Threat or Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Right to Life: Follow-up Submissions to the UN Human Rights Committee on draft General Comment no. 36

International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and Swiss Lawyers for Nuclear Disarmament (SLND), submitted October 5, 2017  The present submissions are limited to para. 13 of draft General Comment no. 36 on the Right to life (Article 6 ICCPR) currently under consideration,[1] which reads as follows: “The [threat] or use of weapons of…

Russian Foreign Ministry: Prohibition on nuclear weapons would be contrary to national interests (Kommersant, 12 September 2017)

МИД РФ: запрет ядерного оружия противоречит национальным интересам России Россия не будет присоединяться к открывающемуся 20 сентября к подписанию международному Договору о запрещении ядерного оружия. Об этом «Ъ» рассказал директор Департамента по вопросам нераспространения и контроля над вооружениями МИД России Михаил Ульянов. По его словам, этот документ «противоречит национальным интересам России и российскому видению того,…

IALANA Statement Regarding the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on the Occasion of its Opening for Signature on 20 September 2017

IALANA – the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms – welcomes the adoption on 7 July 2017 of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The nuclear weapons ban treaty is a powerful and eloquent statement, grounded in an understanding of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear explosions, of the political, moral, and…

Basel Declaration on human rights and trans-generational crimes resulting from nuclear weapons and nuclear energy

The participants in the international conference Human Rights, Future Generations and Crimes in the Nuclear Age, held in Basel from September 14-17, 2017, affirm that the risks and impacts of nuclear weapons, depleted uranium weapons and nuclear energy, which are both transnational and trans-generational, constitute a violation of human rights, a transgression of international humanitarian…

New UN report confirms use by Syria of chemical weapons on April 4, 2017: a new red line?

GENEVA (6 September 2017) – While warring parties made some progress in localised reductions of violence through de-escalation zones, the parties to the conflict continue to perpetrate unthinkable crimes against civilians in and away from the battlefield in blatant violation of international law, including forced displacement, deliberate attacks against civilians, and the use of chemical…

Sign the Lawyers’ Letter on the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons!

LAWYERS’ LETTER ON THE ABOLITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS Nuclear arms are the only weapons of mass effect and destruction not yet prohibited by an international convention, even though they are the most destructive and indiscriminate weapons ever created. People are capable of good-faith, law-guided, problem solving at all levels of society: family, neighborhood, national, international.…