The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) supports and welcomes the publication of the Nagasaki Appeal and Special Resolution that were both launched at the 9th General Conference of Mayors for Peace. (1) (2)
NFLA is a partner organisation of the Mayors for Peace and is pleased that the Lord Mayor of Manchester attended the Mayors for Peace Executive Board meeting and 9th General Conference held in Nagasaki on the 7th – 10th August. The Lord Mayor also laid a wreath with the Mayor of Ypres and the Mayor of Granollers at the Hiroshima Peace Ceremony and met the UK Ambassador to Japan at the Nagasaki Peace Ceremony.
The Nagasaki Appeal commits Mayors for Peace to continue its 35 year campaign to work for a nuclear weapons free world; a cause the NFLA was also established to campaign for 37 years ago. The Appeal also welcomes the agreement of 122 nations – over 60% of the United Nations – to an international treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons. It calls on those states who boycotted this policy process, like the UK, to actively engage in nuclear disarmament talks. NFLA fully supports that call, at a time when international tensions between North Korea and the United States are of real concern.
The Appeal also calls for the promotion of peace education and a secondary campaign at the local level to challenge other issues affecting peace, such as terrorism, the refugee crisis, development and climate change. NFLA actively works in the areas of peace education and climate change for practical, long-term positive solutions, such as the promotion of decentralised and renewable energy.
The General Conference also unanimously passed a special resolution calling on those states who support the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty to ratify it and place it into international law as soon as is possible. With Mayors for Peace, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and other peace and disarmament groups, the NFLA will continue to work to change minds on the folly of ‘nuclear deterrence’ and the true benefits of an active move towards multilateral nuclear disarmament. NFLA believe Trident replacement is not the right answer for the UK’s defence needs or responsibilities.
NFLA Steering Committee Vice-Chair Councillor David Blackburn said:
“I warmly welcome the Nagasaki Appeal and the Special Resolution on the Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty agreed at the 9th General Conference of Mayors for Peace. NFLA was set up in 1980 to call for a nuclear weapons free world and that aim still centres much of our campaigning work. In cooperation with Mayors for Peace, ICAN and many other civil society groups our work is bearing fruit as this year’s agreement of the Ban Treaty has shown. Now it is incumbent on all of us, particularly in these potentially dangerous times, to redouble our efforts to encourage the nuclear weapon states, NATO members and states under the nuclear umbrella of the real folly in maintaining an expensive, immoral and unnecessary weapon of mass destruction. We stand side by side in solidarity with Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the thousands of towns and cities around the world who also want and call for a nuclear weapons free world.”
Ends – for more information please contact Sean Morris, NFLA Secretary, on 00 44 (0)161 234 3244.
Notes for editors:
(1) UK and Ireland Mayors for Peace Chapter Briefing on the 9th General Conference can be downloaded from the NFLA website: https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/M4P_Briefing_No_11_General_Conference.pdf
(2) Mayors for Peace materials on the Nagasaki Appeal, Special Resolution and associated events from the 9th General Conference: http://www.mayorsforpeace.org/english/report/meeting/9th_meeting.html
Mayors for Peace Special Resolution Requesting the Early Bringing into Effect of the Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons
“We call on the cities around the world to unite in cross-border cooperation to pave the way towards the abolition of nuclear weapons.”
This call made by the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to the establishment of “Mayors for Peace.” Since then, we have appealed for the establishment of a legal framework to prohibit nuclear weapons as we believed it to be essential in achieving their abolition.
On July 7, 2017, these efforts bore fruit. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which explicitly bans nuclear weapons, was adopted at United Nations Headquarters by 122 nations, a figure representing 60 percent of all United Nations’ member states. This was made possible by the heartfelt appeal by the hibakusha and like-minded people that “nuclear weapons should be abolished,” an appeal that gained worldwide support and moved the nations. Mayors for Peace with 7,417 member cities from 162 countries and regions, wholeheartedly welcomes the adoption of this treaty.
The 9th General Conference of Mayors of Peace was held after the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. At the General Conference, we the members of the Mayors for Peace, renewed our determination to strive for the realization of a world without nuclear weapons.
“Let Nagasaki be the last atomic-bombed site in the world.”
Here in Nagasaki, we Mayors for Peace affirmed that these words are the common wish and will of civil society and resolved our commitment to perpetuate these words for all time.
Mayors for Peace hereby resolves to urge all nations, including the nuclear-armed states, to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and bring it into effect at the earliest possible date.
Nagasaki City, Japan
August 10, 2017