The TPNW turns 5 years old! What can we do in Cymru?

By Peter Adamson, former CND Pwyllgor Gwaith member

Peter Adamson attended on behalf of CND Cymru the ICAN ‘Act on it’ forum in Oslo in 2023. In this contribution for the 5th anniversary of the TPNW, Peter explores his thoughts and charts us a history as he asks the question – ‘What can we do in Cymru?’

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is 5 years old on 22nd January 2026. A coalition of groups in the new millennium campaigned for the treaty on the back of previous bans on indiscriminate weapons such as chemical weapons, landmines and cluster bombs. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a leading coalition member (another was the International Committee of the Red Cross), were awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2017 for their work in getting the treaty adopted by the United Nations in the same year. Since 2021, when the treaty came ‘into force’ a steady stream of countries have signed up to the treaty so that half of the world’s sovereign nations have either signed or ratified the treaty in their own legislatures, currently 99 countries out of 197. Many of these countries reside in what is known as the ‘global south’ and characterised as the less wealthy nations on the planet. Notable exceptions to the global south category of countries who have adopted the treaty are Austria, New Zealand and Ireland. But crucially, no nuclear weapon possessing State has yet adopted the treaty.

I was disappointed back in 2021 to learn that countries had to sign up to the treaty to bring it into effect on their territory – this didn’t seem to match up with the bold claim made at the passing of the Treaty that ‘Nuclear Weapons are Banned’. However, of all the countries that are members of the United Nations (most of the countries in the world) a majority have voted and agreed that nuclear weapons should be banned. The UN was set up in 1945 with the express mission of ‘maintaining international peace and security’. ICAN says of the treaty that ‘it reframes nuclear policy as a global threat (for the first time), and [UN] policy is not a matter reserved for the nine states that hold the bomb’. The treaty lists the problems nuclear weapons development has created for the global community such as the effects of nuclear testing and uranium mining on the environment; the legacy of testing on indigenous communities; the disproportionate effects of radiation exposure on women and girls. Not least, it highlights the unacceptable consequences either by accident or design of a nuclear war on the planet and the living things on it, including ourselves.

The success of the treaty will rest on the ability of campaigners to challenge the doctrine of nuclear weapon states that says such weapons preserve ‘international peace & security’, a doctrine which is still largely taken for granted by society at large. In my lifetime, I have not seen any evidence to support this argument. In fact, the opposite is true (don’t we have war in Ukraine, for instance?), and, as we see when the original developer of the nuclear bomb becomes so militarily powerful it feels it can interfere and bully nations across the planet who do not do their bidding.

A prohibition listed in the treaty forbids states ‘using or threatening to use nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices’, something the USA is guilty of when it stations their nuclear weapons in NATO countries surrounding Russia, and when British Trident submarines patrol the oceans on a continuous basis. USAF airbase at Lakenheath in Suffolk is currently the focus of a campaign to highlight the suspected return of nuclear weapons at the base, and Denmark, in a recent media interview about the United States’ desire to take over Greenland, admitted to “tolerating American nuclear weapons on Greenland”.

At five or nine years old the treaty is still a youngster. Looking forward as the treaty develops into adulthood, the hope is that as more nations join the treaty, there will be increasing diplomatic pressure on nuclear armed states to do something about their nuclear arsenals. To date, this has proved very difficult as pressure is brought on countries not to sign the treaty, and this is especially the case with NATO member countries. A vote in the Belgian parliament on joining the treaty in 2020 was defeated despite 77% of Belgians wanting to join.

We must keep faith in ordinary people putting pressure on their political representatives, and even more so in protest when citizens feel ignored. Cymru is particularly well placed to become a supporter of the treaty with the existence of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act and its declaration as a Nation of Sanctuary.

The TPNW Treaty has been agreed and adopted by the United Nations at a global level. Powerful nations continue to ignore it and flout its call for the eradication of nuclear weapons. This is unacceptable to the global mass of ordinary humanity who continue to struggle to achieve adequate nutrition, housing and healthcare, at the most basic level.

Cymru can’t sign the treaty – but in supporting it and advocating for it we can be the first in the ‘belly of the beast’ – as a nation within a state that possesses nuclear weapons – to break the forced consensus and join the majority of the international community. We must be committed to that goal.

Photo Credit: Kristin Dvergsdal