Mayors and parliamentarians cooperate for a nuclear weapons free world:

 The following statement was released by mayors and members of parliaments and congresses, meeting in conjunction with the 7th Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and has been endorsed by the mayors and national legislators listed below:

 Statement

 As mayors and legislators we have a role to protect the security of citizens living within our jurisdictions and to protect our localities for future generations.

 Such security is not advanced when there remain 30,000 nuclear weapons, many of which are deployed and ready for use at short notice.  The risk of nuclear weapons use - by accident, design or miscalculation – is increasing due to the proliferation of nuclear weapons to new States, the possibility of non-State access to nuclear weapons and bomb-building materials, and the expanded nuclear weapons use doctrines of the nuclear weapon States.

 Regardless of where nuclear weapons are targeted or detonated, or whether they are used by terrorist organisations or State militaries, no-one would escape the calamitous consequences of a nuclear attack. Even cities that are not the direct brunt of an attack would feel the global economic, social and medical repercussions, which would dwarf those of 9/11. Any nuclear weapons use would cause unimaginable devastation requiring massive aid, global effects from nuclear fall-out and a rise in refugees seeking to escape the most contaminated regions.

 The only way to prevent nuclear weapons use is to eliminate all nuclear weapons as mandated by Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the 1996 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. Mayors for Peace have provided a vision for the achievement of a nuclear weapons free world by 2020.

 Therefore, we the undersigned mayors and parliamentarians, call for the commencement of negotiations which would culminate in the comprehensive abolition and elimination of nuclear weapons and the international control of nuclear materials to prevent clandestine bomb-making.

 If a small number of States continue to prevent such negotiations being initiated at the Conference on Disarmament and also at the NPT Review Conferences, then governments should be encouraged to find an alternative track to nuclear disarmament as was done with the Landmines Convention.

 The overwhelming majority of citizens in our cities, countries and around the world support the abolition of these ultimate weapons of mass destruction, and we mayors and legislators have a responsibility to use our authority to ensure the implementation of this imperative.