Nuclear Weapons Don’t Belong on Our Planet

ABSTRACT

In January 2024, the newly appointed Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Melissa Parke, visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the first time, where she met with atomic bomb survivors (hibakusha), officials, educators and youth. In this commentary piece, she reflects on her time in Japan and the essential role of the hibakusha in the decades-long struggle for a nuclear-weapon-free world. She appeals to the Japanese government to sign the landmark 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and dispense with the misguided notion of a “nuclear umbrella”, which is based on the fallacy of nuclear deterrence. She also underscores the need for better education about nuclear weapons, focusing on abolition as the goal and centring the voices of the hibakusha, lest the horrors of the past be repeated. “Nuclear weapons don’t belong on our planet – all they can do is destroy”, she concludes. “Together we will eliminate them”.

KEYWORDS:

• Hiroshima
• Nagasaki
• Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
• International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
• nuclear weapons
• atomic bombings

In January 2024, as I toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum for the first time, I recalled the poignant words of Setsuko Thurlow, an atomic bomb survivor from Hiroshima who, like so many of the hibakusha, has devoted her life to the cause of disarmament. In 2017, when she jointly accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of our organisation, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), she asked those attending the ceremony in Oslo to feel, above and around them, a great cloud of the quarter of a million souls who perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Each person had a name”, she said. “Each person was loved by someone. Let us ensure that their deaths were not in vain” (Fihn and Thurlow 2017).

The museum in Hiroshima, with its graphic displays of the aftermath of the atomic bombing, is a tragic and frightening reminder of the great harm that human beings are capable of inflicting on fellow human beings. It is also a warning to us all that, if we fail to eliminate nuclear weapons, the horrors of 1945 will almost certainly be repeated. At the same time, the museum and adjacent park convey a message of hope: that a different world is possible, that we can learn from the past if we are prepared to open our eyes – and our hearts.

During my tour of the museum, I had the great privilege of meeting the indomitable Sadae Kasaoka, fighting fit at 91 years of age (Hiroshima Speaks Out 2021). She told me the story of her life and showed how her stories had been translated into vivid artworks by Hiroshima schoolchildren. She said that she used to hate the Americans for what they did and what they took away from her, but now she has transformed that hatred into a passionate campaign against war and nuclear weapons. I am grateful to Sadae and to the many other hibakusha – both Japanese and Korean – who have contributed so much to the cause of peace. I also acknowledge the noble efforts being made by many organisations and individuals to carry forward the message of the hibakusha, lest the wrongs of the past be repeated.

While this was my first visit to Hiroshima, ICAN has enjoyed a long and close association with the city. In fact, the very first international partner to join our global coalition was Mayors for Peace in 2006 (Hawkins, Sweeney, and Ruff 2019), under the leadership of Tadatoshi Akiba. Like many others, he immediately saw the value in what ICAN was proposing: a united worldwide effort to outlaw and, ultimately, eliminate nuclear weapons via a new treaty. He spoke passionately at our international launch event in Vienna in 2007.

His successor, Kazumi Matsui, has been an equally staunch supporter of ICAN’s work since becoming mayor in 2011. In his address to the second meeting of states parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in November 2023, he reiterated the hibakusha’s fervent plea that no one else should ever suffer as they have (Matsui 2023). He also appealed for renewed global efforts to raise “peace consciousness among citizens” and to build a “culture of peace – a culture that renounces all forms of violence”. It is a demand that has particular resonance in these troubling times, as we witness, each day, scenes of bloodshed in Palestine, Ukraine and other war zones.

We must never become inured to such violence, death, misery and destruction. The large-scale killing of civilians – as perpetrated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki almost eight decades ago and as perpetrated today in other parts of the world – can never be morally justified. It is especially abhorrent and unconscionable when a great many of the victims are children, our society’s most vulnerable and precious members. We all have a moral duty to speak out against such brutality, wherever it occurs and whoever the perpetrator may be – and to demand peace and justice.

As a long-time member of the peace and anti-nuclear movement, I have, over the years, attended many vigils and other events to commemorate the anniversaries of the US nuclear attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The most memorable and moving of these was in Gaza in 2002, where I was working as a lawyer for the United Nations. To honour the memories of the children in Japan, hundreds of Palestinian children had carefully made little paper boats with candles in them. They lit the candles and set the boats afloat on Gaza harbour, much the same as the brightly coloured lanterns that float down the rivers of Hiroshima every August.

