Climbing the Mountain: Legislators collaborating on bilateral, plurilateral and global measures towards a secure nuclear-weapons-free world

This Parliamentary Assembly will bring together legislators from across the political spectrum and from around the world in order to facilitate dialogue, enhance understanding and build parliamentary engagement in practical measures to advance nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and achieve a nuclear-weapons free world.

In 2007, four high-level US statesmen advanced the vision of a nuclear-weapons-free world as a goal that must be sought collectively to reverse nuclear proliferation and achieve security, but noted that such a goal was like an extremely high mountain that would take some effort to climb. Since then, the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world has been endorsed by President Obama, leaders of other nuclear-weapon-States and their allies and by the collective membership of the United Nations.

However, governments have been unable to transcend political differences in order to achieve this goal. Parliamentarians can work together to ensure progress. In 2010, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon contacted every legislature in the world commending PNND on its work, and reminding parliamentarians of their key roles in responding to ensure sustainable global security and work ‘on the legislative agendas needed to achieve and sustain the objective of nuclear disarmament.’

The conference will focus particularly on engagement between US legislators and legislators from key countries where progress is required to build cooperative security, phase-out the reliance on nuclear weapons and establish the framework for a secure nuclear-weapons-free world.

It will follow on from the 2012 PNND Assembly in Kazakhstan which was attended by parliamentarians from over 80 countries, including from most of the nuclear-armed States, and at which the ATOM Project was launched, focusing on the humanitarian  consequences of nuclear weapons as an imperative for their abolition.

Program outline

Pre-event: Feb 25:
Roundtable discussion on Diplomacy and denuclearizarion in NE Asia

PNND Conference – Climbing the Mountain (Feb 26-27):

Session 1: Steps and measures by nuclear-armed States
Session 2: From nuclear deterrence to cooperative security
Session 3: Regional security mechanisms - Nuclear Weapon Free Zones
Session 4: Building the framework for a Nuclear Weapons Free World
Special Session: Catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons as an imperative for nuclear abolition
Session 5: Building cross-party and inter-parliamentary cooperation 
Session 6: National measures and exemplary policies

PNND Council Meeting (Feb 27):

Session 1:         Program reports and partnerships
Session 2:        Discussion on PNND draft program for 2014-2015
Session 3:        Organization and outreach

• PNND Assembly program
• Invite to the Reception: Ending the Terror of Nuclear Weapons
• Conference Statement on the Nuclear Security Summit

For further information and to register contact info@pnnd.org