 Good afternoon and welcome to this afternoon's webinar on whether nuclear disarmament is under threat. We're very lucky to have a very distinguished speaker this afternoon, Beatrice Vinn, and Beatrice will speak for 20 minutes, followed by a question and answer session. Please feel free to send your questions in throughout the session and we will come to them at the end of the presentation. Both today's presentation and the Q&A are on the record. Please also feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIEA. Now a few words about Beatrice before I hand over to her. I don't think she'll need much for an introduction. Beatrice is the Executive Director of the International Campaign for Abolished Nuclear Weapons, ICANN. In 2017, ICANN won the Nobel Peace Prize for its work. Beatrice has led the campaign since 2013 and has worked to mobilise civil society through the development of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and as you know, Ireland has been very involved in the adoption process leading to this treaty. Previously, Beatrice managed the disarmament programme at the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and the Reaching Critical Will Project and worked with the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. Over to you, Beatrice. Thank you so much, Mary, and really big thanks to IIEA for inviting me here today. It's a really great time to talk about these issues and I'm really pleased to see how many of these organisations and institutes are managing to pivot to online lectures during this very difficult time for everyone. Yes, I was going to talk a little bit about what the current status is around nuclear disarmament, the sort of legal system around nuclear weapons and of course a little bit about ICANN and what we're doing to change this. And if you have opened Twitter or looked at the news lately, it paints a very bleak picture of where we are. But as with so many other issues today, we are seeing kind of a polarization, a split in what is actually happening. We are seeing some really progressive movements and progress happening and some incredibly dangerous and serious backsliding. And that's what we see on human rights, on democracy, on multilateralism in general and of course also for nuclear weapons. So first the bad stuff, maybe I'll start with the bad news. The nine nuclear arms states spent 73 billion dollars on building and maintaining their nuclear arsenals last year. And to put that in context, some researchers just showed that for 22 billion dollars you can prevent the pandemic. So nuclear arms states are choosing to spend 73 billion dollars right now on these weapons. And the US accounts for almost half of that. And if converted today's value of the investment that a country like the United States, for example, are making in this nuclear arsenal today is more than they invested in doing the original Manhattan Project. And all nine nuclear arms states are authorizing upgrades, engaging modernization programs, developing new types of nuclear weapons, new missions, and really indicating very strongly that they are planning to keep these weapons for a long, long time ahead. And in addition, we're of course also seeing the worsening of the security environment in particular between nuclear arms states. We've seen, we see tensions between US and Russia, European NATO states in Russia, the US and North Korea, the US and China, China, China and India, India and Pakistan, and of course continued tension in the Middle East between Israel and other countries in the region. And if I'm going to add even worse things that are happening, we're also standing ahead of a technical revolution in warfare with emerging technologies like cyber capabilities, autonomous technologies, artificial intelligence really actually heighten the existing risks of nuclear weapons use, both in some predicted and also unpredicted ways. As emerging technologies are increasingly incorporated in military operations, the potential for unintended consequences or just mistakes will continue to grow. And just giving you some examples of that, for example, one of the threats posed by offensive digital technology is the increased uncertainty that it can introduce in the decision to launch nuclear weapons. And there's quite a few different cyber operations with the potential to impact nuclear weapons decision making in the nuclear arms states. And while, for example, artificial intelligence is not new, the increased application of that in the weapons and defense systems is a recent and quite concerning trend. And with regards to nuclear weapons, the applications of those technologies raise really serious questions about the nature of human input and human judgment over the world's most dangerous weapons. For example, applied machine learning autonomous systems will result in an increased speed of warfare. And therefore an even shorter period in which decision makers will have to choose whether to launch nuclear weapons or not. And I don't know about you, but when I look at the men in power of these nuclear arsenals, I don't have a lot of faith in their judgment as it is. And experts around the world, from the United Nations, the Secretary General himself, the International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, Chatham House, SIPRI, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, many more agree unanimously the risk of nuclear weapons use is increasing. But there is also a huge counter movement happening. And it's quite easy to forget sometimes, but the vast majority of states in the world do not have nuclear weapons and do not want nuclear weapons. And but because of this increasing risk of the use of nuclear weapons, a number of governments and international organizations, including the UN, ICRC, and others started really looking at the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons. Because as long as they exist, we need to think about what happens if or maybe when they one day will be used. So these governments organized expert meetings with the world's most foremost experts on nuclear weapons to map out what happens in today, not just in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but what happens today if nuclear weapons will be used, both in the short term and the long term, on the environment, on healthcare systems, on refugee flows, for example. And the conferences also examine what preparedness exists in the world, both nationally, but also regionally and internationally. And the results of these conferences and these expert meetings were really shocking. Any use it was concluded of nuclear weapons would cause catastrophic humanitarian harm, would cause immense suffering for civilians. And the conferences also concluded that no preparedness really exists in the world to deal with the consequences, not nationally or internationally. And relief agencies would be powerless and overwhelmed with the impact. And our healthcare