Annual General Meeting, June 19/20, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to devastate countries and populations showing the complete uselessness of nuclear weapons when it comes to dealing with global security threats. On January 27, 2021, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists kept their Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest we’ve ever been, in the opinion of the BAS, to global oblivion. In their remarks this year they said: “By our estimation, the potential for the world to stumble into nuclear war—an ever-present danger over the last 75 years—increased in 2020. An extremely dangerous global failure to address existential threats—what we called “the new abnormal” in 2019—tightened its grip in the nuclear realm in the past year, increasing the likelihood of catastrophe.”
In this context, the Coordination Committee of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons invites all those concerned by nuclear weapons, nuclear energy and the nexus of these issues with issues such as: Climate Change, Human Rights, Pandemic Recovery, Women’s rights, Poverty, Racial Justice and Youth, to join us in our Annual General Meeting (AGM), this year framed within the question: How do we move from a dysfunctional world to a world free of nuclear weapons?
This year, as last year, the AGM will be held as an international online video conference and once more it will be held independently of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference given that there is no certainty, at the time of planning, that the NPT RevCon will take place as proposed in August 2021.
Draft agenda
Please click here to open the agenda in a new tab of your browser.
Background reading for newcomers
Click here to read our founding statement
Click here to read about our mission, our successes and some of our projects
Click here to review our operating principles
Session 1
Campaign updates and reports. Strategy discussion on challenges and opportunities to advance nuclear abolition. Introduction of proposals.
Food for thought
To accompany the strategy discussion we asked friends of the Abolition 2000 network to give us their thoughts on:
How do we move from a dysfunctional world to a world free of nuclear weapons?
We interviewed the following people
Elayne Whyte Gomez, Costa Rica, Chair of the 2017 UN Conference to negotiate the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Jacques Depelchin, D.R. Congo/Brazil/United States, Author and Historian, Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley
Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, United States, Director of the Kairos Center and Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign.
Pía Figueroa, Chile, Founding Director of Pressenza International Press Agency
Robert Forsyth, United Kingdom, Retired Commander in the Royal Navy
Sara Medi Jones, United Kingdom, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Stephen Morse, United States, Veterans for Peace
Su-sie Jo, South Korea, Captain of the South Korean Ice Hockey Team, and member of the Korean Unified Team at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang
You can watch all these videos on our youtube channel.
Here is a five-minute summary of key points raised by the different people we interviewed:
Below you can click on the speaker to watch their full presentation.
Reports
The following reports have been received from working groups, affiliated networks and member organizations.
Working groups
Youth Fusion (formerly the Abolition 2000 Youth Network)
Move the Nuclear Weapons Money
Nuclear Risk Reduction (additional reflections on the work of the Working Group can be found here.)
Affiliated Networks
Basel Peace Office
Gensuikyo (plus invitiation to Peace Wave 2021)
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA)
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
Mayors for Peace
Peace and Planet
Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (PNND)
UNFOLD ZERO
United for Peace and Justice
Member organisations
Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire
Chernobyl-Hibakusha Support, Kansai
Middle East Treaty Organization
Session 2
Discussion of proposals. Abolition 2000 Secretariat report. Fundraising. Affirmation of the Abolition 2000 Coordinating Committee and Global Council. Calendar of upcoming events.
Received proposals
The following proposals have been received:
Jean-Marie Matagne – Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire
Katsumi Furitsu – Chernobyl-Hibakusha Support, Kansai
KAWAGOE Shinjiro – HOPe
Peter Bregel – Oregon Peace Works
Youth Fusion – Nuclear Games
Youth Fusion – Nuclear Games – Flyer
Reports
Secretariat & Coordinating Committee
Finances and Fundraising report