Signatories

Nuclear weapons have the undisputed capacity to destroy vaster numbers of human lives with longer-lasting deleterious genetic and ecological effects than any other weapon invented by humankind.  Their use would therefore be a crime against humanity and a violation of international humanitarian law. Their continued possession by a group of countries is a stimulus for others including terrorists to acquire them. Their continued existence even in small numbers is an unacceptable risk of their inevitable use by accident or design leading to the annihilation of the human species and its supporting ecosystem.

Jayantha Dhanapala is a former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs and a former Ambassador of Sri Lanka to the USA and to the UN Office in Geneva.  He is currently Chairman of the UN University Council and the 11th President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.  He is a member of the Governing Board of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).  As a Sri Lankan diplomat Dhanapala served in London, Beijing, Washington D.C., New Delhi, and Geneva and he has represented Sri Lanka at a number of international conferences chairing several of them including the historic NPT Review and Extension Conference of 1995. Dhanapala is also a former Director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research.