Nuclear armed and allied states must ‘Turn Back the Doomsday Clock’, according to a call made today (January 29, 2025) in Geneva by NoFirstUse Global, a coalition of over 90 organizations from nuclear-armed, nuclear allied and non-nuclear countries around the world.
The call was made to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva – the permanent UN negotiating body for disarmament – following the announcement yesterday by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that the Doomsday Clock is now at 89 Seconds to Midnight.
“The Doomsday Clock highlights the very real risks of a nuclear war by crisis escalation, miscalculation, misunderstandings or accident,” said Alyn Ware, Global Coordinator of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and NoFirstUse Global co-convenor speaking from the UN in Geneva. “Nuclear-armed and allied States should take urgent measures to reduce or eliminate this threat – and stop holding civilization to ransom.”
“The first step to reduce the threat or nuclear annihilation is for all nuclear-armed and allied States to adopt and implement stringent policies to never to start a nuclear war – i.e. operational no-first-use policies, followed by negotiation of a binding no-first-use agreement,” says John Hallam, Co-convenor of NoFirstUse Global and the Abolition 2000 Working Group on Nuclear-Risk Reduction. “This would strengthen the global norm against any use of nuclear weapons. Last year China submitted a proposal to the States Parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for a binding no-first-use treaty. The other nuclear weapon States should join China in negotiations to achieve this.”
“If all nuclear armed states were to adopt and implement a no first use policy, a nuclear war could never be started,” said Carlo Trezza, Former Italian Ambassador and Special Envoy for Disarmament and Non Proliferation, and NoFirstUse Global co-convenor. “The suggestion by UN Undersecretary General Nakamitsu, of substantive discussions on what will make a no-first use policy credible, should be supported”
“Adoption of no-first-use policies is not only a vital nuclear risk reduction measure,” says Aaron Tovish, Senior Advisor to NoFirstUse Global. “Such policies also provide a gateway to negotiations amongst the nuclear-armed and allied States for the global prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. So long as nuclear-weapon States retain policies of first-use of nuclear weapons – including possible use against non-nuclear threats (such as a conventional attack) – they will remain unwilling to enter into negotiations for multilateral nuclear disarmament. Once all first-use options have been renounced, States can focus on firmly establishing a nuclear-free-world regime in which no state need fear nuclear attack.”
According to a working paper submitted by NoFirstUse Global to the 2022 Meeting of States Parties to the NPT, the adoption of unilateral, bilateral and multilateral no-first-use policies/agreements can be mutually supporting and help pave the way to a universal binding no-first-use treaty.
“No-first use is applied by China and India towards all and by Russia and China bilaterally,” says Marc Finaud, Vice President of Initiatives pour le désarmement nucléaire (IDN) and co-convenor of NoFirstUseGlobal. “It is also supported by the African Union and the Secretary-General of the United Nations. It is time that it becomes an international norm”.
“The new position of the Doomsday clock hands shows that the risk of nuclear war is the greatest it has ever been in history, yet governments are surprisingly unconcerned,” concluded Mr Hallam. “Nuclear risk reduction and disarmament need to be at the very top of every government’s agenda. A first step in this direction would be the adoption of postures and policies of No-First-Use.”
(For more information see Why No-First-Use and No-First Use of Nuclear Weapons: An Exploration of Unilateral, Bilateral and Plurilateral Approaches and their Security, Risk-reduction and Disarmament Implications)
