Support US compliance with the NPT!

ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS!

WILPF DISARM has just learned from Representative Woolsey’s legislative staff that she is now requesting co-sponsors for her Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Commitment Act, H Res 373. Her Dear Colleague letter refers specifically to the tensions over Iran, and calls on the President to implement and observe all NPT obligations and commitments; declare unconditionally that the U.S. will not use nuclear weapons first; and end the declared U.S. policy of preventive warfare as a response to threats from other countries. She also calls for renewed commitment to the Thirteen Practical Steps and for an end to inter-related programs of new nuclear weapons, missile defense and weaponization of space.

Find here a copy of the Dear Colleague letter which was sent to your Representative on May 24. Please write or call him/her and request support of H Res 373. Download a postcard front and back you can photo-copy on heavy paper and use when tabling or among your Branch members. It was prepared for United for Peace and Justice by the Nuclear Weapons and Human Security Working Group, in which DISARM is active. You can also use it for talking points in your own communication. Additional WILPF talking points are also available. Next Send an email to your Representative from our WILPF legislative toolkit. Call on her/him personally or talk with the legislative staff.

WILPF DISARM has made support of this legislation a priority since 2004 and the 108th Congress. (It was actually first introduced in the 107th Congress in 1999, and two WILPF members helped draft it then.) Thanks for your help in the past, and for your continued engagement in the weeks to come. Our nation must return to compliance with the NPT, and we must help make it so. Full support of the NPT is the only viable way to stop nuclear weapons proliferation and the only acceptable alternative to more illegal pre-emptive wars against Iran or any otter nation.

Use this bill as basis for discussion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Thirteen Practical Steps toward nuclear weapons abolition. All 187 nations party to the treaty, including the United States, agreed to this document in 2000. The present Administration has, unfortunately, turned its back on every one of these positive steps, thus leading to international instability and a new nuclear arms race. H Res 373 calls for a return to support of these practical steps toward abolition of nuclear weapons.The same call is made in the Blix commission report presented to Kofi Annan at the United Nations on June 1. (See the analysis of the Blix report by WILPF's Reaching Critical Will and three companion NGOs.)

Those seeking a deeper understanding of the thirteen steps can read Nuclear Disarmament: What Now? For an in depth report on compliance with the NPT among all nations with nuclear weapons or other nuclear facilities read The Model Nuclear Inventory. Both are also available in print form from WILPF's Reaching Critical Will, as well as for downloading.

WILPF Reaching Critical Will joined a group of NGOs in the drafting of a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Costa Rica presented it to the UN General Assembly in 1997 and it is now accepted within the UN as a basis for negotiations. Four of these NGOs then produced a resource book: Security and Survival: The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention which is available for download or purchase