International Day for Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

Tags: Important Days

The United Nations observes 26 September every year as the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

Important facts

• The day aims to raise public awareness of the danger posed to humanity by nuclear weapons and the need for their complete elimination.

• It provides an opportunity to educate the public and their leaders about the real benefits of eliminating such weapons and the social and economic costs of maintaining them.

Background of the day

• The United Nations General Assembly, under its resolution 68/32, at the High Level Meeting of the General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament, held in New York on 26 September 2013, announced the observance of this day in December 2013.

• International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons has been observed annually since 2014.

• On July 7, 2017, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted.

• The treaty is significant because it is the first legally binding multilateral instrument for nuclear disarmament in 20 years.

Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone 

• In 1967 Nuclear weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (Treaty of Tlatelolco), which established the first nuclear weapons-free zone in a highly populated region.

• In 1985 the South Pacific became the second nuclear-weapon-free zone (Treaty of Rarotonga).

• In 1995 Southeast Asia became the third nuclear-weapon-free zone (Bangkok Treaty).

• In 1996 Africa became the fourth nuclear-weapon-free zone (Pelindaba Treaty).

• In 2006 Central Asia became the fifth nuclear-weapon-free zone (Treaty on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia).