Dear Reaching Critical Will friends and advisors:
As its now mid-way through February, civil society preparations for the NPT Review Conference are building up. Reaching Critical Will is mere weeks away from the release of a new collaborative publication, Beyond arms control: challenges and choices for nuclear disarmament. Check with our next E-News edition for details. In addition, Reaching Critical Will welcomes Tim Wright to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom UN office. Tim will be working on implementing the
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) strategy for promoting the nuclear weapons convention in the lead up to the Review Conference (details below).
In the meantime, information on how to apply for accreditation to the Review Conference is now available. The information was sent out last week and is available on the Reaching Critical Will 2010 NPT Review Conference website. Highlights are also included in this edition of the E-News, below.
Not everything is about the NPT. The Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, now in the fifth week of its 2010 session, still has not yet adopted a programme of work. As the Director-General of the UN Office at Geneva reported last week, “Nothing is happening.” In the interest of increasing the pressure on delegates and reminding the Conference that the world is watching, Reaching Critical Will is reaching out to all interested members of civil society to chime into the debate. A new segment of our CD Report will feature “Notes from the world”—commentary and critique from NGOs and others who want to see action in the CD. Please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Beatrice Fihn, RCW’s Project Associate in Geneva, if you would like to contribute to future reports.
NGOs have been busy around the world raising attention to hypocritical government policies on disarmament—such as in the United Kingdom, where hundreds blocked the gates to the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston to protest the renewal of Trident (details below). We hope you are inspired to demonstrate against nuclear weapons in your country and to engage your government on this critical issue.
In peace,
Ray Acheson, Project Director
1) NPT accreditation: information available
The UN Office for Disarmament Affairs has published information for participation of NGOs in the 2010 NPT Review Conference in an aide memoire. All of this information and much more is available on the Reaching Critical Will 2010 NPT Review Conference website. Here are some of the highlights:
Accreditation
All NGO representatives with or without valid United Nations ground passes are requested to submit a written application for attendance that must include the following:
A letter written on organizational letterhead signed by the head of the organization requesting attendance at the Conference. This letter should include the composition of the delegation and an overview of past interactions, if any, between the organization and the United Nations, particularly in relation to disarmament and non-proliferation. Such interaction may also include affiliation with the Department of Public Information (DPI), or consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The letter should indicate whether it is the first time that the NGO requests accreditation to participate in a meeting at the United Nations.
A mission statement or summary of work that includes information on the organization's purpose, programmes and activities related to the scope of the Review Conference. This information should not exceed two pages in length.
Send by mail, fax, or email to:
Secretariat of the Review Conference
Attn: Ms. Soo-Hyun Kim
Information and Outreach Branch, Office for Disarmament Affairs
405 East 42nd Street (DN-2511B)
United Nations, New York, NY 10017
USA
Fax: +1 917-367-4520
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Email applications must include an attached PDF format file containing all the relevant documentation, including the signed letter by the head of the organization.
Please bear in mind that, due to enhanced security procedures, the names submitted will not be eligible for later revision. Therefore, it is desirable that organizations submit the composition of their delegation only after careful review.
Registration
All NGO representatives must be pre-registered (details on how to pre-register online will be included in your notification of accreditation) and should present themselves to the Registration Desk (lobby entrance after security) in order to have their registration form validated for issuance of a security identification badge. A valid photo identification issued by the Government (e.g. passport), together with the provisional accreditation request that has been authorized by the Secretariat of the NPT Review Conference, as well as a completed registration form must be presented. Once a pass is issued, NGO representatives will be granted access to UN premises. NGO representatives accredited through this process may attend meetings of the Review Conference, other than those designated as closed. Please bear in mind that applicants for accreditation to the United Nations conferences as well as individuals planning to attend side events must be at least 18 years of age. For matters related to registration and issuance of identification badges kindly contact Ms. Soo-Hyun Kim, E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Registration hours:
@ UN Pass and ID Office, First Avenue and 45th Street
Sunday, 2 May, 10:00 AM–2:00 PM
@ the NPT NGO Registration Desk in the lobby of the UN
Monday, 3 May, 8:00 AM–4:00 PM
Tuesday, 4 May–Thursday 6 May, 9:00 AM–4:00 PM
Friday, 7 May, 9:00 AM–12:00 PM
Representatives arriving after 7 May must contact Ms. Soo-Hyun Kim, E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel.+1 917 367 3596, or Ms. Jenny Fuchs, E-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel. +1 212 963 2386 to arrange for issuance of a security identification badge at the Pass and Identification Office.
