-icbm-to-reach-the-us/news-story/2213b48119336361041df2ab32e38c12">advances</a> show the benefits and limitations of the NPT respectively. </p>
<p>The transparency, verification and consequences regime mothballed <a href="http://www.policyforum.net/iran-deal-an-historic-compromise/">Iran’s bomb-making program</a> by enforcing its NPT non-proliferation obligations. These will remain legally binding even after the deal expires in 2030. </p>
<p>By contrast, the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear program has intensified within the NPT framework. Heightened geopolitical tensions in Europe, the Middle East and south and east Asia have further stoked nuclear fears. Meanwhile the NPT-recognised five <a href="https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons.html">nuclear weapon states</a> have no plan to abolish their nuclear arsenals. </p>
<p>Frustrated by the stubborn resistance of the nuclear weapon states to honour their NPT commitment to nuclear disarmament and alarmed by rising nuclear threats, on July 7 this year, 122 countries adopted a UN treaty to <a href="http://www.undocs.org/en/a/conf.229/2017/L.3/Rev.1">stigmatise and ban the bomb</a>.</p>
<p>The nine nuclear powers and all the NATO and Pacific allies who shelter under US extended nuclear deterrence dismissed the treaty as impractical, ineffective and dangerous. </p>
<p>Critics allege the treaty is a distraction that ignores international security realities, will damage the NPT, and could generate fresh pressures to weaponisation in some umbrella nations. Nuclear deterrence has kept the peace in Europe and the Pacific for seven decades. </p>
<p>They will argue that the ban treaty undermines strategic stability, jeopardises nuclear peace, and makes the world more unpredictable. It ignores the critical limitations of international institutions for overseeing and guaranteeing abolition and has polarised the international community.</p>
<h2>Australia still under the US nuclear umbrella</h2>
<p>The ban treaty is not compatible with nuclear sharing by NATO allies whereby nuclear weapons are stationed on their territory, nor with Australia’s policy of relying on US nuclear weapons for national security and nuclear-related co-operation with the US through the shared <a href="https://nautilus.org/publications/books/australian-forces-abroad/defence-facilities/pine-gap/pine-gap-intro/">Pine Gap</a> asset. </p>
<p>In a period of power transition in which China’s geopolitical footprint is <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-10/china-extends-its-influence-in-the-south-pacific/7812922">growing</a> while the US strategic footprint recedes, reliance on the security and political roles of US nuclear weapons by Australia, Japan and South Korea has increased, not diminished.</p>
<p>The most strident criticisms of the diplomatic insurgency have come from France, UK and US, while Australia has been among “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/23/un-panel-releases-draft-treaty-banning-possession-and-use-of-nuclear-weapons">the most outspoken of the non-nuclear states</a>”. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-stance-on-nuclear-deterrence-leaves-it-on-the-wrong-side-of-history-64163">Australia's stance on nuclear deterrence leaves it on the wrong side of history</a>
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<p>Australia’s preferred approach does not challenge the social purposes and value of nuclear weapons nor question the legality and legitimacy of these weapons and the logic and practice of nuclear deterrence. It leaves nuclear agency entirely in the hands of the possessor states, accepting that they can safely manage nuclear risks by appropriate adjustments to warhead numbers, nuclear doctrines and force postures. </p>
<p>To critics, the nuclear powers are not so much possessor as possessed countries. Within the security paradigm, nuclear weapons are national assets for the possessor countries individually. In the ban treaty’s humanitarian reframing, they are a collective international hazard. </p>
<p>The known humanitarian consequences of any future use makes the very possibility of nuclear war unacceptable. Dispossession of nuclear weapons removes that future possibility. Stigmatisation and prohibition are normative steps on the path to nuclear disarmament.</p>
<p>The nuclear weapons states have instrumentalised the NPT to legitimise their own indefinite possession of nuclear weapons while enforcing non-proliferation on anyone else pushing to join their exclusive club. For them, the problem is who has the bomb. </p>
<p>But increasingly, the bomb itself is the problem. </p>
<h2>A curcuit breaker</h2>
<p>The ban treaty is a circuit-breaker in the search for a dependable, rules-based security order outside the limits of what the nuclear-armed countries are prepared to accept. </p>
<p>The step-by-step approach adopts a transactional strategy to move incrementally without disturbing the existing security order. The ban treaty’s transformative approach transcends the limitations imposed by national and international security arguments.</p>
<p>For Australia, nuclear disarmament is of lower priority than bolstering and indefinitely sustaining the legitimacy and credibility of nuclear deterrence. In its view, the ban treaty will neither promote nuclear disarmament nor strengthen national security. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-good-reasons-to-worry-about-trump-having-the-nuclear-codes-68576">Three good reasons to worry about Trump having the nuclear codes</a>
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<p>Australia’s instinct is to support incremental, verifiable and enforceable agreements and commitments. There is no detailed framework for actual elimination, verification and enforcement. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.fpwhitepaper.gov.au/">Foreign Policy White Paper</a> repeats the familiar mantra that a complex security environment requires a patient and pragmatic approach. It simply ignores the adoption of the ban treaty, pretending it does not exist.</p>
<h2>Australia should join global efforts to ban the bomb</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.icanw.org/treaty-on-the-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons/">UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons</a> is a good faith effort by 122 countries to act on their NPT responsibility to take effective measures on nuclear disarmament. </p>
