The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, promoted by the United Nations since 2017, will enter into force 90 days later, on January 22, 2021, after Honduras signed the treaty on January 24, bringing it to the 50 member states needed for its entry into force. However, the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, and other nuclear powers did not join the treaty, and Japan, the only country to suffer from nuclear weapons, did not participate in the treaty.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), adopted in 2017 with the support of 112 UN member states, prohibits the development, possession, stockpiling, transfer, testing, and use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, but the NPT has no verification mechanism.
Despite calls from civil society groups in Japan that the Japanese government should sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi has said that the validity of the treaty has to be questioned from the perspective of the non-participation of nuclear-armed states.
Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a non-governmental organization, said she was “disappointed that the Japanese government continues to take the position that it wants to keep nuclear weapons legal,” because Japan, as a victim, should know best what nuclear weapons are.
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