Dear President Christopher Loeak,

Dear Foreign Minister Tony de Brum,

Dear People and Parliament of the Marshall Islands,

The world salutes your initiative in taking legal action for negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and customary international law against the nine nuclear-armed “Goliaths” (the United States, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea).

We hope that you will be joined in these lawsuits by as many governments as possible, and we will urge them to do so.

In taking this action, you, and any governments that choose to join you, are acting on behalf of all the seven billion people who now live on Earth and on behalf of the generations yet unborn who could never be born if nuclear weapons are ever used in large numbers.

You are also acting on behalf of all our ancestors throughout tens of millennia who will have their intellectual, cultural and scientific achievements cancelled should humanity terminate itself through the inadvertent or deliberate use of nuclear weapons.

In addition, you are acting on behalf of untold thousands of other species who will surely perish in the catastrophic global climatic effects of a nuclear conflict.

Win or lose in the coming legal arguments, what you, and any who join you, will do has the deepest moral significance, going far beyond the specific interests of any country or government and beyond the usual calculations of national self-interest.

The unprecedented outburst of resounding applause that Foreign Minister Tony de Brum received in the plenary of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee meeting on 28 April 2014 shows that, for the world, you are all heroes.

If you stay the course, alone or with a host of others, then what you will be doing is – to recycle a phrase already well-used – “not so much making history, as making history possible.”

All people and all governments that have the welfare and survival of humanity and the planet at heart must support you wholeheartedly in your courageous legal action.

(For further information see www.nuclearzero.org)

Signed:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate, South Africa

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate, Northern Ireland

Oscar Arias, Nobel Peace Laureate, Costa Rica

Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Laureate, United States

Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Laureate, Iran

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Laureate, Argentina

John Hallam (Letter coordinator), People for Nuclear Disarmament/Human Survival Project, Australia

Prof. Peter King, Human Survival Project, Australia

David Krieger, President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, United States

Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director, Greenpeace International, Netherlands

Aaron Tovish, Mayors For Peace 2020 Vision Campaign, Austria

Colin Archer, Secretary-General, International Peace Bureau, Switzerland

Ingeborg Brienes, Co-President, International Peace Bureau, Switzerland

Jayantha Dhanapala, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs (Personal Capacity)

Helen Caldicott, M.D., Founder, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Australia

Jonathan Granoff, President, Global Security Institute, United States

Senator Scott Ludlam, Australia

Jill Hall MP, Australia

Judy Blyth, People for Nuclear Disarmament, Australia

Jenny Grounds, President, Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Australia

Chris Hamer, World Citizens Association / Scientists for Global Responsibility, Australia

Nick Deane, Marrickville Peace Group, Australia

Father Claude Mostowyk, MSC, Missionaries of the Sacred Hearth Justice and Peace Centre, Australia

Ruth Russell, Convenor, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Australia

Dennis Doherty, Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition, Australia

Hanna Middleton, Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition, Australia

Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sydney University, Australia

Barney Richards, President, New Zealand Peace Council, New Zealand

Bob Rigg, former Chair, National Consultative Committee on Peace and Disarmament, New Zealand

John Hinchcliffe, President, NZ Peace Foundation, New Zealand

Dr. Kate Dewes,Disarmament and Security Centre, New Zealand

Commander Robert Green (Royal Navy, Ret.), Disarmament and Security Centre, New Zealand

Dave Webb, Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, United Kingdom

Bill Kidd MSP, United Kingdom

Jenny Maxwell, Hereford Peace Council, United Kingdom

Rae Street, Greater Manchester Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, United Kingdom

Godrick Ernest Scott Bader, Life-President, Scott Bader Ltd, United Kingdom

Arthur West, Chair, Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, United Kingdom

Tony Simpson, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, United Kingdom

Prof. Emeritus Kirsten Osen, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Norway

Prof. John Gunnar Maeland, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Norway

John Scales Avery, Ph.D., Chairman, Danish National Group, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, Denmark

Ingrid Schittich, Chairperson, Association of World Citizens, Germany

Xanthe Hall, Disarmament Campaigner, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Germany

Herman Spanjaard, M.D., Chair, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Netherlands

Dr. Peter van den Dungen, General Coordinator, International Network of Museums for Peace, Netherlands

Dominique Lalanne, Co-chair, Armes nucléaires STOP, France

Jean-Marie Matagne, President, Action des Citoyens pour le desarmement nucleaire, France

Pep Puig, Ph.D., Group of Scientists and Technicians for a Non-Nuclear Future, Spain

Josep Puig, President, Eurosolar, Spain

Santiago Vilanova, Journalist, Green Alternative, Spain

Maria Arvaniti Sotiropoulou, President, Greek Medical Association for the Protection of the Environment and against Nuclear and Biochemical Threat, Greece

Dr. Mubashir Hasan, President Punjab, Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan

Sharon Dolev, Director, Israeli Disarmament Movement, Israel

Sukla Sen, EKTA, India

J. Narayana Rao, Secretary, Centre For Cultural, Educational, Economics and Social Studies, India

Wilfred D’Costa, Indian Social Action Forum, India

Dr. Ranjith S. Jayasekhara, Vice-President, Sri Lankan Doctors for Peace and Development, Sri Lanka

Ronald McCoy, Malaysian Physicians for Social Responsibility, Malaysia

Dr. Syed Husain Ali, Senator, Malaysia

Hiro Umebayashi, Special Adviser, Peace Depot, Japan

Hiroshi Taka, Representative Director, Japan Council against A & H Bombs (Gensuikyo), Japan

Steve Leeper, Research Centre for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University, Japan

Hideyuki Ban, Citizens Nuclear Information Centre, Japan

Tadatoshi Akiba, Former Mayor of Hiroshima, Japan

Joan Russow, Global Compliance Research Project, Canada

Gordon Edwards Ph.D., President, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, Canada

Martha Goodings, No2 Nuclear Weapons, Canada

Vivian Davidson, President, World Federalist Movement – Vancouver Branch, Canada

Patti Willis, Pacific Peace Working Group, Canada

Phyllis Creighton, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, Canada

Larry Kazdan, CGA, Vancouver, Canada

Saul Arbess, Director, Canadian Peace Initiative, Canada

Global Alliance of Ministries for Peace

Marylia Kelley, Executive Director, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment), United States

Kathy Wanpovi Sanchez, Tewa Women United, United States

Alfred L. Marder, President, US Peace Council, United States

Kevin Martin, Executive Director, Peace Action, United States

Stephen Vincent Kobasa, Coordinator, Trident Resistance Network, United States

Lawrence Wittner, Professor Emeritus of History, SUNY/Albany, United States

Ralph Hutchison, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, United States

Blase Bonpane, Co-Director, Office of the Americas, United States

Theresa Bonpane, Co-Director, Office of the Americas, United States

Prof. Martin Hellman, Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, United States

Alice Slater, New York Director, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Dr. Ruby Anne Chirino, Program Coordinator, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Mexico