system would not be able to cope with the impact of a nuclear war. And it really clarified that kind of focus on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, the need to prevent this from happening. And it was also discussed, of course, that the only way to credibly prevent nuclear weapons from ever being used is to prohibit and eliminate them. And that's really why the majority of states gather to negotiate the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. And the treaty bans the use, testing, possession and development of nuclear weapons and together with the bans on chemical and biological weapons really completes this ban on weapons of mass destruction, weapons that have a huge impact on civilians. The treaty was concluded in 2017 and will enter into force once 50 states have ratified it. And right now we have 44, with Ireland being a very recent country to ratify, only actually he was my day on the 75th anniversary. And it's quite likely that we will have the final six ratify the treaty before the end of the year, meaning that soon international law will have nuclear weapons be illegal. And prior to this treaty, the nuclear weapons was really the only weapons of mass destruction not subject to a ban, categorical ban. And this new agreement really fills a major gap in international law. And history shows that the prohibition of our weapons system facilitates progress towards their elimination. Weapons that have been outlawed by international treaties are increasingly seen as illegitimate and losing their political status. You have arms companies, for example, that find it much more difficult to acquire funds to work on weapons that have been outlawed by international treaties. And such work carries a significant reputational risk. Banks, pension funds, other financial institutions starts divesting from these producing companies, removing the money from those weapons systems. And the reason for pursuing this ban on nuclear weapons was really a fundamental belief from many governments and of course also from the United Nations itself and civil society that changing the rules regarding nuclear weapons would have a major impact even beyond those countries that would formally adopt the treaty. And I think that this belief that the new norms really shapes behavior beyond the countries that just joined the treaty, it really comes from other examples in international law and other treaties. We've seen, for example, with the landmines treaty, with the customizations ban, with the ban on chemical weapons or biological weapons that establish powerful norms that greatly influence policies and practices of states that are not yet parties to them. So of course, a lot of people are still saying that this treaty won't matter because none of the nuclear arms states have yet joined it. But this treaty will really have an impact on them, whether they like it or not. And maybe ironically, the best answer about the impact of a ban comes from the nuclear weapons states themselves. They have bitterly opposed the TPNW from the outset. And today there are still lobbying countries around the world to not join the treaty. We've even heard that they are complaining to the Pope for him being such an outspoken advocate of this treaty. And I mean, why would they do that? Why would they care about a treaty that in the words of a US ambassador say will not reduce a nuclear weapon stockpast by even a single weapon? They consistently say it's not gonna matter at all. And the answer is that despite their public claims that the TPNW will be ineffective, they do understand the profound potential impact of this treaty right from the beginning. They've realized that TPNW will delegitimize and stigmatize nuclear weapons, including by increasing domestic and international pressure for the elimination. But through what I talked about before, the financial investment in their production and maintenance and perhaps most significant of all, making nuclear disarmament a global humanitarian responsibility shared by all countries rather than just an exclusive strategic concern of a small club of nuclear weapons possessors. So we have very often kind of a spectacle of nuclear arms states trying to convince others that the TPNW will simultaneously have no effect and also be highly dangerous and destabilizing, they say. The United States told the UN that a ban on nuclear weapons would, and I quote, risk creating a very unstable security environment where misperceptions and miscalculations could escalate the crisis with unintended and unforeseen consequences, not excluding the possible use of a nuclear weapons. And Russia argued that the TPNW would risk plunging the world into chaos and dangerous unpredictability, like we're already not there. However, in October, 2016, the US actually sent a memo to all its NATO partners explaining what it really actually thought about the TPNW. And among other things, they said that the treaty could impact non-parties as well as parties and could even have an impact prior to its entry into force. Could make it impossible to undertake nuclear planning or training to use nuclear weapons or nuclear-related transit through territorial airspace or sea and could design the treaty to destroy the basis of the US extended nuclear deterrence. And there you have it, I think, why the TPNW matters, explained by a nuclear arms state. It will undermine the legitimacy of nuclear weapons. It will make it harder for nuclear arms states to continue to modernize its nuclear arsenals undisturbed. And it will really shift perceptions about nuclear weapons, create a new norm that this is not normal behavior. Threatening to mass murder civilians with weapons of mass destruction is nothing that a country that is concerned with humanitarian law and protection of civilians in warfare, like the Geneva Conventions they all signed states. It would really put pressure on these countries. So this is really what we in ICANN have been doing these last years. First, we work very closely with governments and international organizations to rally support for the idea of this treaty. We work very closely with all these governments, including Ireland, through that point, and also during the negotiations themselves, making sure that the treaty is a solid international law in the same status as the ban on biological weapons, chemical weapons, the ban on land mines and cluster missions that we continue this tradition of banning weapons that cause unnecessary harm to civilians. And now we're bringing it to force, working actively around the world to make sure that parliaments authorize the necessary approvals and that the bureaucratic processes of joining this treaty is in place. And of course, when the treaty enters into force, our work won't stop there. We will make sure that the impact makes a difference, that the law is used to create a new norm and that that will lead to the elimination of nuclear weapons. So how