Absent from Nuclear Prohibition Treaty Meeting

The second meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons began at the United Nations Headquarters on Monday. Japan, as it had been, did not join the meeting which would discuss elimination of nuclear weapons in the world, despite the Japanese government’s goal of “the world without nuclear weapons.” While the government of Japan explains that Japan is under the nuclear “umbrella” of the United States, some countries under the umbrella attended the meeting as the observers. Japan looks like simply hoping to stay in the Western community turning their back to the treaty.

The treaty was adopted on July 7th, 2017 and entered into force on January 22nd, 2021, prohibiting participation in any nuclear weapon activities including developing, testing, producing, acquiring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use of nuclear weapons. The states parties are expected to hold a thematic debate on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons in the second meeting.

 

Japan has not ratified the treaty and been absent from the first meeting held in Vienna, Austria, in June 21st to 23rd, 2022. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno dismissed the idea of joining the second meeting as an observer. “No nuclear power does not participate in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and there is no prospect to reach the goal of the world without nuclear weapons,” said Matsuno in his press conference.

 

U.N. Secretary General António Guterres has called the treaty “an important step towards the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and a strong demonstration of support for multilateral approaches to nuclear disarmament.” Matusno ignored the voice of the secretary general of U.N., the organization which Japan has been putting at the center of its international diplomacy.

 

At the beginning of the second meeting, a survivor of atomic bombing in Nagasaki made a speech to the participants. “The scenes reported from Ukraine and Gaza are a replay of that day for the hibakusha. If there is a nuclear was, there will be nothing left but black cities, piles of corpses and a world of death,” told Sueichi Kido, the secretary general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-bomb Sufferers Organizations.

 

One of the big topics in the second meeting is that the world is facing the threats of nuclear weapons in the War in Ukraine or military exchanges between Israel and Hamas. Izumi Nakamitsu, a Japanese Undersecretary General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, said “Rising geopolitical tensions are not a reason to put off progress in our shared goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.”

 

Australia, Germany and Norway, being under the protection of nuclear weapons of U.S. or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, attended the meeting as observers. Hard to understand is the idea that the only country in the world which actually suffered from nuclear weapons cannot join the discussion of the treaty even as an observer.

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