PH Calls for Stronger Global Push to Implement Nuclear Weapons Ban

Chargé d’affaires Irene Susan Natividad delivers the Philippine national statement during the historic First Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. (Vienna PE/PM photo)

VIENNA, 24 June 2022 – The Philippines called for accelerated efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons at a high-level conference that outlaws these weapons.

The First Meeting of States Parties (MSP) to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) convened in Vienna on 21-23 June to discuss the implementation of this landmark treaty. Victims of nuclear bombings and testing attended the conference to remind States of the reverberating humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons use and its lasting effect on the environment.

The Philippines expressed concern over the evolving geopolitical situation, which has increased the risk of nuclear weapons use.  These risks demonstrate the urgent need to universalize the TPNW and promote widespread adherence to the norms it has created.

Of these norms, the Philippines attaches “particular importance to the complete and unequivocal prohibition of nuclear weapons without conditions, rejection of the inclusion of nuclear weapons in security or military doctrines, prohibition on nuclear testing, emphasis on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, victim assistance and remediation for harms caused by prior or future use or testing of nuclear weapons, and recognition of the gender-specific impact of nuclear weapons on women and girls, as well as other norms contained in the complementary instruments,” 

The conference issued a Declaration and an Action Plan that reaffirm TPNW States Parties’ commitment to their goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. Decisions were also taken to advance the treaty’s universalization, facilitate victim assistance and international cooperation, and pursue the establishment of a scientific advisory group and a competent international authority for its implementation.

Adopted in 2017, the TPNW takes the nuclear disarmament architecture further by formally outlawing nuclear weapons. This compliments the earlier Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which commits nuclear-armed states to disarm and the other states to refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons while retaining full right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

The Philippines is State Party to both treaties, actively taking part in their negotiation and, in the case of the NPT, brokering key subsequent agreements to strengthen the treaty’s implementation. END

For more information, visit https://www.viennape.dfa.gov.ph , https://www.philippine-embassy.at, or https://www.facebook.com/PHLinAustria/,  https://www.twitter.com/PHLinAustria, or https://www.instagram.com/phinaustria/.