Mayors for Peace supports the United Nations as humanity’s best hope for survival. The United Nations system, i.e. the UN together with a set of international treaties and international courts, provides many forums for Mayors for Peace and civil society organizations to promote the achievement of a nuclear-weapon-free world.

The chief challenge we face is that despite a good start right after World War II, nations have lost sight of the central task of the Nuclear Age: banning all weapons of mass destruction. Biological and chemical weapons were banned, but nuclear weapons have not been. Instead, during the long Cold War, nations lowered their sights and became bogged down in a ‘step-by-step’ approach. These individual steps come too far and few between; meanwhile actual nuclear proliferation and potential nuclear terrorism are increasing the nuclear threat. A nuclear war by accident or a failure of crisis management is a small but constant danger as well. (See nuclear threat section above.)

The main thrust of the 2020 Vision Campaign of Mayors for Peace is to get the world to return to an overarching, comprehensive approach to the nuclear threat, much as what was envisioned in the very first resolution of the United Nations. Given the time that has been squandered and the urgency of the threat, we see two other important aspect of the way forward:

• Setting an end date for the achievement of a nuclear-weapon-free world (NWFW)

• Good faith gestures by the nuclear armed states to demonstrate that they, too, are prepared to live without nuclear weapons, such as curtailing nuclear arms refurbishment and acquisition.