will we do that? Of course, we have a network. ICANN is a global campaign coalition with over 570 organizations, thousands of members around the world, ranging from very different types of people, everything from grassroots activists that protest outside nuclear bases, to medical doctors, to lawyers, to survivors of nuclear use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and of course the nuclear test sites around the world. And we really work to build a global movement of public opposition to nuclear weapons, reaching across generations, mobilizing new young people that have grown up after the Cold War to engage on this issue. And really through these partnerships and through this very diverse group of activists around the world, we are working to reshape the debate on nuclear weapons. And the treaty is one of our major tools and then the opportunity to do just that. And the strategy going on forward from this is really to use the treaty, to take it one step at a time, build as much support as possible through getting as many governments to join this treaty. Each country, no matter how large or how small the country is, will chip away at the legitimacy of nuclear weapons and will increase the pressure on the new ground states to disarm. But we're also using the treaty of course to go to our pension funds, go to our banks and demand that they pull out investments from the nuclear weapons producing countries. And we know that's an effective strategy for class dominations, for example. The United States did not participate in the negotiations of that ban. They say that they have no intention to sign it, yet as a treaty entered into force in 2010, a lot of huge big European banks and even American banks stopped financing any company that participates in making cluster bombs. And that has led to in 2016, the last American producer of these weapons, Tech Strong, a weapons company, that make the decision to stop producing these weapons. It was harmful to their business. And that's how we see how these kind of treaties can have a real practical impact. So no matter if the US will join this treaty or not, right now there are no more new producers. There are no more new American cluster bombs being built. And that's a huge victory. We're also working to make this a local issue. I think one of the challenges in engaging people on nuclear disarmament is that it seems too abstract and too big for people to really wrap their head around. But what actually happens is that nuclear weapons are meant to wipe out cities. This is not a precision guidance weapon that's meant to take out Kim Jong-un, for example. This is a weapon meant for civilian populations. So really what we're looking at is also regional and local decision makers and engaging that this is not a responsibility only for a federal government or for a prime minister, for example. But this is also represented for mayors and for cities and for local states. So we have this ICANN cities appeal where cities are taking the lead. And we have cities like Paris, for example, Berlin, Sydney, Toronto, Los Angeles, cities all over the world that are standing up supporting this treaty and urging their government to support it because they know as cities that they have no ability to respond effectively if they are the target of nuclear weapons. And of course, we also working to raise awareness in parliaments. We have working with over 1400 parliamentarians around the world, many in nuclear umbrella states like NATO states, for example, like Germany, for example, that hosts US nuclear weapons on the territory to really make sure that they are asking critical questions and raising pressure on their own governments to join this treaty. We're working also with culture and faith, trying to make sure that when this law now enters into force that people know about it and that people are changing their behavior based on this. For example, Pope Francis has been an extremely important ally to us who has led the Catholic church into much of a strong, more stronger stance on nuclear weapons where he last year declared that possessing nuclear weapons is a sin and mobilizing the Catholic church to work for nuclear abolition. And so what we're really doing is, this is just some of the ways that we're moving to really engage people, more people in influencing and shaping global norms. And this is not just an issue that we leave to a handful of nuclear arm states and their leaders. This is something that every citizen has the right to have a say in and really bringing democracy to nuclear disarmament. And I think really what we're seeing is a push from led by civil society to moving from international relations to see all engagements as zero sum to a battle where we can only have one winner to a system where we really cooperate and slowly, but surely despite what the news tell you despite what Putin and Trump and Kim Jong-un does, we can, we see that that is happening. And it's really countries like Ireland actually that has championed this treaty and just ratified it a couple of weeks ago that is leading the way. And that is what global leadership looks like at the world stage today. So I think I will stop there and enjoy answering some questions. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for that Beatrice. Could I start off by addressing what's always the core issue when you talk to the weapons states that is the issue of their security? And if one is leading a global campaign, you obviously have considered this issue. I'm very struck by a country that is, it doesn't have nuclear weapons, but is protected under the NATO umbrella Germany. Germany took the decision to move away from nuclear energy, but it still is under the protection of a nuclear weapons defense strategy. How do you go about convincing governments, for example, like the German government in a situation where compliance is almost impossible to enforce? You mentioned there, I'm sorry for going on a bit, the Chemical Weapons Convention, but we can see what has happened even recent days with Novichok. So if we have to, and we must have nuclear disarmament, we must have proper compliance. So how do you answer that criticism? Well, I think that we have created a system where whether or not we like it, we just assume that some country security is more important than others. And when we talk about country security, we talk about the security of the powerful as well, not the actual people. I mean, in the United States, the biggest military power, it's unmatched when it comes to its military and also with the biggest nuclear armed state. 