The Non Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative (NPDI) was established in September 2010 with the purpose of taking forward the Action Plan contained in the consensus outcome of the 2010 nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. Foreign Ministers from the 12 NPDI member states (Australia, Canada, Chile, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates) will meet in Hiroshima on 12 April. PAX has published a series of recommendations for NPDI members to consider.
Summary of Recommendations:
Humanitarian Initiative
-
The NPDI Ministerial Meeting should welcome Austria’s announcement of a follow-up conference to the Nayarit conference, and encourage all states to attend.
-
NPDI members, in their national and joint statements to the NPT Preparatory Committee meeting, should call for a treaty banning nuclear weapons and leading to their elimination as a way of fulfilling existing disarmament obligations under the NPT.
Transparency
- NPDI members should report to the 2014 NPT Preparatory Committee meeting using their own proposed reporting format
- NPDI members should work with civil societies and parliamentarians in their countries to hold public discussions and debate on the role of nuclear weapons in the 21st century.
Reducing the role of nuclear weapons in security strategies
-
NPDI members should issue national and joint declarations that their security arrangements are not predicated on nuclear weapons.
-
NPDI members should elaborate on what they are doing to encourage this issue with the nuclear armed countries.
To read the full recommendations paper, see here. To get more background, and read the 2013 PAX recommendations, see here.