<p>A constructive approach would be for Australia to lead a collaborative effort with like-minded countries like Canada, Japan and Norway to explore strategic stability at low numbers of nuclear weapons and the conditions for serious and practical steps towards nuclear disarmament. </p>
<p>Instead, Australia has chosen to join the nattering nabobs of negativism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88940/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ramesh Thakur does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Turnbull government has refused to congratulate ICAN on winning Australia’s first homegrown Nobel Peace Prize. In doing so, it is working against international efforts to ban nuclear weapons.Ramesh Thakur, Professor of International Relations, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/853862017-10-09T05:26:23Z2017-10-09T05:26:23ZHow Melbourne activists launched a campaign for nuclear disarmament and won a Nobel prize<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189310/original/file-20171009-25775-2y6e5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tilman Ruff (back centre) and a group of ICAN campaigners protest outside Australia's permanent mission to the UN at Geneva.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/30835738@N03/26919314551/">Tim Wright, ICAN</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Friday, the <a href="http://www.icanw.org/au/">International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons</a> (ICAN) was awarded the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2017/">2017 Nobel Peace Prize</a>, “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons”. </p>
<p>The prize comes after ICAN played a pivotal role in an historic <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/ptnw/">UN treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons</a>. The treaty was adopted in July by an overwhelming vote of 122 to one. ICAN was the driving force behind it, working closely with governments to get it over the line.</p>
<p>The treaty’s significance lies in its power to influence governments: those that actually support nuclear disarmament will sign it; those that don’t will be shown to be insincere in their disarmament rhetoric.</p>
<h2>From little things…</h2>
<p>Malaysian obstetrician and former co-president of <a href="http://www.ippnw.org">International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War</a> (IPPNW) Ron McCoy first proposed the idea of ICAN in 2005.</p>
<p>McCoy put out a call to colleagues through IPPNW advocating “lateral thinking and a new approach to nuclear disarmament”. He wrote:</p>
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<p>We can call it an International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, with the acronym ICAN. Let’s start working on this right now.</p>
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<p>The idea struck a deep chord in Melbourne among colleagues active in the medical, peace and nuclear-free movements. </p>
<p>We hatched a plan to build a broad campaign coalition of diverse partner organisations around the world with a clear compelling goal – one that is working for biological and chemical weapons, cluster munitions and landmines: a comprehensive, binding treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons and provide for their elimination. </p>
<p>We knew that it needed to be global, to engage young people, and to be rooted in the unacceptability of nuclear weapons – the catastrophic indiscriminate consequences that would inevitably follow any use. </p>
<p>We needed to include and provide a platform for the courageous voices of survivors of nuclear weapons use and testing. They tell the human story of lived transgenerational suffering of people under the mushroom cloud, and they are the most compelling advocates that what happened to them must never again happen to anyone, anywhere. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bikini-islanders-still-deal-with-fallout-of-us-nuclear-tests-more-than-70-years-later-58567">Bikini islanders still deal with fallout of US nuclear tests, more than 70 years later</a>
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<p>And we needed money. At the first meeting with the Poola Foundation in early 2006 in Leicester Street, Carlton, they could see merit in an idea that seemed wildly optimistic to many, and their confidence in us was empowering. </p>
<p>Our co-founder, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/bill-williams-passionate-for-improved-health-outcomes-for-aboriginal-people-20160921-grkyev.html">Bill Williams</a>, sadly passed away before he could celebrate the wonderful developments of this year with us. But it was Williams who so eloquently summed up our brief, saying: </p>
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<p>We need a determined worldwide movement to outlaw and abolish nukes. To get there in this generation, we need to build the wave of public opinion into a mighty crescendo: a massive, surging, irresistible force which carries us all the way to absolutely zero nukes. Without it, even the most inspirational of leaders will falter on the way.</p>
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<span class="caption">Bill Williams speaking at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl just prior to the launch of ICAN.</span>
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<h2>Building a movement from the ground up</h2>
<p>From the outset we were up against the harsh reality that none of the nuclear-armed countries were serious about fulfilling their binding obligation to disarm. In fact, they were doing the opposite. </p>
<p>Many of these countries were arguing that conditions were not right to disarm, and they were investing more than <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/us/us-ramping-up-major-renewal-in-nuclear-arms.html">US$100 billion per year</a> in modernising their nuclear arsenals, making them more accurate, deadly and “usable”. </p>
<p>So, a game-changing breakthrough needed to come from the countries without the weapons. Most of them were despairing and frustrated about being indefinitely held under a nuclear threat by governments that refused to fulfil a legally binding disarmament commitment they made under the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty</a>, which had been in force since 1970. </p>