170,000 people have died from COVID. And if that's not a security threat and a security issue, then who gets to decide what security threats we take seriously and what we don't and what counts as security when done, what doesn't? The people are not protected by these weapons. Even the people in the United States, many people in the United States have actually been harmed by nuclear weapons through the nuclear testing. And it's, for example, the US tested nuclear weapons in Nevada and New Mexico on indigenous people's lands. It tested it on former colonies like Marshall Islands, for example. And it's not a coincidence that these people were, communities very far removed from power in the country, indigenous communities, people of color, people that did not matter to the decision makers. And I see a lot of parallels on that. When we talk about security with the current kind of Black Lives Matter and conversation about police brutality, this institution that's there to protect, but it actually just protects certain people and it actually harms other people and who gets to decide that? So I think in a country like a nuclear arm states, that is the fact. But then you also look at the global arena. What the US and Russia does with the nuclear weapons, it's gonna harm us. If the UK is in nuclear war, believe me, it's gonna harm Ireland. You will not be escaping nuclear weapons just because you're a nuclear free in that way. And I think that that's really important, that I'm Swedish, I live in Switzerland. My security, my survival really is at stake. And it's Trump and Putin and Kim Jong-un and Boris Johnson that holds the power whether or not my country survives. It's an outrageous thing to think about when you think about that. And we have for very long taken those countries without nuclear weapons that they don't have security concerns. Like somehow Germany is in a worse security threat than Switzerland or that Sweden has a different security threat than Norway, for example. I mean, it's very weird that we have these kind of, it's a little bit like a bully, right? Like you have to fix my security problems for me, otherwise I will mass murder us all. I mean, it's completely bizarre and terrorist like really. When it comes to the issue of seeing, for example, the Chemical Weapons Commission, we talked about bio weapons, chemical weapons, land mines, cluster munitions as examples where a ban has impacted the elimination of the weapon. Obviously that doesn't mean that all problems are gone and all countries will behave responsibly forever. But it means that without these treaties, if we had no ban on chemical weapons, if it was legal, legitimate for countries to have new chemical weapons to use them freely, I think we would have seen much more use of that in the past. And I also think it's quite telling that the countries that do use them heavily deny that they do. Syria, for example, was not a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention when they first used chemical weapons in Syria on its own population. They were not legally bound by this convention, yet they denied that they did it because a new norm has been shaped and we move forward our position with that is not acceptable behavior. It's the same thing as with human rights. Having human rights treaties does not mean that it never happens, but it means that it gives us a line in the sand like what is acceptable behavior and what's not acceptable behavior. And that's really the only power we have. We can't force countries to do what we want. There's no world police that will put an impression. Maybe we wish sometimes, but what we do have is normative power and governments do actually respond to that. Another example of that, for example, is the cluster bombs convention. We've seen countless examples of non-states parties that are intentionally hiding that they're using cluster bombs because they have been banned by other countries. So Russia, for example, there was always footage of Russian planes going to Syria and they were armed with cluster bombs. You could see it in the Human Rights Watch, I think, exposed it. They are not part of the treaty. They can do that if they want to legally, but they immediately removed it and denied it. And it shows that we're kind of moving forward and we're kind of pressuring them. It's the power that we have. We don't have all the power that we would like to, but we have this power, so we're using it. Just getting quite a few questions now. Let me put two of them together and then I have a few more after that. You noted, one of the questions is, you noted that the Prohibition Treaty would secure the remaining six ratifications by the end of 2020 and so enter into force. What are some of the hurdles in the way of getting up to that number? First of all, and secondly, is the COVID-19 having an impact on your efforts to secure the necessary number of ratifications? That's the first question. And then a question from Richard Moeller. A country can sign the treaty, but can companies support it? He asks, and he mentions Amazon to be able to Google Apple. I presume that question is, do you reach out to business to get their support for your efforts? I'll answer those two for the moment. Yeah, well, for sure the COVID crisis has had an impact on the pace of ratifications in many ways. I mean, governments were in lockdown, people were working from home, the United Nations in New York closed. So it definitely did slow down. What it did, I think, is really hit home to people how vulnerable we are to global threats and how we are in this together. Suddenly we found ourselves realizing that our own country's survival depends on the healthcare system of another kind. Oh, not survival, but our own sort of safety and security and health depends on what other countries do. We're truly in this together. It goes very fast and you can't use weapons. And climate change is going to be like this, but much worse. So I think that it has triggered people's mind that you can't threaten a virus or climate change and bully them to get them to stand back. And we have to figure out other ways, smarter ways to solve our security threat. Obviously we can't guarantee exactly when countries will ratify what we did see is just a few weeks after the first sort of lockdowns happened globally, governments started kind of resuming and finding new ways to do things. So we have managed to progress with ratifications. I think Namibia was the first country that also worked with the United Nations Legal Office to see how a country can ratify a treaty without handing it in the person. So they did the first time. Namibia, where they ratified a treaty by sending it by post and then confirming it electronically and we did a Zoom ceremony instead of in-person ceremony at the United Nations. So it also has led to kind of innovative approaches, which then has led to several new ratifications not the least four in August, which was really exciting. We have a number of countries that are very close to ratifying. And we are quite confident that we can get six before the end of the year. It will depend a little bit on, if there will be new waves of lockdowns around the world. But I am quite confident, but governments, bureaucracies are also a little bit unpredictable, it can always, it always takes