It was extraordinarily beautiful but also very moving to think that here were children, who themselves were experiencing bombing on a regular basis, remembering children from another time and place who had been bombed. As I met the hibakusha, I was struck by the realisation that these were the same children, now in their eighties and nineties, who were being remembered by the children of Gaza.

Following my visit to Hiroshima, I travelled to Nagasaki, where I toured the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. A particularly heart-wrenching photograph in the exhibit there is of a boy, about 10 years of age, standing by a crematory, a solemn expression on his face, the body of his lifeless younger brother strapped to his back (Wikipedia n.d.). I cannot begin to imagine what he must have felt in that moment.

While in Nagasaki, I met with Terumi Kuramori, who was a baby at the time of the bombing. Though she has no direct memory of that day, she recalls the keloid scars on her schoolmates years later and the severe radiation-related illnesses that afflicted so many of them. I was also introduced to Chiyoko Motomura, who was six years old when the atomic bomb was dropped. She vividly remembers being stabbed in the back with a shard of glass from the blast. Today, she regularly shares her testimony with citizens around the world.

As the peacemakers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have long implored, we must move beyond perpetual war and the constant accumulation of weapons. None of it is necessary. Peace is necessary. We are all deeply indebted to the hibakusha who, by sharing their personal testimonies time and again, have courageously spread a simple but profound message to the world: that humanity and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist.

An aim of my visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to find ways to deepen ICAN’s engagement with the hibakusha and other residents of these cities. A hallmark of our recent engagement has been the annual Hiroshima – ICAN Academy on Nuclear Weapons and Global Security, co-organised with Hiroshima Prefecture (ICAN 2023d). I acknowledge the tremendous support of Governor Hidehiko Yuzaki for this initiative. Through the academy, we have brought more than one hundred young leaders to Hiroshima since 2019, in the hope that they will feel empowered and inspired to make concrete contributions towards a more peaceful and secure world. Around half of the participants have come from nuclear-armed states, where humanitarian considerations are too rarely part of the public discourse on nuclear weapons. Other participants have come from states affected by the toxic legacy of nuclear testing, such as the Marshall Islands, Kazakhstan and my own country, Australia.

In most places, education about nuclear weapons is either non-existent or unsatisfactory. We need a curriculum that centres the voices of the hibakusha, not the men who built and dropped the atomic bombs. We need courses that promote the logic of abolition, not just arms control and non-proliferation. Through education, we can challenge official narratives that seek to legitimise nuclear weapons and, still to this day, justify the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As Setsuko Thurlow explained in Oslo in 2017, many people still refuse “to see Hiroshima and Nagasaki as atrocities – as war crimes” (Fihn and Thurlow 2017). They have “accepted the propaganda that these were ‘good bombs’ that had ended a ‘just war’”. It was this myth, she said, that “led to the disastrous nuclear arms race – a race that continues to this day”. For our campaign to succeed, better education about nuclear weapons is needed.

The approach taken by the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (RECNA) at Nagasaki University is an excellent model for others around the world to adopt. By focusing on abolition, rather than the limited objectives of non-proliferation and arms control, it reflects the yearning of the hibakusha for a world that is completely rid of nuclear weapons. Through its research and education programmes, RECNA is unambiguous in its support for “the creation of a security framework that does not rely on nuclear deterrence” (RECNA n.d.). It is deeply committed to empowering a new generation to take forward the work of promoting a nuclear-weapon-free world. I was particularly impressed by the Nagasaki Youth Delegation, a joint initiative of Nagasaki University, Nagasaki Prefecture and Nagasaki City (RECNA n.d.-b). I met with a number of the participants, who gave me renewed hope for the future.

ICAN is eager to collaborate further with youth from Nagasaki and Hiroshima. An early example of such collaboration was the paper crane project launched in 2012 (ICAN Norway 2012). With the help of local school students, we sent bundles of one thousand paper cranes to every president and prime minister in the world – close to 200,000 orizuru in total. Accompanying them were letters written by the students seeking support for a new treaty that would prohibit nuclear weapons and provide for their elimination. In more than 80 countries, campaigners hand-delivered the cranes to leaders’ offices. And in many countries, the leaders replied, often positively. The UN secretary-general at the time, Ban Ki-moon, said: “This project deserves recognition and support from advocates of nuclear disarmament throughout the world”.

