Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons: A Statement Addressed to Presidential Candidates

Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons: A Statement Addressed to Presidential Candidates

As citizens of New Hampshire, we join Nobel laureates, former U.S. presidents, senior Cabinet officials, generals and admirals in warning that the time is long overdue for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The next president of the United States must provide the leadership to address the imperative of global nuclear abolition. We ask all presidential candidates to endorse nuclear disarmament and abolition during their campaigns.

Since the nuclear age began in 1945 the world has faced a fundamentally new threat. The vast power of nuclear weapons could destroy the present world, and with long-term radiation effects and the possibility of nuclear winter, it could destroy the future. Even if not used, the production and deployment of nuclear weapons cause significant environmental degradation, divert massive resources from health, education and environmental protection, and dangerously destabilize international crises from Korea to the Middle East. Their existence encourages non-nuclear states to become nuclear powers to rectify the imbalance of terror.

A decade after the end of the Cold War, the danger of a nuclear catastrophe is mounting. Contrary to treaty obligations, the worlds nuclear powers have refused to negotiate the elimination of their nuclear arsenals; other countries are trying to produce them, and terrorists are trying to acquire them. Because the nuclear danger is global, solutions must be international. The United States will increase our security by joining other nations in the elimination of nuclear weapons.
We ask presidential candidates to commit to reducing the nuclear danger and to make progress towards the global elimination of nuclear weapons. Candidates are called to support the following measures:

Immediately renounce the first use of nuclear weapons,

Uphold our commitment to Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which obligates us to negotiate the complete elimination of our and other nations nuclear weapons,

Permanently end the development, testing, and production of new nuclear warheads,

Support a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone,

Work towards a peaceful resolution of the nuclear crises on the Korean peninsula and with Iran through bilateral and multilateral negotiations,

Seek agreement with Russia on the mutual and verified destruction of nuclear weapons under existing treaties, and increase the resources available in the U.S. and in Russia to secure nuclear warheads and nuclear material,

Strengthen nonproliferation efforts by ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, reducing and securing fissile material worldwide, and negotiating a ban on its production,

Take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert and leading other nuclear powers to do the same, reducing the risk of accidental or unauthorized use

We cannot condemn the world to live forever with threats of nuclear war, or an anxious, false peace imposed by nuclear deterrence. Such threats involve intolerable risks, and such a peace is unworthy of mankind. The destructiveness of nuclear weapons mandates the moral imperative for their elimination. This is our call to you as a presidential candidate.