longer than us activists want to. Well, when we say soon, it doesn't matter. It's not the same as government Zoom. So it's a little bit, we're impatient, but I'm pretty confident. We have lots of governments that are just one final step away from being able to complete it. And we're hoping that will be done soon in a couple of months. And the second question was about companies. I think companies are becoming much more important players in the world. I mean, some of these companies, Facebook, Google are basically more powerful than governments today and have more influence over people and norms and shapes the way we think about things for worse than for good, you know, sometimes. So I think it's definitely something that we want to. A lot of companies have been quite reluctant to engage on this issue, which I think is a shame. We've had some conversation, for example, looking at Amazon, whose headquarters in Seattle, where they also have one of the biggest nuclear weapons submarine bases in the United States. It is a clear target for nuclear attacks, Seattle, for a country like Russia, for example. If they, I'm sure they have the coordinates program, it's an obvious target. That's a direct threat to them also and their business models. If you think that COVID has negatively impacted some businesses, nuclear war is going to be a lot worse. So I think it's in the interest of companies as well. We're trying to reach out. Some companies do get involved very much, which we think is really exciting. And we would, I think it's definitely an area where we want to do more work. I see potential there. Another question, this one from Amber Rout, who says that some of the arguments given by nuclear states is that having the nuclear arsenal itself is a deterrent to their use. Is that a fair argument is the question? And a question from Chloe De Quayne, that climate change have come further to the fore during the pandemic. How could we tie climate change mitigation with a disarmament to ensure this issue is kept high on the agenda? And has COVID-19 enabled further discussion on what is morally defensible? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that sometimes threats work sometimes, right? I can threaten someone, and if they're scared enough, they'll do what I say. It doesn't mean that it's always a good option. It doesn't mean that it will always work or that it won't have unintended long-term negative consequences. For example, I could dig down land mines in my garden and put up a sign and say, land mines, don't rob this place. And probably a burglar won't go in, but is it a good idea? Probably not, because the mailman or my kids or someone will accidentally step on it one day. So I think that we have to look at the complete picture. We cannot just look at, I can threaten my way and scare some countries, and that's why this is justified, because we also have to look at, will deterrence hold forever? Will there ever, can you guarantee that there will never be a mistake by a nuclear arms state, that there will never be an accident, a miscalculation, a false alarm? And I think that those things, the longer we go, the more we open up possible things like that. The longer we have nuclear weapons, the closer we get to the day where something goes wrong, either intentionally or by accident, really. I was just on Twitter like an hour ago before we started this and saw that there's an exercise with a nuclear bomber. We don't know if it's armed or not, because they never disclose that. Flying very close to Crimea and America, right? And doing all these exercises. You can very easily see how in very tense moments, something can go wrong. And looking at the leaders that we have, and this is not just an issue about who is in the White House or who is the president of Russia or whatever. No person should have their responsibility, but eventually one day, someone will use these weapons. And I think that that's the big flaw in deterrence because these leaders never have to answer, what are you doing then? How are you going to address the aftermath of nuclear war? We've even seen that they do these military exercises where they plot and how things escalate and they practice all the way up to using nuclear weapons. The military exercises stop after you use nuclear weapons. They never exercise what happens after. And I think that what we've seen, for example, expert has warned for decades that climate change is coming. And it's coming. And experts, I mean, I'm here in Geneva with the WHO here, they've warned that pandemic and global pandemic is going to come and it's going to be bad. And yet we didn't really prepare enough. And experts are warning that the risk of nuclear weapons use is increasing. If we keep this forever, it will happen statistically. Someday it will, I mean, maybe be long-term. We don't know when, which is why it's so hard for decision makers to make the necessary steps because they can postpone it maybe another year or another year or another year. But we're getting closer and closer to the day when they are used. And the consequences will be catastrophic. And we have to, this is an issue we cannot, we cannot repair from afterwards. I was about to say I'm amused, but that's the wrong word. I was interested to see that the US took an initiative two years ago which is entitled creating an environment for nuclear disarmament. But I was quite surprised by a number of the states who would be involved in that initiative, including the country which is most definitely in the non-nuclear camp Finland. And do you think there could be anything good coming out of this initiative? Is it possible that it might bring up new ideas that we haven't thought of before? Well, I mean, this working group that the US has set up, I see it as a distraction as an excuse. They set up a working group that as far as what I've understood, I haven't been invited to the group for obvious reasons. Nothing of substance is really being discussed. It's a lot of abstract conversations about things, but at the same time they are putting billions of dollars into modernizing, upgrading, increasing threats around nuclear weapons. So I think we have to stop looking at what they're saying and start looking at what they're doing and judge the likelihood of nuclear disarmament not based on words in this form, but actions on the ground around these weapons. Where do they put their money? What nuclear weapons exercises are they doing? What threats are they making to use nuclear weapons? And when we're looking at that, we see a very negative trend where the Trump administration has pulled out of treaties like INF Treaty, the Iran deal. We have the renewal of New START, which is a treaty that caps the US and Russian arsenals that expires I think in May next year. And the US is just not interested in extending this treaty. So by next year we could have a complete lack of caps on the nuclear arsenals. So that's, I think, what we