The paper crane project was one of the many initiatives that helped build global support for the negotiation of the TPNW in 2017. Without a doubt, coordinated actions by citizens around the world, like this one, are what made the treaty a reality. And every action taken by advocates today, large or small, is helping to bring more countries on board and entrench the treaty’s norms against nuclear weapons. I encourage people everywhere to continue their important work for peace, even if at times they might feel defeated. I know that it can be hard to remain optimistic when all nine nuclear-armed states are enhancing their nuclear arsenals and refusing to pursue disarmament. But it is in troubling times like these that our work is most crucial.

The TPNW is evidence that change is possible. It is a beacon of hope in dark times. On 22 January 2024, during my visit to Japan, we celebrated three years since its entry into force. Though it is still a new treaty, it has already had an impressive impact. As mayor Shirō Suzuki of Nagasaki explained in New York in November 2023, the TPNW “is based on a human-centred security approach”. “In these chaotic times”, he said, “it is becoming ever [more] important for the whole world to go back to the very beginning to reflect on what happened to human beings beneath the mushroom clouds 78 years ago, and address the fundamental question of what would happen to the Earth and to humankind if a nuclear war were to begin now” (Suzuki 2023).

One of the TPNW’s most important contributions to date has been to bring humanitarian and environmental concerns to the fore of the debate about nuclear weapons, with its mechanisms for victim assistance and environmental remediation, which are very significant for the Japanese and Korean hibakusha. The treaty has also reinvigorated efforts to achieve nuclear justice in countries still suffering from the long-term consequences of nuclear tests conducted decades ago. It has prompted banks and other financial institutions to divest billions of dollars from the companies that manufacture nuclear weapons – because they are now banned (PAX and ICAN 2023). It has solidified the international consensus that nuclear threats, whether explicit or implicit, are inadmissible. And it has exposed the dangerous fallacy of “nuclear deterrence”.

In their declaration of 1 December 2023, TPNW states parties said that nuclear weapons, “far from preserving peace and security”, only heighten tensions and are used to coerce and intimidate.¹ They said that “attempts to justify nuclear deterrence as a legitimate security doctrine” dangerously increase the risk of nuclear proliferation, and the perpetuation of nuclear deterrence “obstructs progress towards nuclear disarmament”. They concluded: “We … will not stand by as spectators to increasing nuclear risks and the dangerous perpetuation of nuclear deterrence”.

Their powerful statement stood in stark contrast to the communiqué issued by G7 leaders at their summit in Hiroshima in May 2023. While ICAN celebrated the initiative to convene the meeting there – as we recognised the great value in having leaders visit an A-bombed city – its outcomes fell well short of our expectations (ICAN 2023a). The communiqué was a rehash of ideas and proposals that have failed to deliver progress over the past three decades. While it rightly criticised Russia’s nuclear threats and China’s nuclear build-up, it failed to enumerate any steps that G7 states themselves would take to end their own complicity in the perpetuation of nuclear risks. The summit was an opportunity to chart a new course. And it was an opportunity lost. The G7 leaders ignored the pleas of the hibakusha and the recommendations of young changemakers who participated in a youth summit organised by ICAN and other groups in the days before the official meeting (ICAN 2023c).

While the G7 nations have not yet demonstrated principled leadership in the field of nuclear disarmament, many other nations have. To date, almost half of the world’s nations have joined the TPNW, either as signatories or parties (United Nations 2024) – subscribing to the highest multilateral standards against the worst weapons of mass destruction. And they have pledged to work to bring other states on board. Just days before my visit to Japan, we celebrated the 70th ratification of the treaty, by the African nation of São Tomé and Principe (ICAN 2024), and ICAN is confident that many more states will join it in the years ahead. For most governments, prohibiting nuclear weapons is an obvious step to take. Fundamentally, it is about safeguarding humanity. About ensuring that cities are not targets in warfare. About bequeathing a safe and habitable planet to future generations. There can be no nuclear weapons on a sustainable planet.

Like many others, I am disappointed that the Japanese government has not yet joined this crucial treaty. Given the enormous suffering of the hibakusha, and their repeated warnings about the nuclear threat, one might have expected Japan to be among the very first countries to join it. But it is not too late for it to do so now. Before travelling to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I visited the National Diet in Tokyo, where I spoke to parliamentarians from across the political spectrum, many of whom expressed their personal support for the TPNW. Indeed, all of them said that they would support Japan’s participation as an observer in meetings of TPNW states parties.

The prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has repeatedly described the TPNW as the “exit point” for achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world, when in fact it should be regarded as an entry point, as the Asahi Shimbun has argued in a number of its editorials (Asahi Shimbun 2022). Through the TPNW, Japan can work with other states to build an international consensus that nuclear weapons are illegitimate and illegal in all respects. Delegitimising these weapons is necessary to achieve their elimination. If Japan is not yet willing to become a state party, it should at the very least express its intention to join the treaty in the future. And pending its accession, it should engage constructively with the states parties, including by observing their meetings (ICAN 2023b). It would be especially important for Japan to contribute to intersessional discussions on victim assistance under Article 6 of the TPNW, including discussions on the possible establishment of an international trust fund to support work in this area (ICAN n.d.).

In the UN General Assembly and other forums, Japan has long called for “united action” to advance nuclear disarmament. But the absence of unity among nuclear-armed states cannot become an excuse for others to do nothing. In the absence of unity, we need leadership. Leadership is about taking the first steps, departing from the old way of doing things, setting an example for others to follow. For Japan, leadership means dispensing with the misguided notion of a “nuclear umbrella” and joining the TPNW now. Not only would this enhance Japan’s security; it would also allow it to speak with great moral authority on disarmament as the only country that has suffered wartime nuclear bombings. Japan cannot lead on nuclear disarmament while it retains a reliance on nuclear weapons in its security policy.

In his address to the third meeting of the International Group of Eminent Persons for a World without Nuclear Weapons in Nagasaki in December 2023, Prime Minister Kishida pledged to continue showing leadership towards the elimination of nuclear weapons (Kishida 2023). But much of his leadership on this issue to date has been symbolic in nature and focused on what others should do, without any re-evaluation of Japan’s own approach.

I hope that the Japanese government will reflect seriously upon the TPNW states parties’ critique of “nuclear deterrence” in their political declaration, rather than insisting that this theory is compatible with the pursuit of disarmament. It may provide some psychological comfort but it cannot deter accidents, miscalculations, unhinged leaders, terrorist groups, cyber-attacks or simple mistakes. And when deterrence fails, as inevitably it will, there will be no shelter to be had under a “nuclear umbrella”.

The governments around the world that currently oppose the TPNW offer all sorts of excuses for why they cannot join it (Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor, n.d.). They argue, for instance, that it is not the right approach to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world, or that it needlessly antagonises nuclear-armed states. But the fundamental reason for their opposition, in truth, is something less complex – and seldom expressed. They believe that nuclear weapons are acceptable weapons. Acceptable for certain states to possess. Acceptable to use under certain circumstances.

This is why the message of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is so essential. It focuses on what matters most of all: the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons. How they vaporise and carbonise our bodies. How they burn our flesh and break our bones. How they damage our DNA and inflict suffering across generations. How they destroy our precious environment and irradiate the air, land and water. This is the reality of nuclear weapons that never gets spoken about by advocates of deterrence. Rather, the reality is hidden in words of abstraction: security, stability, defence postures and so on.

Through our work with the TPNW, which the hibakusha played a key role in bringing about, we are shining a light on this reality. We are using our heads – to expose the fallacy of nuclear deterrence – and our hearts – to expose the moral injury that nuclear weapons represent to humanity and the environment. I thank the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for continuously speaking out against these horrific weapons, for educating the world about the hell unleashed in 1945, for imagining – and working to realise – a better future for all.

As I visited these two cities, I found it hard to comprehend how human beings could inflict such utter devastation on other human beings. But I don’t believe that this is who we are fundamentally. Human beings always have a choice. We are better when we choose to seek understanding rather than confrontation; when we engage in dialogue rather than preparations for war; when we make art and music rather than bombs. We have more in common than we have differences. We all want to live lives of dignity and peace in harmony with nature. Quantum physicists are now confirming what Indigenous peoples around the world have always known: that we’re all connected with each other and with nature.

Nuclear weapons don’t belong on our planet – all they can do is destroy. Together we will eliminate them.

Acknowledgments

This article is based on the author’s remarks at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum on 20 January 2024 and the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum on 21 January 2024. She wishes to thank Akira Kawasaki, a member of ICAN’s International Steering Group and of Peace Boat’s Executive Committee, for his role in organising the visit to Japan.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Melissa Parke

Melissa Parke is Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a role that she assumed in September 2023. She was previously a lawyer for the United Nations and a federal parliamentarian in Australia.

Notes

¹ “Our Commitment to Upholding the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and Averting Their Catastrophic Consequences”, declaration adopted in New York on 1 December 2023 at the second Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW. https://undocs.org/TPNW/MSP/2023/14.