<p>Governments that don’t possess nuclear weapons can’t eliminate them. So what’s the most feasible significant step they could take? Fill the legal gap that sees the worst of all weapons, the only ones that pose an existential threat to all humanity, the only weapons of mass destruction not yet outlawed. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-must-sign-the-prohibition-on-nuclear-weapons-heres-why-83951">Australia must sign the prohibition on nuclear weapons: here's why</a>
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<p>With or without nuclear-armed and dependent countries, they could ban nuclear weapons under international law. Thus, by 2010, ICAN strategy had sharpened around a nuclear weapons ban treaty as the next best step that could be taken. </p>
<h2>Taking it to Europe and beyond</h2>
<p>Towards the end of 2010, an office was established in Oslo. In the same year ICAN secured an initial grant from the Norwegian government to establish an international campaign office in Geneva, reaching out to the Middle East and Africa. </p>
<p>Through ICAN and partners across the globe, survivors’ voices were joined by the many voices of those who would not have their suffering happen again – medicos, scientists, legal experts, artists, witnesses, thinkers, campaigners, spiritual leaders and defence experts.</p>
<p>When a majority of the world’s governments came together earlier this year to negotiate the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/ptnw/">Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons</a>, ICAN campaigners across the globe stood strong alongside the <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/who-we-are">International Red Cross</a> and the <a href="http://www.ifrc.org/en/who-we-are/the-movement/">Red Crescent movement</a> and other partners to ensure the formation of the strongest treaty possible. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189330/original/file-20171009-6947-1og9n03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189330/original/file-20171009-6947-1og9n03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189330/original/file-20171009-6947-1og9n03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189330/original/file-20171009-6947-1og9n03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189330/original/file-20171009-6947-1og9n03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189330/original/file-20171009-6947-1og9n03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189330/original/file-20171009-6947-1og9n03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The signing ceremony for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
at UN headquarters in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/30835738@N03/with/37184677032/">Darren Ornitz/ICAN</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When that treaty opened for signature on September 20, 2017, many of us here in Australia sat up late into the night watching the ceremony live-streamed from the UN. And now, just weeks later, the announcement of the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2017/">Nobel Peace Prize</a> has swept the work into high profile and sharp focus. </p>
<h2>The work of ICAN isn’t over</h2>
<p>ICAN was always intended to be a coalescing, not a reinvention. From the first use of nuclear weapons in 1945 to today, millions of people have worked to eliminate them. </p>
<p>The hard work of pushing for the elimination of nuclear weapons must not only continue but ramp up. The new treaty provides a powerful tool in this work, and the opposition of the nuclear-armed and dependent countries to the treaty is the strongest evidence that the treaty matters and cannot be ignored. </p>
<p>The Nobel Peace Prize shines a bright light on the urgent unfinished business of getting nuclear weapons off the table. It is a huge shot in the arm, and encouragement for governments to sign and ratify the treaty and then implement it, and for people around the world to press their governments to do so. </p>
<p>It could not have come at a better or more urgent time.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189331/original/file-20171009-6971-1ezmqnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189331/original/file-20171009-6971-1ezmqnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189331/original/file-20171009-6971-1ezmqnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189331/original/file-20171009-6971-1ezmqnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189331/original/file-20171009-6971-1ezmqnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189331/original/file-20171009-6971-1ezmqnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189331/original/file-20171009-6971-1ezmqnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ICAN campaigners in front of the Central Park skyline in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/30835738@N03/34921916204/">ICAN/Ralf Schlesener</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tilman Ruff received funding from the Swiss government for expert testimony at a side event at the nuclear non-proliferation treaty meeting in Vienna in 2012, travel support from the Australian government in 2009 in his role as a civil society advisor to the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, and travel support as an expert advisor to a High-Level Expert Meeting of the Interaction Council in 2010.
He is a co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and founding international and Australian chair of ICAN, and serves currently on its International Steering Group and Australian Committee.He is a past president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dimity Hawkins was a co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN). She has previously worked for the organisation as Campaign Director (2009-2010) and has been a member of the Australian Board (2006-2009 and 2013-2017). She does not currently hold a position with the organisation but continues to volunteer her time. She is a full time PhD Candidate with Swinburne University. </span></em></p>A grassroots movement with its genesis in Melbourne has won the Nobel Peace Prize.Tilman Ruff, Associate Professor, International Education and Learning Unit, Nossal Institute for Global Health, School of Population and Global Health, The University of MelbourneDimity Hawkins, PhD Candidate, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.