On the Occasion of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Coming into Effect, Nuclear Nations Must Ratify the Treaty andDispose of Their Nuclear Weapons
November 18, 2020
On 24 October, 2020—75 years after humanity’s first use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima andNagasaki and after many decades of survivors praying for a binding treaty that would abolish nuclear
weapons—50 states have ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, ensuring that it
will officially come into effect on 22 January, 2021. In addition to prohibiting the foolishness of
deploying nuclear weapons, it also makes development, possession, and the threat of use unlawful.
In other words, we will be entering an era when legally the global community will no longer have tocoexist with nuclear weapons.
We Japanese and Korean atomic bomb survivors have experienced nuclear bombs with our own
bodies. Our historic mission to create a world with no nuclear weapons comes from these horrors.
Therefore, over these many years, we have spoken out, stressing that humans and nuclear weapons
cannot coexist and working tirelessly with citizens from around the globe who treasure peace. At
last we have successfully put into effect the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Still, theproblem remains that nuclear states and those that depend on them refuse to sign the treaty. Moreover,this includes Japan and Korea, the nations whose people have been bombed by nuclear weapons
during wartime. This is extremely regrettable.
The situation is especially dire in northeast Asia. In order to resolve issues related to the nuclear
weapons program of the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea), the Six Party talks
were convened, but distrust between the related nations impeded progress. What remains the largest
unresolved issue blocking the path toward peace in the region is the lack of commitment tonormalization of diplomatic relations between Japan-DPRK and the U.S.-DPRK.
The novel coronavirus has spread throughout the entire globe, and humanity seeks to forge a worldorder based on cooperation in a manner which we have not witnessed before. Japanese and Korean
atomic bomb survivors, through a “mask sharing” initiative, have created a new solidarity. If wewere in the 20th century—an era dominated by imperialism and the threat of nuclear war—we would
not have been able to achieve this kind of solidarity and peacefulness after the coronavirus calamity,
and we would not be entering a nuclear-free 21st century exemplified by the successful passing ofthe Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
We, the Japanese and Korean survivors, aim to resolve concerns related to North Korea’s nuclear
arsenal by calling on the Six Party nations to promptly sign the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons, thereby paving the way to a “nuclear free world.”
To that end, the governments of Japan and Korea must first reopen peaceful discussions on justicefor atomic-bomb victims. In the process of these discussions, they must avoid relapsing into earlier
arguments. Instead they should earnestly seek to resolve the issues of fact-finding projects andatomic victims’ compensation (reparation), as well as the registration of atomic survivors’ records

in UNESCO’s “Memory of the World Programme.”
Korean Association of Atomic Bomb Victims
Japan Confederation of A- and H-bomb Sufferers Organizations