need to look at. And unfortunately, this is a lot of things in nuclear weapons. It's a little bit like in climate change. You have the oil companies doing a little kind of, we've removed plastic straws in our cafeteria, but they're polluting the environment for real somewhere else. It's a lot of PR and for show to make it look like they're doing things. When actually there's no results and I would be very surprised if there are any concrete results that would actually have an impact on the government. A comment then in a question, a comment from Porick Murphy, a former Irish ambassador who asked that I pass on his high compliments to you for your commitment. And a question from Francis Collins who says it's important to recall that nuclear weapons states have made a commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons under the NPT. We know there are different views of that particular commitment. And the TPNW represents an important step in terms of implementing the NPT's disarmament commitments can be at this comment on the upcoming review conference and opportunities for progress. And if I might add in something myself there, the fact that we may have a Biden administration in the US and that the Biden statements have suggested that it's a return more to the Obama idea of ultimately accepting would be disarmament but make us good sometime. Do you think that that would change the mood music and might allow some progress to be made? Yeah, I think the upcoming NPT review conference it was supposed to be held in May this year. Obviously postponed for obvious reasons. It's scheduled for January. I don't know if we're gonna be in New York gathering in January. It feels a little bit unlikely maybe, but we'll see what happens. It's still very unclear when it will happen but it will happen at some point. And that's a really great point place where we need to kind of address the current status and look at the new promises. Because yes, they have made a legally binding commitment and that is what also the International Court of Justice has confirmed. It is a legally binding commitment to disarm, not just to talk about disarmament but to actually like pursue nuclear disarmament. And we need to hold them accountable to that. Obviously the treaties, the NPT's big weakness is that there's no timeframe. And I like to compare a little bit like the, if you think about climate change which is something that people sometimes know more of the structure, right? The NPT is a little bit like the Paris Agreement. It sets the targets, but it doesn't really give any details on how you're gonna get there and kind of actually making them do that. So it's a bit of a, it's a target and it's a very important target to have and we're gonna hold them accountable to it. But as the commentator said, the TPNW is really a way to operationalize that and to show in practice, this is how we're going to be getting there. This is how we're going to implement the NPT. I do, of course, we're not associated with any political parties, but obviously I think a Biden administration would be a lot more supportive of things like the New START Treaty, for example. I think that would be very helpful. I don't think we should be naive in thinking that all of our problems will be solved under a Biden administration. I think we have to remember that these enormous modernization programs which are predicted, I said 35 billion for US per year, but over the next two decades, they are planning to spend a trillion dollar on nuclear weapons. That was initiated by the Obama administration. So I think it's very important that we remember that this issue is not going to be solved by electing another politician. And I think this is a comment about all these issues that we're seeing right now. I say a lot of, go and vote, go and vote, as that is the only way to change things. I think we have to be much more focused on changing the perception of an issue and changing the grassroots and changing the way where the politicians operate. And I'd like to compare a little bit with, for example, in the United States, the issue of same-sex marriage where, for example, even in the first campaign of Obama, he did not speak out in favor of that. And there was no presidential candidate that ran on that platform. But suddenly, state-by-state in the United States, it changed, public opinion changed, culture changed, movies all had same-sex couples, it became normalized. And then suddenly almost all political candidates were in favor of it. And they would say, oh, I've always thought about that. So I think that's how we have to look at nuclear disarmament as well, not hoping that Biden will come and save us or that another candidate or that, in the UK, that a labor party will come and fix this for us. But that's not how politics work, unfortunately. So we have to push and surround the politicians with a different context where suddenly this is not acceptable behavior anymore. And that's when we'll see this change. So I'm obviously hoping that we'll see a new administration. I think that's going to lower the tensions. We're gonna put in some of these small measures that are still very, very important. It will probably help an MPT review conference, not completely crash and burn. It's not going to lead to nuclear disarmament immediately. That's the work that we have to do as citizens. Just coming back to the issue of compliance, which is central to the issue of really getting buy-in from those whose involvement is totally essential. It strikes me, I'd love to hear your views on what do you think about the current multilateral architecture for dealing with arms control and disarmament issues? I look at the sad story of the conference on disarmament, the question on no progress on a fissile treaty, but even something like the CTBT, which effectively is in existence in all but the final piece, just that final piece won't be, that's final step won't be taken. Do we need to rethink the whole architecture of disarmament? Yeah, I mean, I think that multilateralism has both huge, progressed hugely and also is very much on the challenge. And I think in particularly the way we do multilateralism and the way we've created these treaties, the times have changed, the power dynamics have changed in the world. And this idea of having like in the conference on disarmament, basically 65 countries have veto power. Any country can block anything, even an administrative issue in that is you're not going to get any success. And what you're seeing actually is the instruments that were sort of created in the Cold War context are the ones that are struggling today. Whereas the humanitarian disarmament treaties, the land mines treaty, the cluster munitions convention and now the ban treaty as well are really thriving in a different kind of way. So I think we need to realize that the world is changing. I was actually looking also at the list of the top 10 countries, top biggest countries