Initiative for Switzerland to back nuclear weapon ban launched

The Alliance for a Nuclear Weapons Ban has launched a popular initiative for Switzerland to join the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty was negotiated and adopted by the United Nations in 2017. Switzerland played an important role in these negotiations, before deciding not to sign it in 2018. The treaty contains a comprehensive and explicit ban on nuclear weapons. This includes prohibiting the use, threat of use, manufacture, stockpiling, acquisition, possession, stationing, transmission and testing of nuclear weapons. Do you want to read our weekly top stories? Subscribe here. It entered into force in 2021, and has been ratified by 70 states, including Ireland and Austria, but not by the nuclear powers or most European or Western allies. At the end of March, the Swiss government refused to reconsider its position, arguing that it was not in Switzerland's interest to sign the treaty. On Tuesday, parliamentarian Carlo Sommaruga from the Social Democratic ...