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
