The threat of nuclear war may appear less than at the height of the Cold War but the dangers remain huge. The major nuclear powers still point thousands of missiles, which are on high-trigger alert, at each other, each one capable of inflicting unimaginable suffering on millions of uninvolved people and future generations. Non-proliferation and disarmament are two sides of the same coin and the refusal of the Nuclear Weapon States to accept nuclear disarmament has encouraged nuclear proliferation in areas of conflict. Israel, for instance, is reliably estimated to have over 200 nuclear warheads.

What can be done to challenge the United States' claim to have the right to use nuclear weapons first, even at a time when it has no enemy with superior conventional forces? How can nations like North Korea and Israel, which consider their nuclear arsenals essential in maintaining security, be convinced that their security is better served by abolition of their nuclear weapons? How can a global campaign to enforce The Hague Court's ruling on nuclear weapons be sustained? What can non-nuclear states do together to keep this issue in the public and political arena? What can civil society do to raise awareness of the existential threats that nuclear weapons pose to humanity? The WFC’s Disarmament Working Group works to address these questions.

The WFC will not replicate the work many organizations are already doing in this field but will bring complementary value to these efforts. Effectively, this means bringing stakeholders together and working with policy makers to mobilize support around and spread exemplary policies. Next to policies furthering nuclear abolition, the WFC draws special attention to policies that address the close and multi-dimensional linkages between disarmament, development and security. Such exemplary policies or policy initiatives can be found on the domestic, regional and international level.

To find out more about our work in this field please download the PDF document "Disarmament for Development and Security".

To find an overview of relevant appeals for the abolishment of nuclear weapons throughout the Nuclear Age download our PDF document.

The time for making real progress on nuclear disarmament seems right. US President Obama has reaffirmed on several occasions his commitment to strive for a world free of nuclear weapons. The new US-Russian Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and the new US Nuclear Posture Review seem to confirm the Obama administration's intentions to nuclear arms control; applying not just to others but to the US as well. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has launched his own plan to rid the world of nuclear arms. Former leading US policy makers –and known as political realists in their time– Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, William Perry and George Schultz have called for a new vision for eliminating all nuclear weapons and have been joined in their call by former high-level officials across the world. In 2009 prominent German elder statesmen Helmut Schmidt, Richard von Weizsäcker, Egon Bahr and Hans-Dietrich Genscher voiced their unreserved support for this vision to move towards nuclear zero.

The myth that possession of nuclear weapons provides strategic advantages, and thus security, is losing its hold on security thinking; at least within certain nuclear weapons states. It has led NATO-members Norway, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to call upon the US to remove the American nuclear warheads that these nations have long been hosting.

Nuclear disarmament is again gaining momentum! 'No international obligation has greater urgency than the obligation to eliminate nuclear weapons', says WFC Councillor Judge C.G. Weeramantry. Not living up to this responsibility would be ‘a betrayal of all the values we cherish and of everything human civilisation has built up through millennia of effort and sacrifice.’
It is up to us to build on this renewed momentum and capitalize on the current political will to ensure that these developments culminate in states taking tangible steps towards banning and eliminating nuclear arms.

The working group convened for the second time on March 4 and 5, 2010, in Hamburg.