IPPNW’s message about nuclear war “universally embraced” at 2MSP

by Michael Christ, IPPNW’s Executive Director, originally published on IPPNW’s bi-annual newsletter Vital Signs

As diplomats assembled at United Nations Headquarters for the second Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2MSP/TPNW), an IPPNW volunteer force of more than 50 doctors, medical students and activists from 14 countries descended on New York to reinforce the urgent need to prevent nuclear war by abolishing nuclear weapons.  

Over the course of six days, from November 26-December 1, 2023, IPPNW delegates fanned out across the UN to monitor and participate in the general debate, to meet with government representatives, and to raise the voice of health professionals at dozens of civil society and diplomatic events. We had by far the largest delegation of any NGO.  

IPPNW Program Director Molly McGinty moderated a day-long ICAN Campaigners Forum on the eve of 2MSP, attended by some two-hundred ban treaty activists from around the world.  IPPNW was also a lead organizer of a half-day youth conference with Youth for TPNW, the largest youth-led event of the week.

IPPNW Board member Dr. Sally Ndung’u from Kenya delivered powerful testimony on our behalf at a plenary session of treaty delegates.  “This second Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW occurs at a moment of extraordinary danger where the world is sleepwalking towards a nuclear catastrophe of unimaginable magnitude. It is time to wake up, before our nightmare becomes reality,” she implored in her conclusion.  Dr. Ndung’u also moderated a major side event organized by IPPNW on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons with leading international health agencies. 

IPPNW’s core message – since there can be no effective medical response to nuclear war, prevention is the only cure – was universally embraced by delegates and evident throughout the meeting.   “Evidence-based policymaking on the effects of nuclear weapons, the process out of which the Treaty was created, must be central to all decisions and actions regarding the elimination of nuclear weapons,” according to the outcome document from the meeting, which also embraced IPPNW’s call for new studies by the World Health Organization and other major UN agencies on the consequences of nuclear war. The last such studies were produced in the late 1980s.

A new 15-member TPNW Scientific Advisory Group (SAG), established during the first Meeting of States Parties as “the first international scientific body created to advance nuclear disarmament under a multilateral treaty,” presented its initial findings.  “This was extremely important because it was the first time that we were addressing at this level [of an official UN conference] the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear detonation,” according to Juan Ramón de la Fuente, the Mexican ambassador who served as 2MSP president. Notably, eminent IPPNW Board member Dr. Jans Fromow, who joined IPPNW as a medical student in 1987, is a founding member of the SAG. 

Another important outcome of the meeting was an agreement by TPNW States Parties to confront the chief impediment to nuclear abolition:  the myth of nuclear deterrence. “Far from preserving peace and security, nuclear weapons are used as instruments of policy, linked to coercion, intimidation and heightening of tensions. The renewed advocacy, insistence on and attempts to justify nuclear deterrence as a legitimate security doctrine gives false credence to the value of nuclear weapons for national security and dangerously increases the risk of horizontal and vertical nuclear proliferation.”

The meeting resolved to “challenge the security paradigm based on nuclear deterrence by highlighting and promoting new scientific evidence about the humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons and juxtaposing this with the risks and assumptions that are inherent in nuclear deterrence.” 

The third Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW will convene at the UN Headquarters in New York from March 3-7, 2025.