in the world, the most, with the biggest populations. Very dominant, of course, of nuclear arms states, but you have five countries on that list. So the top 10, you also have Nigeria, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, and Bangladesh. And all five of them are key supporters of the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. And these are all of the countries that are growing at a much faster rate than the nuclear arms states. That is China, India, of course, massive countries, the US, Russia, and Pakistan, I think. And so I think that we're seeing, we are at this plate where, the way that we constructed the security council and the P5, for example, based on World War II, that's not how the world looks like today. And power dynamics in the world and regional powers, and we're seeing a huge change. So I think this idea of having veto power for the five in the security council is not working anymore. We see that the security council, which Ireland now is a part of, unfortunately without veto, or maybe not more veto, but you're gonna have to struggle with the five veto powers there. And I think really that that's a very outdated way to operate. And we see examples of multilateralism working in different types. I mean, the things that the CTBT, for example, it might not have entered into force because it's waiting for some nuclear arms states to ratify for a long time, but it's still very powerful. The norm works. I mean, North Korea has not signed it. Yet the entire world condemns North Korea to put sanctions in place. Again, legally they're allowed to. They are allowed to test nuclear weapons if they want to. They haven't joined the treaty. I mean, you can have the MPT conversation as a separate of course, but it really shows that the norm is there. The norm is working. The monitoring stations are still working. Of course, ideally it would have been good if it was entered into force, but I still think we shouldn't take away the value from it. Like it still has been very successful in making sure that countries don't start testing nuclear weapons again, with only one exception of North Korea. So I think that we have to maybe also kind of change a little bit what success is, work much more with groups of states that are willing to move, set a high standard and then bring countries. The old way is very much everyone moves together at the same time. And the way that the world is so polarized in different things and different conflict in different areas, I feel like it's very hard to get all, almost 200 countries in the world on board an idea at the same time. So I think we're gonna have to move in multilateralism a little bit more maybe fluid and make progress where we have opportunities and then bring other countries on board. Thank you. I agree with you completely on the CTVT, but I think the fact that some countries haven't finally ratified is because they have still a mental reservation even though they pay. But I agree with you, it's very successful. Just two final questions and we're coming back to Europe now. The first one is how can the EU be more effective on discussions on disarmament? Obviously the EU contains countries as diverse as Ireland and France, but is there something more we could be doing because in many respects, there was a great similarity around certain aspects of that agenda, I think between us. And another question, how do you foresee the EU's post Brexit defense strategy given President Macron's ambitions for a strategic dialogue on the deterrent role of nuclear capacity? So there are two nice easy questions to end on. Yeah, no, I think it's really interesting. I think that the EU could really play a key role in moving us closer to nuclear disarmament. I mean, first, I think that many EU countries need to reckon with their complicity in this issue. A lot of EU countries, we have, of course, France that has nuclear weapons, but we also have Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy that have US nuclear weapons on its territory. And their military would be the ones dropping weapons from mass destruction on civilian populations. And I think that that's really, that's something that these countries are very uncomfortable. These are champions of human rights, protection of civilian sort of supporters, yet German soldiers would nuke whole cities according to the war plans that they have and wipe out whole cities full of civilians, commit war crimes, basically. And they don't like to talk about it. So it's kind of hidden into sterile conversations about deterrence and stability. But really that is, so these European countries need to reckon with that. And we see a lot of public support for joining the Treaty of the Prohibition on Nuclear Weapons from those countries. Overwhelming majority of Germans, overwhelming majority of Dutch people, Belgian people, Italian people, lots of parliamentarians that have lots of parliamentarians that are working on this. So we worked a lot with the EU Parliament as well, where the parliament adopted a resolution supporting the treaty. I think also for European EU countries, you can also, I think the EU have to understand that nuclear weapons is a threat to European security. When the US and Russia withdrew from the INF Treaty, these missile, the intermediate range missiles are not meant to go between Russia and the United States. They are meant for Europe. They're meant for European cities. That's what they were built to do, to wipe out Berlin and Paris and these kind of Vienna. That's what they were meant to do. So this dismantlement of this treaty, for example, is a direct threat to European security. We will not go safe away from a nuclear war between the US and Russia. There have been many of these declassified information from the Cold War, when you see exactly how they've mapped out nuclear war and Germany is pretty much gone. It is definitely a threat. So I think that that's also something that European politicians need to reckon with, acknowledge and understand that they have no preparedness. But to really, the only way that they can solve this issue is to work much harder for nuclear disarmament. And I think that, of course, when it comes to a EU without the UK, where France is in nuclear arms state, I listened to Macron's speech when he was sort of put forward this idea of a French deterrence umbrella almost, cynically, the French can't afford nuclear weapons in what other countries to chip in. I mean, that's a lot of the analysis we were hearing from France, that the cost of these weapons is so enormous and especially now during COVID crisis, they can't afford them. They need money for healthcare and people don't wanna spend that kind of money anymore. Spreading it out on Europe in the way that the US is doing is also a way to share the burden, but also to wrap in countries in legitimizing these weapons. And I think that's really interesting. I think that the French in particular are