Please note: The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs is not in a position to provide letters of invitation or letters to consulates requesting that NGO representatives be provided visas for travelling to the United States in order to attend the meetings of the Review Conference. The procurement of visas, travel arrangements and related costs are strictly the responsibility of the NGO representatives. It is important that NGO representatives make their visa and travel arrangement at the earliest possible time.
2) NPT presentations: call for video submissions
The NGO peace and disarmament community will be showing a five minute video at the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations this May, comprised of video clips from people around the world speaking about their desire to live in a world without nuclear weapons. We want you to participate!
Video submissions should answer one of the following questions:
1. Why do you want a nuclear weapon-free world?
2. What worries you about continuing to live in a world that is threatened by the use of nuclear weapons?
You can address your answers to the diplomats who will be watching the video at the Conference, or to the world at large. Select responses will be edited together for the video, which will be shown during the NGO presentation to the Conference on Friday, 7 May 2010. After the Conference, the video will be posted on youtube.com to spread the message that citizens of the world no longer want to live under the threat of nuclear weapons.
To submit your video, please go to http://dropbox.yousendit.com/AliciaGodsberg717785
Videos should be 2GB or less in size, 90 seconds or less in length, and have no background music. Only MPEG-4, DV, or .mov video files can be accepted, so please only submit in these formats. If you do not speak English in your video, please provide a written text in your own language and in English as well in either a .doc (word) or .docx (text) file.
Submissions must be received by 9:00 AM Eastern on Monday, 29 March 2010.
Disclaimer: The designated site administrator reserves the non-exclusive right to publish or broadcast all or part of all submissions to the project.
3) Think Outside the Bomb Road Tour: call for submissions
Think Outside The Bomb, a US national anti-nuclear youth network, is going on a three-month, 40-city tour of the USA this summer. TOTB is seeking submissions for their tour zine, travelling photo/art show, and film festival. See below and online for details.
Zine
TOTB wants to hear from you and your community about the anti-oppression struggles you are engaged in, whether they be against nuclearism, militarism and war, patriarchy, racism, capitalism, etc. During the tour, we will distribute a zine, which will feature submitted poetry, essays, photos, action and campaign information, and a tour CD containing spoken word, spoken essays, and music.
Please send submissions of essays, poems, short stories, information on upcoming and ongoing campaigns and actions, and other written work in digital format by the deadline to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Songs, spoken pieces, photos, drawings and other digital media can also be sent to the email address. Hard copies of art works to be digitized can be sent to the mailing address listed below.
Travelling Photo/Art Show
The TOTB tour is also putting together a traveling art exhibit that will show two things: (1) the horrors of nuclear weapons and energy systems, and (2) active resistance to nuclear weapons and energy systems. Please email all digital media, including photos, sketches, drawings, paintings, graphics, etc, to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Hard copies of original artwork can be sent to the mailing address listed below. Please send us an email if you wish to submit large or three-dimensional artworks and we can discuss shipping and display specifics.
Film Festival
The TOTB tour is also putting together a traveling Film Festival that we will present in select cities in the USA. We are interested in films that promote or show: Organizing Against Nuclearism, The Affects of Nuclearism, Indigenous Causes, Womens Issues, People of Color Organizing, Anti-Capitalism, Labor Struggles, and Collective Liberation.
For all submissions:
Please submit no later than March 15, 2010
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mail: TOTB Tour,
1925 Five Points Road SW
Albuquerque, NM 87105
4) Grassroots Journalism Project
The Ban All Nukes Generation Youth Network (Bang-USA.org) wants youth and concerned citizens who are interested in creatively spreading the world for nuclear weapons disarmament and social justice. Over the next few months leading up to the NPT Review Conference, the Youth/Citizen Journalism Project will closely follow the grassroots disarmament movement and the people behind it. Local and international organizations and groups that have a project, event, or campaign to share are invited to submit 4 – 5 minute video clips to be reviewed and posted on the Bang-USA.org site and on peaceandjusticenow.org.
For more information on how to include your voice in the network or to post the videos on your website, please contact Kim atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 215.546.3030.
Sponsored by: Project for Nuclear Awareness, www.BANg-europe.org, www.bang-usa.org, www.peaceandjusticenow.org
5) New Cities are Not Targets website
The Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign has launched a new Cities are Not Targets website with very useful tools to involve Mayoral Associations, Mayors, NGOs, and individuals to recruit Mayors.
