page_title: Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
section_title: Preparations, 2010–2016
hierarchical_section_title: Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons / History, intentions and impact / Preparations, 2010–2016
caption_attribution_description: English: At the United Nations office in Geneva, governments discuss legal measures for attaining and maintaining a nuclear-weapon-free world, in May 2016.
context_page_description: The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons, with the goal of leading towards their total elimination. It was passed on 7 July 2017. In order to come into effect, signature and ratification by at least 50 countries is required. As of 10 August 2020, 44 states have ratified the treaty. For those nations that are party to it, the treaty prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons, as well as assistance and encouragement to the prohibited activities. For nuclear armed states joining the treaty, it provides for a time-bound framework for negotiations leading to the verified and irreversible elimination of its nuclear weapons programme.
  A mandate adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 23 December 2016 scheduled two sessions for negotiations: 27 to 31 March and from 15 June to 7 July, 2017.
context_section_description: Proposals for a nuclear-weapon-ban treaty first emerged following a review conference of the NPT in 2010, at which the five officially recognized nuclear-armed state parties – the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China – rejected calls for the start of negotiations on a comprehensive Nuclear weapons convention. Disarmament advocates first considered starting this process without the opposed states as a "path forward". Subsequently, a less technical treaty concentrated on the ban of nuclear weapons appeared to be a more realistic goal.
  Three major intergovernmental conferences in 2013 and 2014 on the "humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons", in Norway, Mexico and Austria, strengthened the international resolve to outlaw nuclear weapons. The second such conference, in Mexico in February 2014, concluded that the prohibition of a certain type of weapon typically precedes, and stimulates, its elimination.
  In 2014, a group of non-nuclear-armed nations known as the New Agenda Coalition (NAC) presented the idea of a nuclear-weapon-ban treaty to NPT states parties as a possible "effective measure" to implement Article VI of the NPT, which requires all states parties to pursue negotiations in good faith for nuclear disarmament. The NAC argued that a ban treaty would operate "alongside" and "in support of" the NPT.
  In 2015, the UN General Assembly established a working group with a mandate to address "concrete effective legal measures, legal provisions and norms" for attaining and maintaining a nuclear-weapon-free world. In August 2016, it adopted a report recommending negotiations in 2017 on a "legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination".
  In October 2016, the First Committee of the UN General Assembly acted upon this recommendation by adopting a resolution that establishes a mandate for nuclear-weapon-ban treaty negotiations in 2017 (with 123 states voting in favour and 38 against, and 16 abstaining). North Korea was the only country possessing nuclear weapons that voted for this resolution, though it did not take part in negotiations.
  A second, confirmatory vote then took place in a plenary session of the General Assembly in December 2016.
caption: Nations debate the idea of a nuclear-weapon-ban treaty at the UN in Geneva in May 2016.
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