very worried that nuclear weapons will be banned and stigmatized because they are pride themselves with their human rights record and they pride themselves being a humanitarian champion and to suddenly be on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of the humanitarian argument is very uncomfortable for them. So I think the more countries that support nuclear weapons, the easier it is for them to maintain it, not just financially, but also politically and morally. So I think that that's why European countries have such power on this. A non-nuclear armed European country has a lot of influence in stopping to accept these weapons, taking a strong stand against it and say, not in my name, I do not want the Trump to use nuclear weapons and say, he's doing it to protect Germany. And I think that's really where the power of the treaty comes in, that if countries could stand up and reject these weapons, you could really see nuclear disarmament happen much quicker than we think. I'm going to prevail on your tolerance for just two quick more questions. There's obviously a lot of interest in what you have to say. One is from Barry Robinson, former political director in the Department of Foreign Affairs and he noticed his admiration for ICANN and what you have done. And he is wondering, he would like to have your thoughts on how the approach of the NW could be translated into effective pressure on the Russian Federation in China. And then a final question from Emily Gajimi of the Department of Foreign Affairs. As you know, the threat of nuclear weapons is the highest it has been for generations, but many are unaware of the threat, including the younger generation. What can we do to encourage their engagement on nuclear disarmament? And I'm particularly, I'm glad this question has been asked because it seems to me that the focus is and quite rightly a huge focus on climate change, but in a sense, the nuclear issue has been lost sight of. So advice on that, please. No, I think we've seen with other treaties that even non-democratic countries are affected by these norms. They're not immune to norms just because they're not democratic. Obviously civil society has much more of a challenge working in these countries. You know, I can tweet mean things to my Prime Minister if I want to. Our colleagues in Russia and China, not so much. So the civil society engagement looks a little bit different. They are much more academic, much more kind of low profile, but it still happens. And I think really the way to work is to work through other governments as well. They might not listen to civil society very much, but they still care with other governments and the sort of peer-to-peer pressure, I think is very important for these countries. So that's why we're so pleased to work with countries like Ireland and mobilizing this core group of states and every country that has joined the treaty now also has an obligation to further work for universalizing the treaty and to use that in bilateral meetings and to bring it up and to make sure that when Ireland, for example, is in the Security Council, Russia and China gets to hear these arguments. They get to be exposed to concerns about the catastrophic humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. And the dangers for the rest of the world that these weapons have. So I really do believe that other governments can play a really, really big role. And I think that that's how we also work to kind of maximize our resources. We have a lot more influence over some governments. We use those governments and get them to help us reach those other that are harder for us to speak to. And then how to mobilize youth. I think young people do care about this issue, but I think young people are, and I mean, not just young people, people, people who aren't already involved in this issue. But I very much believe in the thing, young people are people. It's not different issues, right? It's the same thing. And it's more people that were involved in the 80s, for example, against this, have an easier time remembering that than have an attachment to the issue. Whereas people who didn't, of course, it's a longer sort of startup phase for them to get involved in a higher threshold maybe to get involved. But I think what we need to do is really make the links to other issues. Why is this issue relevant for climate change? Why is this issue relevant for anti-racism work? Why is it relevant for gender equality? Nuclear weapons is an expression of oppressive power. It's just like oppression of women or oppression of people of color or indigenous communities. It's very much linked to power hierarchy in the world. And that's a small group of very powerful people get to set the rules and kind of oppress others. So I think that angle makes it a lot easier for people to engage in this issue. And then I also think, and I think this is one of the strength of ICANN, because we have managed to rally young people and people that have never thought about this issue before and feel empowered to deal with it because we focus on what we can do. It's very easy when you talk about nuclear weapons to get very technical. It's these warheads and these missiles and it's Trump and it's Putin and then the US administration, the Ministry of Defense there. And it feels very hard for a regular person to feel like they could make a difference. But when you shift it and you talk about the humanitarian impact and the survivors and the victims of nuclear testing, for example, and you talk about what we can do with our banks and we can do with our cities and we can do this and we can get like all these African states on board and all these other countries. It feels much easier to kind of handle that. And I think, you know, we need to show people that it is possible to change because there's nothing worse than engaging in an issue that is impossible to solve. Like you're not going to spend your time with way too many issues in the world to solve that are very urgent. I'm not going to choose the one that is not moving. So I think it's, you know, the way we talk about this issue can be very excluding of young people when we all really focus on the nuclear arm states, on how hard it is, on how bad everything is and how everything is going the wrong direction. It's very, you know, it might get an angry reaction on social media, but it doesn't give you people that actually want to commit their time and energy to the cause. So I think, you know, I kind of succeeded in having, despite it being a very depressive issue and very difficult and very, you know, tough in many ways, managed to have a very kind of positive attitude and focusing on what we can do. Thank you very much. Not just for this afternoon, but for all the work that you are doing on such an important topic. And thank you for your generosity answering all those questions. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mary, and thank you everyone.