CONVOCATION 26 March 2023: Complying with International Treaties

Complying with International Treaties

There have always been women who have opposed wars. In 1915 women organized to try to stop the First World War. Overcoming many obstacles from their governments, they came from countries at war with one another and crossed enemy lines on their way to The Hague.

They did not succeed in stopping the massacre but the declaration from The Hague that spoke of dialog and collaboration established the basis for the Society of Nations. Since then, various international treaties have been signed. Although they have not managed to end wars, we think it is important that they exist, especially when there is an open war with the threat of using nuclear weapons. Despite everything, the citizens have a basis for denouncing failure to comply with treaties and exert pressure for their fulfillment: the treaty of International Law, which regulates relations between countries and does not permit invasion of the countries, along with the conventions, norms and usages applicable to armed conflicts national or internal, imply an international penal responsibility as well aseven the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

 

The recent speech by the President of Russia announcing the temporary interruption on the part of Russia of the agreements between Russia and the United States for the control and limitation of nuclear weapons after the end of the Cold War is truly worrisome.

START 111 signed by the United States and Russia establishes a limit of a maximum of 1,500 nuclear warheads and 700 ballistic missile systems capable of reaching a distance of more than 5,500 kilome-ters. This is folly. It is not only pacifists who warn about the danger, it is also science and common sense. As Dr. Charpak, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, says: “A society that has reached our level of development is exceedingly vulnerable if one part of its inhabitants is at total war with the oth-er.”

In Spain, more than 40 organizations went to the Parliament to demand that the parliamentarians of our country sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons is part of a wider struggle to obtain real security for the human being, based on re-spect for the basic rights in life, education, sanitation, work with dignity and a clean environment.

In this sense, TPNW, approved in 2017 and in force since 2021, is a legally linking multilateral instru-ment that explicitly establishes the prohibition of nuclear weapons as the essential step towards achiev-ing their elimination.

Women in Black of Madrid Against War:

♀ Ask the international community to respect international treaties.

♀ Demand that the government of Spain sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Translation: Trisha Novak, USA – Yolanda Rouiller, WiB Spain