Nuclear weapons pose a very real and current threat to life and our planet — yet there are tangible steps we can take to eliminate them. These steps were presented and discussed in a webinar hosted by United Religions Initiative in North America last month by world-renowned speakers and experts Bishop Bill Swing, Founder and President of URI and member of Voices for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons Cooperation Circle, Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, Alyn Ware, coordinator of 2015 Global Wave Goodbye to Nuclear Weapons and Dot Maver, Project Director with Kosmos Associates and Founding Trustee of The National Peace Academy, a URI North America Affiliate.

These same peacebuilders will be in New York City April 24-26 for the International Peace & Planet Conference for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just, and Sustainable World.

Kosmos Project Director, Dot Maver, will co-facilitate a workshop: ‘Moral and Legal Call to Action’, with Jonathan Granoff and Monica Willard.

The Conference, (to be held on the eve of the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons), is organized on the basis of five themes:

• Nuclear weapons abolition
• Move the money (cutting military spending to prevent wars and fund essential human needs)
• Climate change and environmental justice
• The new era of global military tensions and wars
• Racism and militarism.

Through plenaries and workshops, the Conference Program will serve to share information and analyses, build and further integrate our movements for the longer term, and increase impact on the NPT Review Conference. In addition to the five themes, a youth track is being organized.

You can sign the Petition for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons here.

From 27 April to 22 May 2015, the 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will be held at UN Headquarters in New York. The President-designate of the Review Conference is Ambassador Taous Feroukhi from Algeria.

The NPT is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. The NPT represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon States.Conferences to review the operation of the Treaty have been held at five-year intervals since the Treaty went into effect in 1970. Each conference has sought to find agreement on a final declaration that would assess the implementation of the Treaty’s provisions and make recommendations on measures to further strengthen it.

The 2015 Review Conference is expected to consider a number of key issues, including: universality of the Treaty; nuclear disarmament, including specific practical measures; nuclear non-proliferation, including the promoting and strengthening of safeguards; measures to advance the peaceful use of nuclear energy, safety and security; regional disarmament and non-proliferation; implementation of the 1995 resolution on the Middle East; measures to address withdrawal from the Treaty; measures to further strengthen the review process; and ways to promote engagement with civil society in strengthening NPT norms and in promoting disarmament education.