6) School activity for NPT Review Conference: Time for abolition!
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is calling on young people around the world to create banners declaring to world leaders that it’s “Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons”. The letters for the banner can be downloaded here. Each student in the class is allocated a letter to colour in and decorate with peace and anti-nuclear images, and then their teacher will take a photo and send it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by May 1 to be displayed at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York. Full details are available here (in English as well as German). Over the coming months, ICAN will be developing more activities aimed at giving students the opportunity to influence the Review Conference.
7) Promoting the nuclear weapons convention
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has contracted Tim Wright from its Australian committee of management to work in New York from now until the middle of June. Over the coming months, he will work with non-government organizations around the world in generating support for a legally binding and verifiable Nuclear Weapons Convention. This will involve producing a range of materials about the NWC for use by local NGOs wishing to lobby their governments. This work will take place in the lead-up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which will be held from May 3 to 28.
His other role, and one which complements the first, will be to help coordinate actions throughout the world on June 5, Nuclear Abolition Day. This is the Saturday after the NPT Review Conference. ICAN and its partners aim to mobilize tens of thousands of people to take to the streets and demand that their governments work for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. The actions will take place in cities and at nuclear facilities, and no action is too small to make a difference!
You can download an international strategy document prepared by a number of NGOs which outlines the rationale for promoting the NWC in the lead-up to the NPT Review Conference and holding a global day of action after it. Many people have already expressed their support for the recommendations contained in the document, and we would welcome any further feedback. Over the next few months, Tim intends to send out updates on ICAN’s work—please let him know if you would like to receive them (email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).
8) Featured News
Successful blockade at Aldermaston
On Monday, 15 February, hundreds of activists demonstrated outside a factory in southern England where warheads for Trident nuclear submarines are made. The demonstrators blocked gates outside the site in Aldermaston, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of London. Forty women blockaded one of the main gates. They came from all over the UK and from several NATO countries. The message from the Women’s Gate blockade was simple and clear. Renewal of Britain’s weapon of mass destruction is illegal, immoral, pointless and profligate. It will be at the cost of services such as housing, education, health and welfare that are crucial to the quality of our everyday lives. And this in a time of financial crisis when all political parties are threatening ‘cuts’! Women need more, not less, support from public funding for the care-work so many of us habitually do, paid and unpaid. We need more, not less, spending to protect the environment, the natural world that sustains life. Secondly, women in every country, in times of peace and war, are the objects of domestic and sexual violence. Nuclear weapons are the extreme manifestation of the endemic violence in our culture that is on a scale from the personal to the international, that stretches from bedroom to battlefield, that is inflicted by fists, boots, knives, guns, fighter aircraft and warships. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate in this obscene continuum of violence. Today at the Women’s Gate of the Big Blockade of the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, we were united in saying: ‘No to male violence, no to military violence, no to genocidal violence. No to all violence.’
See the Aldermaston Women’s Peace Campaign for details.
Nagasaki Appeal 2010
The 4th Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons met on 8 February 2010 to demonstrate its determination that Nagasaki be the last place ever to suffer a nuclear attack. The Assembly’s appeal includes: the establishment of a process to eliminate nuclear weapons; the cessation of research, development, testing, and component production of nuclear weapons while reductions of arsenals are in progress, not afterwards; the subjection of production and research facilities to an intrusive verification regime at the earliest possible time; the reduction of nuclear weapons in a manner that supports general disarmament; the redirection of the financial and human resources currently used to develop and maintain nuclear weapons systems towards meeting social and economic needs consistent with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals; increased citizen involvement in nuclear disarmament; and the creation of more nuclear weapons free zones or zones free of weapons of mass destruction, or single state nuclear weapons free zones. See the complete appeal online.
9) Recommended Reading
Greg Mello, “The Obama disarmament paradox,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 4 February 2010.
Darwin BondGraham, Will Parrish, Nicholas Ian Robinson, “The ‘Four Horsemen’ Call For a Nuclear Weapons Spending Surge,” Full-Court Press, 3 February 2010.
Ian Davis and Oliver Meier, “Don’t Mention the Cold War: Lord Robertson’s Basil Fawlty Moment,” NATO Watch Comment, 12 February 2010.
Alice Slater, “A Global Push for Renewable Energy,” YES! Magazine, 21 January 2010.
