How to Stop a Nuclear Bomb
With the anniversary of the signing of nuclear ban treaty today, this episode of AIIA VIC’s Dyason House Podcast features Nobel Peace Prize winner Tim Wright on nuclear disarmament.
The risk of nuclear escalation continues to increase rather than decrease, with heightened tensions and proliferation among countries including the US, North Korea, Pakistan, India, Russia, China, Iran and Israel. In building up a global movement, the success of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has been largely dependent on the support of African states, Latin American states and others that do not possess the weapons demanding real action towards elimination. The result has been the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations on 20 September 2017, the first time that any multilateral agreement on nuclear weapons had been adopted since the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Act 1998. The significance of this treaty is to stigmatise nuclear weapons in order to compel nuclear weapons-states and nuclear allied states to pursue disarmament. There has been a tangible effect with billions of dollars divested from nuclear weapons-producing companies as a result of the successful treaty.
Tim Wright is Asia-Pacific Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017. He has represented the campaign at meetings of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and UN General Assembly, as well as three intergovernmental conferences on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. Prior to joining ICAN, he worked for Liberty Victoria and the parliamentary leader of the Australian Democrats. He has degrees in Arts and Law (Honours) from the University of Melbourne.
Interviewed by Peter Bateman.
