Date:2023/09/27   

Achieving global nuclear disarmament is the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations. The General Assembly declared the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons in 2013, as a follow-up to that year's high-level meeting of the General Assembly on nuclear disarmament. The Day provides an occasion for the world community to reaffirm its commitment to global nuclear disarmament. On 26 September, the General Assembly will hold a high-level plenary meeting to commemorate and promote the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

Sculpture depicting St. George slaying the dragon, created from fragments of Soviet and US nuclear missiles that were destroyed under a treaty.  Chinese

Sculpture depicting St. George slaying the dragon. The dragon is created from fragments of Soviet SS-20 and United States Pershing nuclear missiles. PHOTO:UN Photo/Milton Grant

International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons 

Background

The General Assembly declared the International Day in December 2013, in its resolution 68/32 as a follow-up to the high-level meeting of the General Assembly on nuclear disarmament held on 26 September 2013, in New York.

This was the latest in a series of efforts by the General Assembly to raise public awareness and to seek deeper engagement on nuclear disarmament matters. In 2009, the General Assembly had declared 29 August as the International Day against Nuclear Tests (resolution 64/35).

In resolution 68/32, the General Assembly called for the “urgent commencement of negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament of a comprehensive convention on nuclear weapons to prohibit their possession, development, production, acquisition, testing, stockpiling, transfer and use or threat of use, and to provide for their destruction.”

In 2014, in its resolution 69/58, the General Assembly further expressed its desire to commemorate the Day, and requested the Secretary-General and the President of the General Assembly to make all arrangements necessary to commemorate and promote it, including by convening an annual meeting of the Assembly to commemorate the International Day and to provide a platform for the promotion of these activities. The General Assembly repeated these requests and call in subsequent years in its resolutions 70/34, 71/71, 72/251, 73/40, 74/54, 75/45, and 76/36.

The International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons has been observed annually since 2014. Pursuant to the resolutions of the General Assembly, Member States, the United Nations system and civil society, including non-governmental organizations, academia, parliamentarians, the mass media and individuals are encouraged to commemorate and promote the International Day through enhancing public awareness and education about the threat posed to humanity by nuclear weapons and the necessity for their total elimination.

To observe the International Day, the United Nations is supporting events both in New York and Geneva. United Nations Information Centres around the world are encouraged to raise awareness to the observance of International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

The only way to eliminate the nuclear risk is to eliminate nuclear weapons. Let’s work together to banish these devices of destruction to the history books, once and for all.

António Guterres

Chinese

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